One sentence.
What if you could enter the case instead of only listening to it?
Short description
Night Stalker: L.A. 1985 is a phone-first interactive true-crime story about the real manhunt for Richard Ramirez. Designed for podcast listeners as well as players, it asks the audience to enter each room, hear each account and decide what belongs in the file. No gaming experience is required. Across later episodes, four agencies hold different parts of the pattern while civilian stories place the listener inside the city’s fear.
Who it is for
People who love long-form true-crime podcasts, documentaries and investigative stories but may never identify as gamers. Interaction is intentionally quiet: move with one thumb, tap what draws your attention, listen and decide. There are no lives, scores, reflex tests or controller skills.
The city is evidence
The game uses real-world Los Angeles as its foundation. Street layouts, structures, vehicles and environmental detail are reconstructed from the city and period reference rather than presented as generic 1980s noir. Real geography and history are paired with composite victims, survivors, detectives and civilians.
Editorial position
- The player is never the killer and never performs an attack.
- Richard Ramirez is real and named; victims, survivors and detectives are composite.
- No real victim’s attack is reconstructed as gameplay.
- No gore, playable violence or perpetrator worship.
- The investigation, institutional failure and civilian resolution are the subject.
Current interactive episode
Episode One, “The Screen,” opens at a Glassell Park scene. The listener meets a patrol officer, enters the perimeter and examines a removed window screen. It takes about five minutes and runs directly in a modern phone or desktop browser with no download. Headphones are recommended.
