Early 2025, ACMI, the Australian museum of screen culture, put out a call for comissions for Game Worlds. They wanted to commission microgames from Australian developers, and the brief was deliberately open: make something playable for a museum context, 5-10 minutes of experience, ready in two months. The games were to feature compelling world-building, interesting relationships between player and maker, be easily understood by a wide variety of visitors in terms of game design, playability and mechanics, and be a playful, and thoughtful response to the context of ACMI as a museum of screen culture.
We were excited to pitch, but after brainstorming a few ideas, we realised that we wanted to do something that was a bit different. Something that would be a bit of a surprise.
So we pitched a ridiculous idea Paris had: a hint line simulator with a 300-page physical binder.
the compendium
Nobody remembers the people
You knew hint lines existed, right? 1-900 numbers, long-distance charges, hoping whoever answers actually knows what they’re talking about. They had incomplete documentation, contradictory notes, whatever the previous shift scribbled down. Nintendo’s Power Line is probably the most famous example. There’s a few great videos floating around about them.
But who were those people? People rarely talk about them, and the mechanics and infrastructure of their work is largely forgotten.
Our pitch wasn’t “hey remember hint lines?” It was “you’re going to work at one.” The solution to problems wouldn’t be on screen. They’d be in a real physical binder on the desk next to you. Like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, where you need information that lives outside the game.
Hint Line ‘93 would be a visual novel on screen, where you’re working a fictional hint line, with critical information in The Compendium, a dog-eared binder full of official docs mixed with handwritten notes from previous counselors who figured out what actually works.
ACMI’s response was basically “this sounds completely impractical and we love it.”
Making up Damocles Interactive
The commission meant we had two months to build a complete universe. Not just a game, but a fictional company with history, games with their own design logic, documentation that feels like it accumulated over years instead of being designed yesterday.