A downloadable Interactive Narrative for Windows

'Onthecht'  tells the story of Hartog and Sientje Witsenhuijsen. They are my great grandparents, and 'Onthecht'  shows who they were, what they were like and their ultimate tragic end in deathcamp Sobibór. Thanks to files about my grandma's days of hiding and other documents, I was able to piece together and try to reconstruct how the lives of Hartog and Sientje could've looked like.

Available in two languages, Dutch and English.

Warning: Contains shocking imagery and audio that may be disturbing.

Download

Download
Onthecht_v1.6.1.zip 283 MB

Install instructions

How to play:

Download the .zip file, extract on your machine and click on 'Onthecht.exe'.

Comments

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(+1)

A brief and simplistic game in principle, but it does what it needs to do, and it brings you along for a short ride into this grim part of history. With less focus on regurgitated facts you find in your standard educational writings, this adds a bit of the raw reality of a time often glamorised in media. The art and ominous sound design convey a lot of the horror in an artistic way. The personal touch of these people being the dev's relatives rather than just another fictional character on a screen gives it a unique vibe too, and definitely changes the way you experience it. It definitely could benefit from more interaction and perhaps more information from history being laid out, but as is, the quietness suits it well.

Thank you for the very kind words!

(+1)

Very creative and immersive way of telling your story. Far more compelling than reading the same in a book. The sound was very good to capture the noises on the streets, train and other areas. Including the subtle gameplay interaction such as cutting hair or ironing a shirt adds to the experience, as compared to a simple movie. Your outdoor 3D models and scenes were not very detailed, but it is not needed.

I think that by combining more of these small interactive stories together, you can really make an impressive addition to museums or create an interactive book as a whole. Well done!

(1 edit)

Hi Timothy, thank you so much for playing and commenting!

The outside scene models are something I still struggle with, so if you have any tips or feedback I would love to hear! Thank you again :)

(+1)

Simply ask someone from your network to help you! (not that I am an artist) :)