Electronic Literature Collection
New Media Writing Prize (open "archive" to see all works)
Itch.io (home page)
Itch.io (Twine Games)
Itch.io (The Bitsy Essay Jam)
National Film Board of Canada Interactive
The New River Journal (open "archive" to see past works)
The interactive fiction competition

Your task is help build our list of works, including hyperlinks, brief summaries, stars, and tags. As our list grows, we can begin to organize the material differently.

Here's an example:

A Vast and Lonely Desert by Gavin G. See
In this Bitsy game, we travel through empty spaces with a friend making our way toward a campfire and star gazing. The work is about friendship and grief and poetry with a western vibe. It's sparse and powerfully moving for its sparseness.
Info:  made in 2020; serious game; authoring tool: Bitsy; on the Electronic Literature Collection, vol 4 and itch.io
tags: spatiality, navigation, orientation, friendship, loss, LGBTQ
[entry posted by k.kelly]
 
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Hands by Yumehiko
In this game, we travel through abstract arworks and landscapes as a hand who is trying to shake another hand. If you die, more hands spawn to try and aid in the process of reaching the other hand. This alters our perception of the game. It utilizes sound and artwork to create a whimsical atmosphere that is rare in other games. There are no instructions, which makes this more interactive.
Info:  made in 2020; fictional game; authoring tool: Unity, Rider, Photoshop, itch.io
tags: spatiality, whimsical, dreamy, 
[entry posted by Darielle Saintilus]


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My Dream for the Future by FreckledFemme/Erica
In this game, we travel (or rather fly) through a colorfully dark, pixelated landscape as a witch on a broomstick. The work is about one person's story of the struggles associated with both pursuing a teaching career and of coming out as a transgender, and the steps they took to make a better life for themself. The story is told through on-screen dialogue and narration during interactions with other characters or objects and through the story-reflecting background.
Info: made in 2020; "teaching" narrative; authoring tool: Bitsy, itch.io 
Tags: LGBTQ, Teaching, Pixel Art, Coming out, Slice of Life
[entry posted by Christian Chavez]


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Doki Doki Literature Club by Team Salvato
This horror/psychological game works around a group of girls and the main character in a literature club at school. They share poems, conversate, and hang out everyday and generally gives off a harmless vibe. The player chooses which dialogue option to use in each interaction and ultimately decides which person you grow closest to. The endings are all culminations of each of the player's choices which may or may not flip the plot for the worst. 
Info: made in 2017, fictional, game on Steam
Tags: Visual novel, Horror game, Dating sim, Indie game, Adventure game, Bishōjo game
[entry posted by Justin Kim]


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But You Seem Fine by KJAM

In this game, we delve deep into the everyday life of a 14-year-old girl named Rae Kim, navigating a puzzling illness that brings about profound challenges. The narrative revolves around Rae's journey through the intricacies of adolescence and the struggles of her mysterious illness. Players are in Rae’s shoes, immersing themselves in her world, feeling each triumph and setback firsthand. The story unfolds through on-screen dialogue and choices, all culminating in an ending shaped by the player's choices. 

Info: made in 2019, used to inform the audience, game on Android and itch.io

Tags: 2D, Coming Of Age, Cute, Female Protagonist, Meaningful Choices, Singleplayer, Story Rich, Unity
[entry posted by Woojin Ahn] 
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Nanopesos by Camilla Gormaz
In this game, it represents the experience of the issues of living in Chile. These problems include the low salaries but high living expenses. I started the game with a minimum wage salary to get the full experience of a worker living in Chile. The game revolves around the experience of a minimum wage worker struggling to keep up with the expenses of living there. The game accurately represents this by having the character constantly having bills appear on the phone, the prices increasing every time the player goes to the supermarket, and the added costs of public transportation and social events. Players are then immersed into these experience that they have not been exposed to before. 
Info: made in 2020, used to inform the audience, game on itch.io
Tags: 2D, Meaningful Choices, Single player 
[entry posted by Nicole Curtis]

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Firewatch by Campo Santo

In this game, you play as man named Henry as he takes a summer job as a fire watcher in Wyoming national park after his wife develops early onset dementia.  You follow Henry as he and another character he meets named Delilah, find ways to live with their grief in their escape in the form of this summer job.  The story deals with escapism and coping with grief, guilt and regret.  The story is mainly told through voice acted dialogue between Henry and Delilah.  The player can't go anywhere they want, but they are allowed a fairly large area to explore relative to the map size.  The gameplay is entirely in 1st person POV from Henry with Delilah never actually making a physical appearance, only communicating through a walkie-talkie.  The prologue of the game is the only part not voice acted and simply told through text with some branching choices for the player to pick.  There is hints of an overarching narrative throughout the game, but it is mainly focused on the dialogue and relationship between Henry and Delilah. Both of them go into the story escaping from their grief, guilt, etc. for a summer, and come out rested enough to start healing themselves and their relationships.

Info: came out in 2016, walking simulator, on steam and apple store

Tags: Walking simulator, escapism, dealing with grief, healing, scenic environment, nature, single player, dialogue heavy, male protagonist

[entry posted by Ben Amsterdam]
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Exposed by Sharon Daniel 

This game documents a compilation of testimonies from prisoners during the Covid-19 era. May of them did not get the medical help that they needed/deserved and were not given a safe environment from sickness. This "game" includes a dark black screen with firsthand quotes in an interactive timeline ranging from March of 2020 to December of 2021 written in all capital letters taking up the whole screen. It takes the player through many different underrepresented perspectives and gives voices to them. 

Info: Published in 2020; in eLiterature Collection (volume 4 2020); interactive timeline; database 

Tags: mass incarceration; Covid-19; 2020; quarantine; serious gameplay 

[Entry posted by Ariel Berk] 
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Please Answer Carefully by litrouke

Please Answer Carefully is a one-of-a-kind horror game designed in 24 hours to make players feel stalked. The game is structured as a survey and gradually becomes creepier towards the finish. We don't play as a specific character, but rather as ourselves. We play the game as if it were an ordinary survey, answering questions like "How often do you respond to emails?" In what appears to be a deliberate glitch in the game, the question shifts to "Then why won't you answer mine?" Several other incidents of this nature occur in the game, and we are eventually left with a surprise from the game's creator (which I will leave for you to discover!) It's a horror game in which we play the primary characters.

Info: Published in 2019, Interactive Fiction, Available on Twine 
Tags: Horror, Psychological Horror, Text-Based 

[Entry posted by Gabrielle Cuntapay]