No One Has to Die (HTML5 game)

[Jackolantern]

I was looking up websites centered around indie games, and found quite an interesting game, called "No One Has to Die". I have never seen anything quite like it. The setup is this: a fire has broken out in a mysterious company just as you were making a delivery. You end up locked in the control room, and have to guide the company's employees to operate water valves and lock doors to protect them. But often the security system will realize that one person cannot be saved, and you have to decide who.

Oddly enough, the actual game segments on the map are typically quite short, and the real meat of the game is the story. It is a mystery of sorts, and as you lose different people, you work down a tree of all the possibilities. You see more parts of the story as you fill out the tree, and with each "ending" the game taunts you that you don't know everything yet. The story is rather mind-blowing, and I admit I got goosebumps (not necesarily good ones, perhaps the more creeped-out form) at the ending. The story will drive you forward and make you fly through the actual floorplan "game sections".

You should check it out. It is of course a completely free game, as I believe it was an entry into a contest. It really shows how you can move your audience and rope them in with minimal art asset requirements. I highly recommend it.