LAZAR
“You don't play a hero. You survive a real life.”
An interactive memorial built on real handwritten memoirs of my great-grandfather, Lazar Isaakovich Ruvinsky (1902–1966). The player moves through a single life: pogroms, revolution, famine, repressions — and a love that didn't break.
The level number equals the protagonist's age. The sparse inventory empties three times across the game — at flight, expulsion, and arrest — leaving only what could be carried. A powerlessness mechanic fires at scripted moments: controls intentionally don't respond. The player presses, the character doesn't move. Real family photographs are embedded as narrative beats, not decoration.
The source is 23 pages of typed memoirs transcribed by Lazar's son in 2012. The initiator is his great-grandson. The game stays close to the document — whatever is invented is marked.