The End of Innocence

There’s a moment in late summer when the light changes, when the endless days of idleness begin to shorten, and the first yellow leaves appear on maple trees, when childhood stands on the edge of something else, something less magical… This is a game about that moment. About the last great adventures of childhood, the mysteries solved and secrets uncovered before the world becomes too rational. It’s about kids riding their bikes down sun-dappled streets, investigating strange happenings, and discovering that reality has many more layers than adults would have them believe.

The End of Innocence draws inspiration from various sources, some widely known, others less familiar. While movies like Stand By Me and The Goonies inform its spirit of adventure and friendship, the game’s soul owes more to Ray Bradbury’s bittersweet tales of childhood in books like Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes. Like Bradbury’s Green Town stories, this game exists in a liminal space between reality and fantasy, where the extraordinary hides behind an ordinary façade (244 pages).