The Rape of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe is a text-based interactive game set against the backdrop of the Nanking Massacre, based on the humanitarian deeds and original diary entries of John Rabe. Blending historical narrative with strategic decision-making elements, the game places you in the shoes of German businessman John Rabe inside the desperate confines of the Nanking Safety Zone. Every day brings historical emergencies and heavy moral dilemmas; your choices will manifest as blood-stained words upon the pages of your diary. Under the dual test of extreme resource scarcity and human morality, your pen will directly decide the survival of tens of thousands of Chinese refugees. Through this deeply immersive interactive medium, the game aims to allow the younger generation to re-examine this heavy chapter of history from a first-hand perspective.
First, it is important to clarify that this is a completely text-based interactive reading "serious game." All text in the game is strictly based on the original entries of The Rabe Diaries and historical records. The randomness and expansion of plot choices are rooted either in the unmapped blanks of history or in reasonable fiction based on clear records and historical contexts.
Next, a brief note regarding the adjustments made to our Steam store page content. Before deploying the current version, we developed a management-themed demo focused on running the Safety Zone, drawing inspiration from 60 Seconds! (combining initial supply runs with resource management choices). While that gameplay style offered more traditional entertainment value, its randomized and fragmented narrative made it difficult to present this history in a complete and clear manner. This contradicted our original intent: "to help more people understand this history in detail." Consequently, we chose to start from scratch and return to a pure text-interactive format, which offers far superior historical accuracy and narrative completeness.
Admittedly, this may not be a "fun" game in the conventional sense, and as a demo, it is bound to have many shortcomings. However, we believe this is a meaningful endeavor.
