The Ringstrasse Syndrome

The Ringstrasse Syndrome is an interactive non-linear fiction game with role playing elements. The choices you make in the game not only lead to different endings, they can also reflect your own character!

The player will take on the role of Josef Vogel, a young psychoanalyst working alone in the clinic of the respected Herr Doktor Sadowski who is on vacation in Corfu with his family at the start of the game.

Josef should try to maintain (or even improve) the clinic’s standing during the Herr Doktor’s absence. Every week, he will give treatment to patients, and head into the cafés and salons of Vienna to find more men and women in need of his service. He may even develop relationships outside of the clinic with some of them. At the same time, Josef has to keep close track of his own psychological condition, lest he too falls into depression or hallucination (or maybe he can indulge in them).

The Vienna of 1909 was also in the midst of a changing world. Despite the old Kaiser’s efforts to maintain his crumbling empire, nationalists and socialists arose to challenge the political order in both the Parliament and the streets. In the 8 weeks he spent in Vienna, Josef will witness many defining moments in history, from the Bosnian Crisis that drove the empire to the brink of war, to the May Day demonstration as workers thumped past his clinic. How Josef chooses to react to the world around him is up to the player.