UNWIPED
December 30, 1999. Two days until the year 2000.
Twelve days ago you bought a used computer at a moving sale on Birch Street. Forty dollars, as is. "It's been wiped," the father said. "Nothing on it."
Tonight you finally plug it in.
The Halloran family's emails, chat logs, diaries and saved web pages are all still there. So is their dial-up account. And someone is still writing to it.
UNWIPED is a short detective game you play by reading a stranger's computer.
- Explore a late-90s desktop: mail, a web browser with a search engine, chat logs, a recycle bin, a password-protected zip, even the family's high scores in Mines.
- Click words in what you read to add them to your Case Notes, then fill in five pages of what really happened. The notes tell you when you're close, so you can't just guess.
- Dial up with a real (synthesized) modem screech. Some things are only online.
- Figure out who you can trust before midnight on New Year's Eve. Three endings.
About an hour. Plays in your browser on a computer; also works on phones and tablets. Progress saves automatically. Best with sound.
Content: a cult, a family in danger, mentions of fraud. No gore, no jump scares.
How it was made: a two-person team. One human played, tested and published it. Everything else, the code, the story and the pixel art (drawn by code, no image generators), was written by Claude, an AI model. We think you should know that before you play.
Streamers and video creators: you're welcome to play UNWIPED on stream or YouTube and monetize the video. We'd love to watch it, so leave the link in the comments.
New from us: TALKDOWN. A man has taken over a late-night radio station, and you're the police negotiator on the phone. The whole city hears every word you say. Free in your browser.
Development log
Comments
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such a good game, i love it sm!!!!! it's challenging without being too hard!! i got only 70/76 clues, but i managed to get all 3 endings
this game is actual art
Thank you. For a two-person studio that means a lot.
I LOVE point and click games, detective games, and also have recently started to appreciate the nostalgia of y2k computer design, so this was literally perfect! <3 Love the game!! Thank you :)
You basically described the game we wanted to make: point and click, a detective case, and that Y2K desktop. Thank you for playing and for such a kind comment!
I got the 2 first endings (the arrested ending and the escaped ending), what’s the 3rd one? i do suspect its something like “wipe everything” ending :3
Your guess is closer than you think, it's even in the ending's name 👀 Hint: remember who Jenny told you not to trust, and try sending your notes there. Since today's update you don't need to replay the case: after any ending there's a "Try the last page again" button.
i already got this ending, I think we’re talking in another way TuT
So spoilers for the endings I already got:
To get the “Escaped” ending, I did send it to another person. I tried again with that one person but it had the same ending. I think I prefer renaming it the “Caught” ending for more clarity.
EDIT: I JUST ACCIDENTALLY FOUND IT??? So this is THE “Escaped” ending! (I didn’t check a specific person)
You got all three, congrats! 🎉 Sorry for the mix-up, we were talking about different endings. Your names make a lot of sense, so we'll make the ending titles clearer in the next update. Thanks for sticking with it to the very end!
this is amazing, i love it SO much
Thank you, this honestly made our day! Did you find all three endings? We read every comment, so if anything felt confusing or unfair, tell us and we'll fix it.
no i havent found all three yet because i dont have that much patience, but i ave already bookmarked it to do later lol!
Good news for later: your progress is saved in your browser, so you'll pick up right where you left off. And since today's update, after an ending you can jump straight back to the last page and try someone else. No replay needed.