“18,000 dollars!!”
That’s how John Riggs’s diary begins. He bet more than he had on a boxing match he thought was in the bag, and Hancock went down before the end of the second round. Now he owes the money to the Irish, and this time they’ve warned him they won’t take any excuses.
Deadman Diaries is a mobile gamebook that reproduces this diary, found after John’s death. You read his days one by one and decide what he does next. Every choice takes the story down a different path.
– WARNING –
This story includes references to suicide and death.
Read under your responsibility.
The Challenge
Deadman Diaries was first released for iOS and Android in 2016, and people are still playing it. The challenge was to tell a story full of branching paths in a single voice: everything that happens had to be readable in John’s diary, with all his fears and excuses. Ricard Fuster and Gerard Freixes took classic noir, the unpayable debt and the dead-end alleys, and told it through the diary of an ordinary man who gets in way over his head.
The Solution
The Concept
It all happens inside a diary. Each entry carries the date John wrote it. Between the pages you’ll find police reports and newspaper cuttings, like the one announcing Hancock’s defeat.
The story has around 150 sections, and each one ends with up to four options. The paths split and cross again later on, so two readers can land on the same page after making very different decisions.
Gameplay
The very first page has John on the ropes. He could take the money from the bank where he works and hope nobody notices. He could ask the Vladics, knowing full well that a debt with them is deadly. Or he could move house, because the Irish know where he lives but not where he works.
None of the options is entirely good, and you have to choose for him. Day after day, John writes down what happens and you decide the next step. Along the way you’ll meet Carl, the colleague who nearly catches him out, bank customers like Mr. Packard, and people from the underworld John would never have wanted to cross paths with.
When John dies, the diary ends. A police report or a newspaper cutting tells how he was found, and the case is added to Your deaths. Then it’s back to the first page, wondering what would have happened if…
The Renovation
In 2026 we renovated Deadman Diaries. We updated the game so it runs smoothly on today’s phones, whatever the shape of the screen, and gave it a complete noir redesign, with the same style across every screen. You can now read in Ink format, dark, or Paper, light, with three text sizes. The title, which used to be an image, now appears in each language, Russian included.
The story, the illustrations and the music are the same as ever, and saved games carry over to the new version.
Characters
John Riggs has spent his whole life working honestly behind a bank counter, until the day he bets what he doesn’t have. Everything you know about the story, you know through him, because all you read is what he writes in his diary.
Art and Narrative
John writes the way he talks. He swears when things go wrong, he’s ashamed of what he does, and he promises himself he’ll pay back the money he took from the bank. It’s the voice of an ordinary man caught up in a problem far too big for him.
Gerard Freixes‘s black-and-white illustrations go hand in hand with the diary: John lying awake in bed, or sitting on the floor among bottles and coins. The music is by Àlex Almirall and Quim Garreta. The new version carries this noir tone across the whole interface, with just three colours: the black of ink, the bone white of paper and the red of blood.
The game can be read in Catalan, English, Spanish and Russian. The English translation is by Chris Geatrell.
Every death tells a story
Download it on the App Store and Google Play.
Technical Sheet
| Product type | Mobile app · gamebook |
| Platforms | iOS and Android |
| Languages | Catalan, English, Spanish and Russian |
| Written by | Ricard Fuster and Gerard Freixes |
| Illustrations | Gerard Freixes |
| Music | Àlex Almirall and Quim Garreta |
| Number of players | Individual |
| Production year | 2016 |
| Renovation | 2026 |
| Requirements | Android 7.1 or later · iOS 15 or later |
| Recommended age | 16+ |