Aster Initiative
Patchbay Games
A puzzle-horror experience - navigate a huge mid-90s internet and use a variety of programs on your work computer to take down your pharmaceutical company without getting caught.
Aster Initiative goes beyond a love letter to the early days of computing. It’s a story-based digital horror experience with choices that matter, found-footage video, and an open web to explore.
THE STORY
You are Joanne Saunders, a newly hired secretary at the Canadian pharmaceutical company, Aster Initiative. As dark secrets from the company begin to unravel, you decide to dig deeper and take the company down from the inside—on your work computer. Can you do it in a single workweek**?**
THE GAMEPLAY
With operating system, LapetusOS, you can:
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Surf a truly authentic and colorful early internet with side objectives
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Download and manipulate videos, pictures, documents and music
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Call and message a cast of unique characters
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Customize your desktop environment
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Decipher codes and solve puzzles
But beware of your watchful supervisor, who doesn't tolerate slacking off.
Between five workdays, navigate Joanne’s personal life through branching full-motion videos that shape both the story and her desktop experience. Keep an eye on your suspicion and stress levels.
REINVENTING ANALOG HORROR
Aster Initiative is built on meticulous period accuracy and atmosphere. Watch a fully produced Eurodance music video, explore a disturbingly faithful shock site, or listen to a 90s hip-hop track.
Every in-game website is real HTML, created with the same tools, assets, and design techniques used in the 1990s. Video, photo, and audio are captured and processed using vintage methods, including VHS workflows and era-accurate digital artifacting.
We collaborate with computer historians and technical consultants to ensure the experience is authentically 90s from the inside out. No generative AI is used in development. The early web was built by people, and so is this.
