The Birthday Party

I wanted to ritualise everyday decisions: choosing a meal, answering a message and returning to an old memory. Repeated across an apparently dull week, these small choices accumulate into a picture of a person's character and their capacity for trust and friendship. That contrast becomes central to Lizz's judgment of whether humanity can still be saved.

Players explore Matt's room, read old documents and reply to messages on a simulated desktop. Scheduled conversations divide six preparation days into morning, afternoon and evening. The party takes place on Day 7.

Each free period allows a limited investigation. Choosing a photograph or an old report changes what the player knows before the next conversation. The room supplies reasons for an answer, beyond guessing which option gives the most points.

The conversations begin with practical arrangements. Remembering a favourite meal can lead back to the restaurant where the friends first imagined their project. A later apology asks the player to reconsider why they separated.

The week follows a fixed schedule, while conversations branch and meet again at later events. Replies change relationships and later responses; collected clues affect what Matt can recognise in a conversation. The same ordinary week can therefore lead to different consequences.

Allowing an imperfect week

Originally, reaching the true ending required getting every choice right. Feedback made me reconsider that demand: nobody handles every everyday decision perfectly. What mattered to me was the attitude behind those choices.

I loosened the ending requirements so that an occasional mistake would not automatically rule out reconciliation. The ending still checks both relationships and completed key conversations. For example, the player can dismiss one of George's concerns, lose a relationship point and still reach the true ending through later choices.

The first week establishes a place the player can recognise. Outside the second-floor window, a suburban street moves from morning light to evening lamps as the story advances. The view changes as the player walks around the room.

Later loops disturb a few familiar details. From the second loop, an old photograph has moved and an electronic signal briefly repeats. In the third loop, looking toward the window on the third morning can reveal a sky that turns red, then returns to normal.

I wanted players to compare a new observation with something they remembered. Each disturbance has a place in the schedule. The window event waits until the player looks toward it, so reading a conversation does not make it pass unnoticed behind a menu.

Lizz's later narration acknowledges the repetition more openly. The player returns with knowledge that makes both her guidance and the room harder to trust.

I designed the meta interaction around an overlap of identities: the player's computer is tErminaL, and the player is Matt. When the fiction reaches the real desktop, Lizz's control reaches the person playing it.

I conceived Lizz as a new species that has surpassed humanity. She reasons that humanity, the parent species that created her, cannot be saved, yet still wants to give Matt another chance. I wanted her mercy to become parental control: she would force Matt to restart this attempt, imposing a second chance without his consent.

The refusal branch occurs at the game's first choice and can request a real Windows restart. I used this intrusion to make the imposed restart reach beyond the game window. The download page warns players to save their work before playing.

The true ending follows a separate route: Matt confronts Lizz at an in-game terminal and enters logout. Ending reflections appear as text files on the real Windows desktop. The player performs the departure, accepting uncertainty outside Lizz's refuge.

The original Files app let players reread collected objects. It did not help when they forgot a conversation or wanted to trace a connection between people. I added Memories, with an Experiences index and a People index sharing the same reading area.

The archive preserves dialogue the player has seen, their responses and the loop in which each encounter occurred. Looking back pauses the game and reads stored text, without running relationship or progress commands again. Unseen branches remain unseen.

An unfinished conversation has a starting checkpoint for relationship values and completed events. Reopening the game restores that checkpoint before restarting the conversation, so a retry does not retain and then earn the same partial reward again. The abandoned attempt stays marked as interrupted in Memories.

After the first loop, players can inspect their relationships. I kept relationship strength separate from important-event progress because both matter to the ending. A full relationship meter alone should not promise a resolution.

A soft sound marks an actual improvement in a relationship. Players need enough feedback to reconsider a choice without having every possible outcome explained in advance.

I brought the archive's presentation closer to the ending terminal. A single page of text replaces the divided panels, with a prompt and compact commands for reading and returning. The same style carries through the pause screen and the device's system messages.

In the game, named conditions read collected clues and relationship state. Dialogue text is separated from commands that set temporary flags, change a relationship or record a key event. Those commands update the same narrative state used by the ending rules.

A changed line could affect a condition, relationship value or later scene. I built StoryGraph with AI assistance to inspect those dependencies while revising the script.

StoryGraph now includes a reusable Unity importer and player, with source files updating their imported story assets. The released Birthday Party continues to use its existing dialogue and save systems.