Loretta

Loretta is a psychological thriller conceptually inspired by film noir, the art of Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper, the films of Alfred Hitchcock and Philip Ridley, and the writing of Stephen King and Vladimir Nabokov. The framing makes the player an accessory to the heroine's crimes, leading her through a nightmare of her own creation. Loretta is a housewife in 1947, dragged from the glitz of New York City to a dilapidated farmhouse in the rural south with her struggling-writer husband Walter, and the campaign asks how far she'll go to reclaim her own life.

The story turns on three converging facts. Loretta learns of Walter's infidelity. The household's finances are collapsing, with Walter secretly owing money to people in New York. And Walter's publishing house has filed a remarkably lucrative life insurance policy in his name. A grisly plan begins to take root in Loretta's mind, and it is up to the player to decide how completely she will follow it through. Branching paths and multiple endings allow for vastly different outcomes — the story can remain a web of deceit, or crescendo into bloody murder, depending on the choices you make.

The gameplay covers dialogue selection, environmental interaction, cryptic puzzle solving, and the moment-by-moment decisions that determine how depraved Loretta's actions become. The cryptic puzzles dive deeper into her imperfect past and reveal the layers of desperation underneath her present situation. The 1940s socially tumultuous setting gives the central question — whether and how Loretta can reclaim agency — its specific weight. Whose side will you take in a story without heroes?