the sound of rain.
Sis always told me that ghosts are not real.
That when we die, we just disappear.
Forever.
the sound of rain. is a short, textual exploration of what it means to die—as a matter of perception. Packaged as a small story on anxiety, loss, and trauma through the lenses of an unnamed main character.
Its presentation is reminiscent of older parser-based adventure games, but input interaction has been redesigned to work better with gamepads.
This game was originally released as a jam entry for O2A2 2022, this is an expanded remake of that story.
This game discusses themes of loss, abusive parents, and trauma; with a potential trigger for anxiety.
Specifically:
Though the writing tries to keep things abstract, there's a scene featuring the protagonist going through an episode of anxiety attack.
Take care when playing, and remember that your health and safety comes first :)
Features:
- About 4,000 words of linear narrative (~20 minutes of reading);
- A spatial take on parser-based interactive fiction;
- New creepy-gloomy art with pencil/watercolour aesthetics and expanded background music;
- Built-in text-to-speech support, high-contrasting text, and configurable font faces and sizes for different accessibility needs.
Controls:
On touch devices, you can press the virtual keys on screen. See detailed keyboard and gamepad controls in the Kate manual.
| Button | Keyboard | Uses |
|---|---|---|
|
Arrow keys | Navigate menus; Change options; Select in-game choices |
|
Z | Confirm menu selection; Advance text |
|
X | Toggle auto-forward |
|
A | Previous page in options; Rollback |
|
S | Next page in options; Skip text |
 (Menu)
|
Left Shift | Open game menu |
 (Capture) |
C | Take screenshot; Hold one second to start/stop recording a video |
Credits:
Written, illustrated, and programmed by Q.
Made possible by the many great folks releasing their work in permissive licenses:
Music assets from rosko vair and MokuseiNoMaguro;
Background sound assets from straget and szczur_banshee;
Sound effect assets from various artists on Pixabay and Freesound.
Fonts are Gloock, Roboto, and Lora.
Complete credits are displayed at the end of the game. Full licences and links can be viewed by holding down Menu and selecting Legal Notices.
Platform support:
The game runs on a Kate Phantom device with OS v0.23.8 or higher. You'll need at least a 2.4GHz processor, 4GB RAM, and a graphics card supporting OpenGL ES 3.1 to run it in the emulator. Most modern machines and browsers will do.
Note for iOS/MacOS: The emulator does not fully support Safari/iOS and you might need to tap the game screen once to enable sound and better performance.
Code and assets
The source code for this game (written in Ren'Py, but not really cleaned up) is available on GitHub and released under a MIT licence. Music and other assets remain a property of their respective authors, under their own terms.
Download
Install instructions
Either drag-and-drop the KART file onto the emulator, or hold Menu and choose "Install cartridge" (on iOS you'll need to tap the "Install cartridge" option). See docs for details.
Play by clicking on the cartridge afterwards or navigating to it with the D-Pad and pressing O.
Development log
- the sound of rain v0.12Aug 27, 2023
