We. The Refugees: Ticket to Europe is an interactive fiction adventure game about refugees, set in contemporary Europe and North Africa. Illustrated with dreamlike comic-book graphics. Inspired by true events - the creators actually visited a refugee camp, interviewed dozens of refugees and made their stories the foundation of the game.
Key Features
- 5 to 10 hours of gameplay in a single playthrough
- About 30 hours of content in total
- Thousands of dialogue choices!
- Great replayability - multiple paths allowing for up to 3 unique playthroughs
- Hundreds of tags describing your character & items
- Over 100 Achievements - special Notes to collect and then use in your reportage
- About 20 NPCs to meet & learn their stories
- 5 countries to visit & a sea to cross
- 90 minutes of original soundtrack
- Almost 100 hand-drawn illustrations
Story
It’s the beginning of the year 2020. You are a frustrated thirty-something wannabe writer from Warsaw who decides to make something out of himself. You will amaze the literary world with your earth-shattering book about refugees. It will inspire crowds and galvanize hearts, and expand minds, and change the world in all the right ways.
Before you prepare your Pulitzer Prize acceptance speech, there is only the trivial matter of actually travelling to Africa to gather some notes for the story. You have an ingenious plan to smuggle yourself onto one of the illegal boats that travel to Europe from the shores of Africa while pretending to be a refugee yourself. Surely nothing can go wrong and you are NOT completely out of your depth. Surely.
Developers support the refugee cause
5% of We. The Refugees: Ticket to Europe profits will be donated to charities helping refugees. The first 2.5% goes to the Hope Project - Greek volunteers who helped us meet refugees in person during research. The other half will go to other humanitarian organisation we will choose together with our community.
The uniqueness of We. The Refugees: Ticket to Europe
A Modern, Relevant Setting
The game concerns the refugee crisis at Europe’s southern borders, a very real problem we have been facing for several years.
A Richly Woven story
The complex, multi-layered script comprises nearly 2 million characters, the equivalent of 3-4 novels. Meaningful choices and consequences split the plot into parallel paths, which enables players to meet new characters and discover new storylines during their second and third playthroughs.
A relatable perspective on a complex topic
The protagonist is a European who tries to enter the world of the refugees as an outsider. The game deliberately plays on the cliché of “a white male’s journey to an exoticized world” and subverts it.
Multi-level, original narrative
The game is metacontextual - it is not only a reportage about refugees, but also an interactive fiction game presenting the very process of creating a reportage. This way, the player discovers both the player discovers both the refugees’ journey and a writer’s challenges of exploring the subject.
Authenticity and Factuality
Based on true events, the writing process was preceded by a series of interviews with refugees who were familiar with the concept for the game. To make this possible, the writers team visited the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesvos, where the prototype of the game was presented to refugees and volunteers. The script was also reviewed by experts from relevant NGOs.
