Playing Kafka

Welcome to Playing Kafka. Although you did nothing wrong, you were arrested one morning. When you arrived at work, you didn’t recognize your assistants. Your upbringing left you with a pervasive sense of guilt. The game adapts three works by the famously absurdist writer, created in collaboration with leading Kafka experts.

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

Game Features:

– A fully voiced, branching story based on Kafka’s The Trial, The Castle, and Letter to His Father.
– Atmospheric puzzles, fateful decisions, and drag-and-drop gameplay that brings characters and environments to life.
– Approximately 1.5 hours of story in an ever-changing setting.

Three Books, Three Game Chapters:

The Trial

You face an opaque legal trial, slowly getting sucked into a web of perplexing bureaucracy. It’s up to you how to approach the vague but insidious accusation—choose who to ask for help and how to talk to judges, procurators, and others as the judgment slowly closes in on you. Does it even matter if you’re innocent?

Letter to His Father

Inspired by Kafka’s unsent confession to his father, this chapter delves into their tense relationship. Try to find the right words that helped Kafka come to terms with his upbringing. See Franz struggle to connect with his father in scenes from the past. Is there any hope of reconciliation?

The Castle

You arrive at a snow-laden village to work as a land surveyor, but nothing is as it seems. Locals talk about the village Castle in hushed tones, and each day brings more questions than answers. Will you ever be accepted by the forever out-of-reach Castle?

Developed to commemorate the centenary of Kafka’s death, the game was created in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut, Prague.