After release, this page will host a web-based version of the game that can be played for free in the browser (albeit lacking music, artwork to accompany key scenes, and some other functionality due to some technical restraints of styling for web).
The full game will be available on Steam and itch.io come mid-July 2021.
At the edge of an icy sea, a vast labyrinth rests.
It has been here longer than any can remember, and for as long, it has been the sacred duty of the village witch to explore its depths. It is the night of the solstice, and with the passing of your teacher last fall, it is your turn to take on the mantle of Keeper of the Labyrinth.
Forced to eschew the festivities, you don your cloak and gather your tools of witchcraft: runes, candles, a piece of chalk, a wand, a knife. What rituals will take place within? What is your quarry, waiting in the centre, that your teacher once mentioned? And more pressing, perhaps: what watches you from the darkness?
Your task awaits you.
Keeper of the Labyrinth is a nonlinear interactive fiction game coming to Steam and itch.io July 2021.
Hiya! My name's Athena, and I'm a queer trans woman and the artist/writer/programmer/whatever behind Keeper of the Labyrinth! It began in November 2020 as a couple bites of text pondering witchcraft and it quickly evolved into a larger project which led me to learning web development, programming, and eventually became a standalone game.
Along the way I've been heavily inspired by the concept of hypertext literature, which is, in short, a style of literature in which it is recognized that the story is really created by the reader in the act of reading, rather than the author in the act of writing; in the words of Rodney Canete:
"...the reader now takes his or her place as a driver rather than as a passenger - an interactive jockey as opposed to an adsorptive spectator." (Canete)
This sort of writing can be recognized in the Choose Your Own Adventure novels which became popular in the 90s (and of which I was an avid reader as a child!), and is especially suited to the format of the internet—hence the name "hypertext", that is, links on a webpage, the perfect example of a textual interface where readers have full control over how they interact with the page. Depending what links one chooses, even if they read every page in that site, they may have read it in a different order than any other reader, therefore giving them not only a unique interpretation, but a unique experience of the text as well.
I wanted to write a game like this; in which many paths were possible and everything was mysterious and ambiguous and up to reader interpretation, and I came to the idea of a labyrinth. I of course put certain ideas into the story as I wrote it, but I hope that each reader gets something different out of it depending on your interpretation of the events and concepts within.
Your journey through the labyrinth will be unique.
Keeper of the Labyrinth is a nonlinear interactive fiction game about identity, self-discovery and learning to accept and overcome the flaws we find in ourselves. It is dark and strange and thoughtful and hopefully, a little healing. I wrote it as a way of coping with my own trauma, dysphoria, and perception of my body; may you find something in it that heals you as the act of making it has healed me.
This page contains minor spoilers for many of the paths in the game.
The game as a whole explores some difficult subjects like identity, self-motivation, and personal change. It contains harsh language and descriptions of or allusions to self harm, dysphoria, suicide, abuse, death and injury, as well as generally having a dark tone.
Due to the branching nature of the narrative, many of the scenes including these things can be avoided depending on player choices. If these things may be triggering for you but you still wish to play the game, a more specific guide of which paths include heavier content will be available on this page after release.
