Swamps: the price of choice

Herman Koshur

About this game

Polesia, 1941. German occupation. You are Mikhas, a young feldsher — the only healer for miles, now that the old doctor has been taken away. Both your own people and the enemy call you to their sick, and each side pulls you closer.

One night, a knock at the door. On the threshold stands a wounded Soviet pilot, shot down over the marshes. Treating him is a deadly risk — to you, to your wife, to the whole village. Turning him away means condemning one of your own. There is no clean way out. That night your war begins — the war of a man who only wanted to remain a healer.

A STORY WHERE CHOICE HAS A PRICE

"Swamps" is a text quest in the tradition of unflinching war prose: a small man, impossible decisions, consequences that catch up chapters later. There are no right answers — only a price, and you won't always be the one who pays it.

— A living village: your wife Alena, a reluctant headman, a policeman who used to be a neighbour, a herb-woman healer, a boy runner. Each has their own truth — and their own memory of what you did.
— Every day is a choice of where to spend yourself: your wife waits at home, the wounded man in the cellar, the sick across the village, the enemy in the commandant's office counting your steps.
— Scarce supplies: spirit, morphine, food. Who do you give the last of it to?
— Two forces pull at you: the forest and the commandant's office. You can take from both — but every favour is written down, and one day the accounts come due.
— Decisions carry from chapter to chapter: someone you save in autumn returns in winter — and so does the debt.
— Hunger, frost and typhus are enemies no weaker than men. A healer who doesn't spare himself saves no one.

A WAR WITHOUT HEROES

This is not a story about a superhero. It's about a tired man with a medical bag who decides every morning whom to treat, what to say, and what to keep silent — as the war closes in. Sometimes a healer is simply the one who stayed.

— Several chapters of dense story and dozens of scenes that don't appear on every playthrough.
— Branches that truly diverge: different paths through a chapter, different endings, different debts.
— High replayability: walk the winter as a man of the forest, as the Germans' "useful man" — or try to belong to no one. If you can.
— Plays one-handed, offline, with no timers, ads or in-app purchases. Just you and the text.

Available in eleven languages: Russian, English, Belarusian, German, Polish, Ukrainian, French, Spanish, Italian, Georgian and Hebrew — switchable right inside the game.

Part one of a trilogy. The story continues.

What’s new

A small update shaped by your feedback.
The winter chapter now responds more vividly as the epidemic unfolds; the healer Augustina reacts to her rescued grandson; Chapter Four gains more quiet evenings with Alyona. Balance and translation polish across all eleven languages.
Thank you for playing — and for writing to us.