Cosmonet Games

Cosmonet Games is a family of games based on the idea of indirect branching narrative. Set in a parallel universe where Russia won the space race, players make the small daily choices that direct the characters’ lives.

Cosmonet

From Ivan

What is it?

Cosmonet was made for the 2018 Global Game Jam; it is a short narrative game about how the choices you make to define who you are affect the world around you.

More specifically, how the personality quizzes you take when you are bored at work will effect your life. You play as Lena, a cosmonaut researcher, struggling with the task of training a bird to fly in zero G.

From Ivan is the sibling story to Cosmonet (because it uses the same choice mechanics, and it’s also about her brother!).

You play as Ivan, starting a job at the HR department with the task of picking the appropriate greeting card for each new scenario. Everything from Ivan’s job to his hopes, dreams, and love life centers around the small day-to-day choices you make.

What I love about it

Exploring the idea that it is the small choices in life that make up who we really are. In both games, you make little choices that create the larger idea of who the player character is, which then culminate in the player character making the big choices. We called it indirect branching narrative.

I also really love personality quizzes.