The Circle

The Circle is a 1st and 3rd person VR adventure game. The game follows Alex, a transgender woman who, after surviving a violent transphobic attack ends up in a wheelchair. The game starts around a a month after the incident. Alex is out of the hospital, traumatised and unable to leave her flat. Isolated and withdrawn, her relationships with friends and family are strained. She begins reading her father's diaries, and becomes obsessed with a subject he was fascinated with toward the end of his life. The game switches between realistic first person segments that deal with Alex' investigation and daily routine, and 3rd person dream sequences relating to her trauma, her past and, eventually, the choices that she makes during the 1st person sequences.

The game is designed to be the smallest narrative sandbox. It never forces the players to do anything they are not interested in. Players can engage with any or none of the game's story strands; they can try to fix their relationship with their family, or focus entirely on the mystery of the tiles or just sit at the desk and listen to the radio while tossing crumpled pieces of paper in a rubbish bin. The game's primary goal is to make you lose yourself; to help you understand what it feels like to be wheelchair bound; to be traumatized or to suffer from gender dysphoria.