Kara

Kara is a story about Marat, a 16-year-old living in provincial Tatarstan in spring 2005. He goes to school, plays computer games and chats with friends on ICQ, but he has almost stopped sleeping. When he does fall asleep, things get worse. After a fight he may have been able to avoid, Marat tries to work out what happened in the woods, whom he can trust and why his memories contradict other people’s accounts. As sleeplessness and fear distort his perception, he also begins to doubt his own recollections.

Marat’s story

The story unfolds amid the everyday details of Russia in 2005, including flip phones, ICQ, old computers, panel apartment blocks and teenage street showdowns. Marat’s unreliable narration means his memories can clash with what others say, and even his inner monologue cannot always be trusted. You piece together details, look for contradictions and decide where reality ends and what Marat needs to believe begins.

Choices and sequences

Your decisions affect Marat’s relationships with other characters, his state of mind and later events. Some consequences only become clear much later. You explore scenes, make decisions under pressure and take part in interactive sequences woven into the story; there is no single, simple explanation.