TOITŪ

the story of a hidden stream

TOITŪ: the story of a hidden stream is an expansive, long-form detective poem set in the early 2000s in Dunedin, a small colonial city in the South Island of Aotearoa / NZ. The game blends real-life histories with a fictional encounter with a hidden stream, mixing the colonial history of Dunedin with a modern investigation into loneliness, artistry, language, and power.

The game involves an exploratory, wandering mode of gameplay which allows for the reader to navigate an unseen space by returning and re-returning to certain maps within the game world.

Your job is to traverse a hidden stream buried beneath the city, uncovering along the way a dastardly plot, a potential murder, and the collected works of a forgotten NZ writer. As the player develops a connection to the stream and the township thru meandering (and a fun machine called the Bullet), a secret alternate narrative is built alongside the waterway, which may help the player to organise their thoughts and plan their next moves.

Can you learn the name of the stream, the truth about the city, and the haunting story of the forgotten poet?

Content warning: mention of suicide, depression, anxiety, some minor violence, a lobotomy(Hidden)