Journey of Survival (JOS) is a narrative-driven survival adventure game inspired by the aftermath of the 2001 Jos crisis in Nigeria. The game invites players to experience a conflict not through the eyes of a soldier or survivor, but through a stray dog separated from its owner, navigating a city transformed by violence and loss.

Players explore spaces marked by the traces of lives interrupted. Rather than relying on dialogue or traditional quest markers, the game uses smell-based mechanics that allow players to uncover scents, follow memories, and piece together the story through environmental exploration.

JOS combines stylized visuals with environmental storytelling to examine themes of memory, displacement, empathy, and resilience. By placing players in the perspective of a non-human protagonist, the game encourages them to observe the consequences of conflict from a position of vulnerability rather than power.

Developed as a practice-based research project, Journey of Survival explores how interactive environments and sensory gameplay can communicate historical memory and trauma. It is both a personal reflection on a place shaped by conflict and an invitation to consider how games can preserve cultural memory, foster empathy, and tell stories that are often overlooked.

The Story Behind Journey of Survival (J.O.S.)

Journey of Survival (J.O.S.) is inspired by the aftermath of the 2001 Jos crisis in Nigeria. While the game is fictional, its setting, atmosphere, and themes draw from real events and from my own experience growing up in the city of Jos.

Jos is the capital of Plateau State, one of Nigeria's 36 states. Known as the "Home of Peace and Tourism," the city was once celebrated for its cool climate, cultural diversity, and peaceful coexistence among its many ethnic and religious communities. Geographically, Jos sits at the crossroads between Nigeria's predominantly Muslim North and predominantly Christian South, making it a place where cultures, beliefs, and identities have long intersected.

That same position has also made Jos vulnerable to recurring conflict. Beginning with the major outbreak of violence in September 2001, the city has experienced repeated waves of ethno-religious and communal clashes, with further major crises in 2004, 2008, 2010, and continuing violence through more recent herder-farmer conflicts. These events have claimed thousands of lives, displaced communities, and transformed everyday spaces into places marked by fear, loss, and memory.

Rather than recreating these events directly, Journey of Survival explores their emotional aftermath through the eyes of a stray dog separated from its owner. By removing the player from the perspective of any particular human group, the game shifts attention away from questions of blame and toward the shared experience of survival, displacement, and longing.

The game's central mechanic whic is following scents instead of quest markers, reflects the way memory lingers in places. Smells reveal traces of the lives once lived there, allowing players to reconstruct stories through the environment rather than through dialogue or cutscenes. The city itself becomes an archive of memories waiting to be discovered.

This project is also a practice-based research exploration into how interactive environments and sensory gameplay can communicate historical memory and trauma. It asks whether games can preserve stories that are difficult to tell through conventional historical narratives, and whether inhabiting a vulnerable, non-human perspective can foster empathy in new ways.

Although rooted in the history of Jos, the game speaks to a broader human experience. Around the world, societies continue to grapple with growing divisions based on religion, ethnicity, culture, politics, and identity. Journey of Survival uses a local story to reflect a universal one: how fear can divide communities, how conflict reshapes ordinary lives, and how empathy can begin when we choose to see the world through another's perspective.

Research Background

Journey of Survival (J.O.S.) is a practice-based research project investigating how interactive environments and sensory gameplay can communicate historical memory, trauma, and empathy. The project was developed as part of a Master's thesis in game design and is inspired by the aftermath of the 2001 Jos crisis in Nigeria, which was a conflict that profoundly shaped the city where I spent most of my life.

The research began with a central question: How can a game communicate the emotional aftermath of conflict without relying on direct exposition, combat, or human protagonists? I did not want to recreate historical events or ask players to experience the crisis through opposing sides, the project explores whether environmental storytelling and non-human embodiment can create a different form of engagement with difficult histories.

To investigate this, Journey of Survival places the player in the role of a dog separated from its owner. This perspective removes conventional human identities such as ethnicity, religion, and political affiliation, allowing players to encounter the consequences of conflict from a position of vulnerability. The player's primary means of understanding the world is through a smell-based navigation system, where scents function as both gameplay mechanics and narrative devices. Instead of objective markers or dialogue, smell reveals traces of people, memories, and past events embedded within the environment, encouraging players to reconstruct stories through exploration.

The project draws upon research in environmental storytelling, embodied interaction, affective game design, and games as cultural heritage. It also contributes to a growing body of work exploring how games can represent complex social and historical experiences beyond traditional entertainment. While many games depict war through combat, strategy, or military perspectives, Journey of Survival focuses on the ordinary lives disrupted by violence and asks how interactive spaces can preserve memories that might otherwise disappear.

Artistically, the project combines stylized visuals with historically inspired architecture, sound, and environmental design to create spaces that evoke memory rather than reproduce reality. The intention is not to create a documentary simulation of Jos but an emotionally authentic interpretation of a city marked by recurring cycles of conflict. Every location, object, and gameplay mechanic is designed to support this experience of searching, remembering, and surviving.

Although rooted in the history of Jos, the research addresses broader questions that extend beyond Nigeria. Communities across the world continue to experience division based on ethnicity, religion, culture, and politics. By inviting players to navigate these themes through the perspective of an animal guided by instinct instead of prejudice, Journey of Survival explores how games can foster empathy, preserve cultural memory, and encourage reflection on the human consequences of conflict. The project ultimately argues that interactive environments are not only spaces for play but also powerful mediums for historical interpretation, artistic expression, and research into how we experience and remember the past.