Playing Kafka has a release date! 🪲

Playing Kafka has a release date: May of 21st! 🪲

Sorry for skipping the greetings, but I was just too excited to tell you! Read on for the Steam page, wishlist link and more details about the game’s content.

We’ve been developing Playing Kafka for the past year and a half and as with every game release, it’s unbelievable that we are so so close to releasing!

The game will come out on Steam, iOS ,and Android. It will be 100% free and fully voiced in English, German and Czech.

And as of now, you can wishlist in on Steam. Which we urge you to do, because it will help the game in the eyes of the Steam algorithm. It’s just a click away:

Now, for the game description:
Although you did nothing wrong, you were arrested one morning. You arrived for work, but you don’t recognize your assistants. And your upbringing left you with a pervasive sense of guilt.

Welcome to Playing Kafka, an adventure about the alienation of modern society as well as unresolved family issues. The game adapts three works of the famously absurdist writer and was created with leading Kafka experts.

Can you manage to win an unfair trial? Is the job even real? Can you escape your father’s crushing presence? How do you move forward, when all solutions are obfuscated by a web of unclear rules and machinations…

In Playing Kafka, you can expect:

• a fully voiced branching story, based on Kafka’s The Trial, The Castle and Letter To His Father

• atmospheric puzzles, fateful decisions, and a drag and drop gameplay that makes characters and environments come alive

• approximately 1.5 hour of story in an ever-changing setting

I don’t want to make this e-mail too long, so head to the Steam page for a detailed description of each chapter.

We also have a new teaser out, showing Letter to His Father on YouTube:

Finally, some words by our developers about the game!

Ondřej
“Playing Kafka is a way to bring Kafka’s work and its themes closer to the young generation. It’s a game for everybody, gamers and non-gamers, of all ages. You will experience Kafka’s worlds in a way that would not work in any other medium than a videogame.”

Vít
“We have studied Kafka’s books, diaries, and letters meticulously. We did not want to just illustrate Kafka’s works. We wanted to turn their atmosphere and social critique embedded within them into a game that can stand on its own.”

Lucie
“The goal was to craft a pensive atmosphere, where you can feel the loneliness and alienation present in Kafka’s texts. A hint of a farce, a bit of a dream. Instead of trying to be realistic, we wanted to craft a sort of inner landscape.”

Alex
“Characters in the game become a bit like puppets, emphasizing the social, bureaucratic, and other structures that the heroes of Kafka’s novels find themselves caught in. We can tell Kafka’s stories in a way inherent to videogames.”

So, there you go! If you like what you’re seeing be sure to, once again, wishlist the game on Steam and consider spreading the word! We have poured a lot of love into Playing Kafka, and we want to see the game shine!

Much obliged. And take care! See you all on the 21st in the Castle. If you can get to it.

Yours truly,
Ondřej
Charles Games