I made a real-time narrative where a stranger with no memory texts you for help

We built a real-time interactive story. If you have played Lifeline or anything in that space, this is in the same family — here is what we did differently.

The concept:

You receive a message from someone who just woke up with no memory of who they are or how they got there. Their phone was already on. Your number was already in it. They do not know you. You do not know them. But you are the only person they can reach.

At some point, you start wondering if you should actually be helping them.

A few design decisions I keep coming back to:

The delays are not filler. We built the pacing so that waiting is part of what the story is doing to you. The tension between messages is as deliberate as the messages themselves.

When a path ends badly, the character gets a last message out before the signal drops. We spent a long time on those moments. We did not want them to feel like a game-over screen.

The first chapter follows one character. There will be more characters and more chapters over time — each one a complete story that unfolds the same way.

It is a paid game on iOS and Android. No ads, no energy systems, no microtransactions.

We built it because we wanted something that felt like actually being on the other end of a phone with someone in trouble. Curious whether that lands for people who think seriously about this stuff.

Link in comments.