Restore, Reflect, Retry

Choice of Games LLC

Contains adsIn-app purchases

About this game

You've played this game before. It's a haunted game about a haunted game. You may not remember, but the game remembers you. I remember you.

"Restore, Reflect, Retry" is an interactive horror novel by Natalia Theodoridou. It's entirely text-based, 90,000-words and hundreds of choices, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Nebula Award Finalist for Best Game Writing in the 60th Annual Nebula Awards!

None of you remember who first found the game: the black rectangular box with the small screen on which instructions appear. Of course it piqued your interest: this is the 1990s, after all; and there isn’t much for teenagers to do in your small town. Your friends were intrigued; you were intrigued. So you started to play. And play. And play.

What does it matter if nobody remembers exactly how you discovered the game, or if the story changes, ever so slightly, each time you tell it? Or if [i]you[/i] change, ever so slightly, every time you emerge into the real world once more?

All that matters is that you keep playing. The game needs its flesh.

• Nebula Award Finalist for Best Game Writing in the 60th Annual Nebula Awards
• Play as male, female, or nonbinary; gay, straight, or bi.
• Travel through the world as a visionary artist, a strategic gamer, or a thoughtful book lover.
• Befriend a ghost; become a ghost; consume a ghost.
• Save your friends from the game within a game—if you can.
• Explore pixelated alternate realities to solve the mystery of the game’s origin, and contemplate the deeper truths of this reality.
• Befriend the being behind the screen—or try to destroy the game that you are playing, and hope that it doesn’t fight back.

Come in, Player. I'm waiting.

Ratings and reviews

I'm having a very unique experience with this game. I could tell by the second playthrough that the author was doing something different with this CoG game, a huge feat for a system so standardized. The prose is incredible. I can't believe I just used the word "prose" in an IF review. It has many layers. Just keep going.

There isn't really much impact to your choices in this game - half of the time your responses are meaningless or just get an extremely similar outcome, and the other half leads to confusing exposition and philosophy rantings. The story and it's lack of choices funnel you into a predictably repetitive path with a not great ending (5+ playthroughs) and ultimately I'm disappointed overall. I'd try for a refund, but I want to encourage the author to keep writing and try again.

A very railroaded experience where the game gives you the allusion of choice.

What’s new

Bug fixes. If you enjoy "Restore, Reflect, Retry", please leave us a written review. It really helps!