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

Gap Year’s story plays out in multiple panels which subdivide the screen-space 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.

Carl developed the original proof of concept for Gap Year as his game design post-graduate thesis project in 2019. It has since received prototyping and production funding from Ontario Creates.

Gap Year is targeting a 2024 release.