SUNDOWN
A VAMPIRE STORY · IN REAL TIME
She's been reading your messages.
A wrong number lights up your phone. Jem is stranded below a castle in the Slovak mountains, the sun is going down, and yours is the only number that gets through. Keep him alive, one message at a time.
HOW IT PLAYS
Sundown runs on your clock. When Jem sleeps, climbs or hides, he stops texting, sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours. Your phone buzzes when he's back. Answer straight away, or pick it up when you're free.
Jemmorning. ish. it's barely light
Jemshe's not in the photo. the fireplace is. SHE ISN'T
Jemnight, stranger. don't go anywhere
Unknown numberHello, stranger.
THE STORY
Every choice you make follows you. Something you tell Jem on the first night can save him much later, or cost someone else everything. Choose badly and he dies. You can rewind to your last choice.
Sent alone to value a castle for a client nobody has met. Funny when he's scared, which is now.
so you're sort of my lifeline right now, stranger
Barefoot in the snow, always polite, never in the photographs. She is buying a house in the Lake District.
Old house, old rules.
Jem's girlfriend, back home in Leeds. She thinks he's working too hard. She's half right.
Booked the trip, picked the junior, and hasn't answered his phone since.
SEE IT
CHAPTERS
Your choices carry from one chapter to the next, so what you did at the castle changes what happens in England.
A dead car, a castle with rules, and a host who doesn't do outside after dark.
Three weeks later, something has followed Jem home to a quiet village on a Lake District shore.
Edinburgh. Someone has invited you personally.
QUESTIONS
Yes. If Jem says he'll be an hour, it's an hour, and you get a notification when he's back. Chapter One plays out over about a day. After your first ending, Fast mode lets you replay without the waits.
Jem can die. When he does, you can rewind to your last choice and try again, or start the whole story over.
£1.99 for the app, which includes Chapter One. Chapter Two is a £1.99 in-app purchase. There are no ads and nothing to buy to skip the waiting.
It's a horror story told in text messages: tense and creepy rather than gory. It's aimed at players aged 16 and over.
Sundown is interactive fiction told through text messages: a choose-your-own-adventure vampire story where Jem texts you and you decide what they do next. If you enjoyed real-time text games like Lifeline, it works the same way: the story unfolds on your clock, with notifications when Jem gets back to you.
No. The whole story is on your phone and plays offline. Your progress stays on your device.
Sundown is on Android first. An iPhone version may follow.
YOUR PHONE IS RINGING