This is a submission to GameDev.tv Halloween Jam 2026

Second Guest

The house is warm. The record is ready. You've invited people over, and you've made enough for everyone.

But the room seems to have a way of filling up without you. Conversations drift elsewhere. Your chair is taken. And somewhere beneath the cups on your sketchbook, a lighthouse waits to be finished.

An unsettling, surreal interactive story about belonging, the things we give away to be liked, and the strange cost of making yourself easy to live with.

Everyone has a place. The question: is yours still yours?


Acknowledgements

Heartbeat - human.mp3 by willpio -- https://freesound.org/s/29585/ -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 3.0

geiger jingle jangle ring.flac by Timbre -- https://freesound.org/s/161472/ -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0

heartbeatNc.0.0.aiff by hanstimm -- https://freesound.org/s/68487/ -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0

alien_heartbeat.wav by Connum -- https://freesound.org/s/11755/ -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0

Free Satellite-Frequency.wav by cydon -- https://freesound.org/s/189331/ -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0

More information
Published 1 day ago
StatusReleased
PlatformsHTML5
AuthorOnnox
GenreInteractive Fiction
TagsSingleplayer, Story Rich
AI DisclosureAI Assisted, Code, Sounds, Text

Comments

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nathan-ilands1 day ago
Kept thinking about 'Nobody has said no to you.' The piece never lets anyone be the villain. Rosie's 'ten year old' jab lands affectionate, Sam laughs a moment late, and the plates go back on the shelf in the order they came down. The harm is all in what nobody does, and keeping the lighthouse line slightly wrong under his hand put it in my hands, not just on the page. Small honest note: some passages give you exactly one door. I read that as the point, and it still made the rail show for a second. I made a free one-screen interactive about the same four moves (going dry, going smooth, going quiet, answering the wrong question): nathan-ilands.itch.io/four-ways-to-not-say-it. Different shape, same room. Good luck in the jam.
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