The Day the Laughter Stopped

The Day the Laughter Stopped is a short interactive fiction game. It was created over 48 hours during the Ludum Dare #28 competition and comes with a serious TRIGGER WARNING (details in the game’s menu).

The Day was nominated for Best Serious Game and won the Special Award of the 2014 German Video Game Awards (Deutscher Computerspielpreis).

Play Onlineor get the offline version/source code. More info under Support Us.

Background

The Day the Laughter Stopped is a personal story based on true events. If you want to know more about its background, why it was made, and the ideas behind its design, you can read about it in this post-mortem.

In addition to that, there is also a follow-up post going into greater detail on design and character in response to some of the feedback and the questions we have received.

Statistics

Take a look at how other people have played The Day the Laughter Stopped here.

What Can I Do?

Support the Victims

The directest way to help is to look for crisis centers in your area and offer them your assistance. You can also look up what organisations there are in your respective countries, find out what they do and see how you can contribute.

Since you come from all over the world, I can’t provide information on where to start for all of you, but if you live in the US, this seems like a good place to get some information on how to get involved: http://www.rainn.org/get-involved

Support the Game

The Day the Laughter Stopped was created to offer a perspective, a glimpse into a horrifying and devastating situation that way, way too many people have to suffer through, and to help fuel the conversation that we so desperately need to have.

So the best way to support it is to spread the word. Share it, show it to people that you think should see it, talk, and then talk some more. Those comfortable in their position of power try to derail the conversation and to silence those who speak up, but we just have to speak up all the louder. So talk. Discuss. Use this game if you think it’ll help to get the conversation going, but most important of all:

Never. stop. talking.