A terminal-driven visual novel about trauma, codependency, and the slow unraveling of two medicated teens in love.
Kernel Panic is a hybrid visual novel + symbolic terminal simulator.
You play as The Hacker, a high school student on heavy ADHD meds, and navigate your relationship with The Cowgirl, a girl dealing with the emotional flatline of SSRIs, a fractured identity, and more grief than she knows what to do with.
It's not about saving the world. It's about trying to survive each other.
- Terminal Mode: Simulates introspection, symbolic memory decryption, and internal emotional commands.
- Visual Novel Mode: Dialogue-driven story choices, trust/guilt/dissociation-based routes.
- Micro-Exploration: Environmental interactions supporting slice-of-life and memory-triggered flashbacks.
- Emotional Stat System: Track Hope, Trust, Forgiveness, Guilt, Anger, Dissociation, and Self.
- Multiple Endings: Including a “System Shutdown” ending so emotionally nuclear it’ll leave scars.
- Trauma bonding
- Emotional shutdown
- Codependent collapse
- Pills as personality scaffolding
- Bitter, dark humor and quiet survival
"This isn't about who’s broken. It’s about who breaks first."
Engine: TBD (Ren’Py / Godot candidate)
Team:
- Project Lead / Writer / Emotional Chaos: John
- Art: TBD
- Audio: TBD
- Programming: TBD
Pre-production + Lore Dumping
Writing scenes. Designing emotional logic. Naming traumas. Laughing, then crying, then building again.
/kernel-panic/ ├── /src/ # Game code/scripts ├── /assets/ # Music, art, terminal UI ├── /docs/ # Design docs, narrative maps ├── /terminal_scripts/ # Internal thought sequences ├── /dev_notes/ # Real-life inspirations + raw logs ├── README.md # You're here.
This game deals with:
- Self-harm
- Mental illness
- Suicide
- Trauma bonding
- Emotional manipulation
- Psychiatric medication
Player discretion is advised.
Because I lived it.
Because we didn’t die, but we easily could’ve.
Because someone out there still might.
MIT or Creative Commons, TBD.
If this game makes you feel too much…
that’s kind of the point.
run hope.exe [ FILE NOT FOUND ]
But maybe, just maybe—
recover hope.exe --force
