二度と戻らない · Never Coming Back

What looks like an accident. A mysterious amulet. A secret. Together they start a big adventure through a dark future, and who knows what it will bring.

二度と戻らない · Never Coming Back (until October 2026 called Katzengold; your saved game carries over) is a story game with a deeper plot, drawn the way the Nintendo 64 drew its worlds: 240 lines, tiny textures, light painted by hand. The game is under active development. This is the demo: three chapters, about fifteen minutes.

You are Mika, on the way home from your shift through the Kiez. Over the alley glows the advert for the colonies on the moons of Jupiter; your mother says whoever flies up there never comes back. Oma Irma stops you at her door: her cat hasn't eaten in two days. It is a small errand. Then you turn into your own street, and there is smoke.

How it plays

• Walk with WASD or the arrow keys; on a phone, drag anywhere.
• Walk up to someone and the conversation begins by itself, as a little film: black bars, the words on the lower one, the camera cutting from face to face. Space, Enter or a tap reads on.
• The corner of the screen says where to go next. M opens a map of the places Mika knows, and of the people he has already met. I opens his backpack; on a phone, tap the two pictures in the top right corner. There is no arrow pointing the way.
• Sometimes Mika has to answer: pick a reply with the arrow keys and take it with Space. A wrong one costs nothing; ask again.
• Some things have to be looked at: hold them up in the backpack with Space or the eye beside their name.
• Stand still for ten seconds, or press P, and an action camera takes over: it circles Mika and flies through the place he is in. Any move gives the camera back.
• English, German and Japanese, on the title, the map and the backpack. Your place in the story is kept.

What is in the demo

• One rainy block of a neon city: a narrow alley full of signs, a market stall, a back alley with the bins, a police line, a police station, an antique shop.
• Past the south gate: a glass lift, a footbridge over a six-lane expressway, a metro station with a three-storey arcade, a ride on the elevated line, and a central station under one great vault, with trains coming and going and a wall of television sets advertising rockets to Europa.
• Eleven characters to talk to. One is a cat, one is a courier pigeon. Signs and adverts in English, Japanese and Korean.
• Chapter one, Oma Irma's cat, and chapter two, Smoke: a mother's last belongings, an amulet nobody can read, and an old man who sends Mika on, toward a telephone that talks to memories.
• Chapter three, The Metro: the way across the city, and at the central station a mother whose three daughters ran off in a game of hide and seek. Each girl has to be won over before she follows Mika back. The demo ends when the family is together again.

More chapters are being written. If you play it, tell me where you stopped.

Deutsch: 二度と戻らない (Never Coming Back, bisher Katzengold). Was wie ein Unfall aussieht, ein rätselhaftes Amulett und ein Geheimnis: der Anfang eines großen Abenteuers durch eine dunkle Zukunft. Es ist ein Geschichtenspiel im Stil des Nintendo 64 und wird aktiv weiterentwickelt. Das hier ist die Demo: drei Kapitel, etwa fünfzehn Minuten. Mika kommt von der Schicht, füttert für Oma Irma die Katze und biegt dann in die eigene Straße ein, wo Rauch steht. Später führt ihn der Weg durchs Südtor, über eine Schnellstraße und mit der Metro zum Hauptbahnhof, wo eine Mutter ihre drei Töchter sucht. Gespräche laufen wie kleine Filme ab, mit schwarzen Balken und Kamera; manchmal muss Mika eine Antwort wählen. Deutsch, Englisch und Japanisch, umschaltbar auf dem Titel, der Karte und im Rucksack. Wer zehn Sekunden still steht oder P drückt, bekommt eine Actionkamera, die den Ort zeigt. Die Karte (M) zeigt, was Mika kennt; der Rucksack (I), was er trägt. Einen Pfeil zum Ziel gibt es nicht. Die Demo endet im Hauptbahnhof, wenn die Familie wieder beisammen ist.

日本語: 事故に見えた出来事、謎のお守り、そしてひとつの秘密。暗い未来を旅する大きな冒険の始まり。ニンテンドウ64のように描かれた物語ゲームで、現在も開発中です。これは三章からなる体験版で、約十五分。会話は小さな映画のように進みます。日本語・英語・ドイツ語に対応。マップ（M）は知っている場所を、リュック（I）は持ち物を見せます。十秒立ち止まるか P を押すと、アクションカメラが街を映します。