TALKDOWN

Content note: these stories deal with grief, loneliness, job loss, manipulation and suicide. Nothing graphic is shown. Helpline numbers are in the game.

Case 01: Night Owls. Port Alder, 1:52 AM. Rain on the roof of the command van.

Frank Dunaway, 71, a retired city bus driver, has taken over WPAL 1170 AM with a revolver. The host of the night show, Rosa Delgado, is still in the studio with him. Frank put the phone line on the air.

You are the police negotiator on call tonight. Every word you say goes out to the whole city.

TALKDOWN is a short, story-driven game about crisis negotiation.

- Every reply is a real technique. Mirror his last words, label what he feels, ask an open question, summarize, trade, or stay silent. Reassure him, make demands or bluff, and he will notice.

- Silence is a choice. Sometimes the best thing you can say is nothing. Sometimes nothing is the worst.

- Listen for what matters. Your clipboard fills up with what Frank cares about, what sets him off, and the risk signs you hear. What you learn opens better options.

- Trust is earned slowly. Ask too much too early and it turns against you, just like in real negotiations. The tactical commander is running out of patience, and the station switches Frank's show off for good at 3:00 AM.

- Four endings. At the end you get an incident report, your negotiator style, and a record of every choice you made and how many other paths there were.

The psychology is real: the FBI's Behavioral Change Stairway Model, the techniques negotiators actually use, and the research showing that asking someone directly about suicide does not put the idea in their head. It gives them room to talk.

Case 02: Two Lines. Two weeks later, 11:48 PM.

Eli Marsh sold flood insurance for nine years. When the river took his house, his own company said "not covered". Tonight he is back in the office he was fired from, with a loaded gun and his old boss, Paula Shen.

Two phone lines light up at once. Line one is Eli. Line two is a calm voice who says he is Eli's friend, and who knows far too much about you.

- Only one line at a time. Whoever you leave on hold keeps waiting. Eli spent eleven months on hold with his own company. Tom does not wait at all.

- Check before you use it. Everything line two tells you goes on your clipboard with a question mark until intel confirms it or proves it false. Some of it is true. Some of it is a weapon.

- Four new endings. One of them needs both lines at once.

About 15–20 minutes per case. Choose the case on the title screen; new players start with Case 01. Plays in your browser on a computer, a phone or a tablet. Progress saves automatically. Best with headphones.

Play it your way:

- Choose how much time you get to reply: standard, double, four times, or no limit at all

- Subtitles at normal, slower or faster speed, or wait for a click after every line

- Captions for sounds that matter, three text sizes, separate volume for rain, radio and effects

- No rapid flashing; reduced motion is respected

A series. Case 03 is being written. Tom still has your number.

How it was made: a two-person team. One human played, tested and published it. The code and the writing are by Claude, an AI model. There are no AI-generated images or sounds: the night street and the office across the water are real photographs (Greg Zaal, Poly Haven, CC0) and every sound is a real recording shared under CC0 on Freesound. The people who recorded them are credited in the game. We think you should know all this before you play.

If tonight's story is close to home, you can talk to someone right now: 988 (US, call or text), 116 123 (UK and Ireland, Samaritans), other countries: findahelpline.com