The Killer
Follow the demo’s on-screen instructions to interact, you can click on characters in the scene to trigger story events when needed.
Project Overview:
“The Killer”is a full-motion video (FMV) interactive narrative PC game demo. Players are not merely "witnessing violence"—they are forced to commit it.The client takes the Killer’s mother hostage and coerces him into carrying out an assassination to repay the debt. The player assumes the role of the Killer in first person, caught between violent coercion and an ethical dilemma. Under the pressure of a real time countdown, each click rewrites the outcome of the assassination—deciding who lives, who dies.
Core Positioning:
A life-or-death pressure experience—incomplete information, insufficient time, life-or-death choices. The differentiation lies in live-action cinematic performance + node-graph-driven branching narrative to craft suspense. The story’s rising action, climax, and resolution are compressed into different selections of fate, while limited time for selection create suffocating pacing and miscalculations for the player.
Narrative Core:
The Killer borrows debt to pay for his mother’s surgery but can’t repay it. The client forced him to kill some to pay his debt. The central conflict forces relentless choices between kill to survive” and “fight back against being killed.” The Killer returns home to say goodbye to his deaf mother and writes, “A heart donor has been found.” The Killer crossing through the subway, the train station, and a shopping mall; he experienced terror, struggle, searching, rescue, obedience, self-preservation, calling the police, surrender, and even self-destruction - until he finally arrive at the assassination location, a place where life and death are decided.. Each selection is full of suspense, forcing the player to gamble under uncertainty until the last gun shot.
Gameplay Loop:
Reveal the task → Crisis → Search/Investigation → Escalating Crisis → Choices Appear (2–3 options) → Branch Plot Transition → Different Endings. Each selection is placed at a highly suspenseful narrative beat, creating meaningful risk. Core mechanics include countdown decisions (when time runs out, the story goes to a default branch), calling the police, and countdown identification/confirmation (e.g. the Watcher or the Hit Target).
Credit List
Game Planning & Design: Zikun Chen
Director: Zikun Chen
Screenwriter: Zikun Chen
Director of Photography: Zikun Chen & Jian Zhang
Interaction & UI Design: Zikun Chen
Post-Production (Editing & Production): Zikun Chen
Programming & Technical Development: Qianqian Gong
Production Management: Teng Zhang
