4th Dawn is a cyberpunk interactive fiction game about being trapped in a time loop three days before the apocalypse. The game follows Aurion, a teenager from the lower city trying to make a mark as the world around him devolves into chaos. On each day, there are multiple opportunities to choose where to go, allowing the story to dive into the nuances of multiple warring factions and be experienced from multiple angles. The paths of every character and the fate of the city changes with every choice.
4th Dawn is experienced as a sequence of interactive fiction "scenes" that occur at each chosen location. Every scene advances the story forward, with the player's choices affecting characters within the narrative and changing the outcomes of future scenes. To supplement the narrative elements, 4th Dawn features crafting, combat mechanics, and interrogation sequences where narrative choices are interwoven with gameplay decisions. On repeat playthroughs of the game, Aurion is given glimpses into past playthroughs, allowing him to make decisions and act on knowledge to influence events before they happen.
The story of 4th Dawn has existed since 2018, and has been in development on and off ever since. As my first ever major game development project, this journey has taught me about scope, branching narrative, worldbuilding, the blessings and curses of solo development, and has been the biggest reason for my initial steps into game design. The development of 4th Dawn is entirely solo, with all of the art, programming, design, and writing being done by me. Currently, 4th Dawn is over 10,000 words long across it's scenes, and has 10+ different endings. 4th Dawn is listed on Steam with over 800 active wishlists and a projected release of summer 2024.
4th Dawn was developed in Gamemaker Studio 2 before being ported to the Unity engine in 2020.