• Story
  • Coming-of-Age
  • Small-Town Horror
  • Supernatural Mystery

Unclaimed

He never made it home Friday night. Saturday morning, his mother set the table for two.

Fall 1987, Keeler. Your best friend Denny never made it home. By Saturday, his name is gone from the class roster and there is a sewing machine in his bedroom. His mother still invites you in for breakfast. She just cannot remember whose friend you are. Beneath the reservoir lies an old town with unfinished paperwork, and the few people who still remember are running out of time. You have a bike, a pen, and his name. Keep saying it before nobody knows who you are looking for.

Play

Player discussion

How to play

  1. You open on a Saturday morning in October 1987 at the screen door of Denny's house, where three people live and the table is set for two, and the first move is whatever you type.
  2. After that you write freely every turn — a line of dialogue, something you do, or a full paragraph of your own narration — and three suggestions sit under each turn for when you would rather not start from nothing.
  3. When a scene has gone as far as it can, hit Advance the story and it jumps forward; chapters close and file themselves as you go, and the next one opens on a town that kept moving while you were deciding.

What makes it different

There is nothing here to fight. No stats, no inventory, nothing waiting at the bottom of the reservoir to be beaten. What works against you is paperwork and how fast a small town forgets: a name comes off a roster, a room gets a new use, an adult signs something in good faith, and the person it belonged to gets harder to describe.

What you write down is the whole arsenal. Say a name with the details still attached — the jacket he had on, the taillight he taped together himself — and it holds; get vague, leave a page uncopied, and it thins out. Anything you bring in is treated as though Keeler always had it: a cousin, an old argument, a thing only you and Denny knew. Nobody tells you it did not happen. It just starts producing consequences.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to pay to play Unclaimed?
You get 100 free credits when you sign up, and credits never expire. The game spends credits only when it generates new AI content, based on actual usage — there's no fixed per-round fee and no subscription required to start.
What kind of game is this?
An open-ended novel you write with an AI. You play a thirteen-year-old in a small town, you type in your own words, and the AI writes Keeler back at you in real time — no multiple-choice options, no dice, no stats.
What can I type?
Anything: a line of dialogue, an action, or a whole paragraph of prose. Each message has two destinations — Continue story puts it into the book as written, while Direct the AI passes a private note to the storyteller about where you want this to go. There are also three suggested openings under every turn if you would rather pick than write.
Does the story ever end? How long can I play?
There is no ending and no final confrontation. Chapters fill up, close, and file themselves, and the next one opens on a town that has kept going — so it runs as long as you keep writing, and you can leave it for weeks and pick it up where you left off.
Do I need other players?
No. It is single-player; the AI plays everyone else in Keeler.
Is anything I write kept?
Yes. The story saves as it goes and archives chapter by chapter, so you can open the directory and reread any of it. Names and details you actually wrote down go on working later; the ones you stop coming back to visibly fade.
Is there a Chinese version?
Yes — Simplified Chinese and English, each written for its own readers rather than translated line for line.