Without Wings

Without Wings is an interactive audiovisual novel in which your choices affect the characters’ fates. Inspired by a story shared on an Overwatch forum, it follows a girl who leaves high school because of family circumstances and eventually finds a way out of her mountain hometown after discovering the wider world online.

Leaving home

The girl grows up in a small town in the mountains, where her world stretches only from one side of the mountain to the other. After dropping out of high school, she works on an assembly line at a plastics factory. Watching the older women there, she imagines a future of marriage, children and the same factory work. A visit to the local internet café introduces her to life beyond town and to A-Che, who lives in the city. She decides she wants to leave.

Story and presentation

The story takes about four hours, and its ending changes with your choices. The game uses a fresh pixel-art style to portray everyday life, with the aim of making the story feel immediate. It includes full Chinese voice acting, with regional accents for supporting characters to reflect life in the mountains.

More than 60 original pixel-art CGs and scenes appear in over 100 variations. Some scenes use animated pixel art, and the story includes two animated cutscenes.

Music

The soundtrack features 30 original background tracks and one theme song, created by independent musicians RAiNSE, Xun Wu, Wang Qiuyu and Zhao Xueni.