Gap Year is a unique interactive narrative experience currently in pre-production. It adapts the structure of graphic novels into a video game to create an entirely new kind of storytelling.

Gap Year’s story plays out in multiple panels which subdivide the screen and allow the player to track multiple plot lines at once, or see the same scene from multiple perspectives. The game also features an innovative text mechanic in which the player can swap out keywords in the narrative, triggering subtle and sometimes substantial changes in the way the story plays out.

Gap Year tells the story of 19 year old Elin Novak, who treasures living alone in her Toronto apartment until the Czech grandmother she’s never met unexpectedly becomes her new roommate. The two get off to a rocky start, but when her grandmother becomes ill and put on a transplant waiting list, Elin grows up in a hurry as her primary caregiver.

Set in the mid-1990’s, Gap Year details these two women’s surprising relationship, spanning an eventful year.

The original proof of concept for Gap Year was developed as a game design post-graduate thesis project in 2019. Since then it has received Concept Definition funding from Ontario Creates, and was a Finalist in the Ubisoft 2021 Indie Series, where it earned an honourable mention.