"STAY" Pandemic Pet Survival Game

🔍 About the Game

“Stay” is a deeply emotional interactive fiction game created during Summer Slow Jams 2023: Narrative. The story unfolds through the eyes of a household pet trapped inside a home during a global, world-ending pandemic. With no humans in sight, the player must help the animal survive by exploring the house, understanding its routines, and responding to its basic and emotional needs.

The narrative is broken into three acts, each set a few weeks apart, capturing the shift from confusion to adaptation—and eventually, resignation or hope.

For Stay, I focused on creating a rich soundscape that mirrored the emotional tone of the pet’s experience—loneliness, survival, and quiet resilience—within the confines of a single home.

Designed and implemented all in-game sound using recorded foley and digital sound libraries

Created environmental ambience for each act to reflect emotional progression (silence, decay, warmth)

Developed interactive audio cues for player actions, like rummaging through food, scratching doors, or hearing distant thunder

Used subtle musical motifs and ambient drones to support transitions between story chapters

Ensured the sound design helped convey narrative tension and emotional stakes without relying on visuals alone

Stay is available to play on Itch.io:

Stay reminded me of the power of quiet storytelling. I learned how to support narrative pacing through sound alone and how to use minimalism to drive immersion in interactive fiction. It also gave me valuable experience in game jam collaboration and agile production workflows.

If you're working on an interactive story or emotionally driven game, I’d love to collaborate on audio that speaks volumes—quietly. 📩 [Get in Touch]