The Inbox
THE INBOX
Link: https://prodnitro.itch.io/the-inbox
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You're a middle manager. Emails arrive that lay out heavy decisions for you to make.
Hit profit targets. Watch people suffer. Miss profit targets, you suffer.
40+ emails | Real consequences | Multiple Pathways
Important game play note: Be sure to close the emails to resume time using the small x in the top left of the email content section. Time pauses when reading emails and resumes when you close them! Wanted to be sure to note this for players who end up "stuck" because it's not terribly obvious in the UX :)
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JAM THEME: GAMES FOR CHANGE
https://itch.io/jam/jampacked-2025
"Games for Change, invites participants to explore how games can become tools for reflection, empathy, and transformation. Games can simulate complex systems, make hidden structures visible, and help players engage with pressing questions about the world around them. They can address issues such as inequality, gender, climate, war, labour, health, and belonging, or focus on smaller, personal experiences that speak to broader social realities."
Impossible choices reveal deep exploitation, detachment, zero sum game nature to everything, and lack of empathy all packed into spreadsheets. Meanwhile, blame is shifted onto you. I mean, you are the decision maker after all.
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⚠️ Content Warning: May include heavy topics, nothing real, all in good fun.
15-20 minutes | Mouse only | Based on real corporate emails
Personal note from Nitro:
Thank you so much for playing, I hope you made it far into the game, enjoy it, and find the endings! I will be improving for steam over time, so please let me know if you'd like to see more. I had a whole story fleshed out that I would love to go deeper into. Thank you for hosting the Jam, I loved the theme and I hope my game follows suit in causing some deep introspection while laughing it off in satire. This is my first ever game and I couldn't be more proud to complete it in the 2 day time frame, this jam has given me a stronger hunger for game dev. thank you!
Inspired by: Papers, please. Emily is Away. Yes, Your Grace.
Made for Jampacked 2025
Comments
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Very intriguing game! It showcases the nature of bureaucracy and the redundant pattern that capitalism creates in a way that is blunt and straight forward. Nitro, you did a great job at representing this in the game and immersing me into the roll of the 'decision maker.' Keep up the good work and I'm excited to see what comes next.
Hi, thanks for the game!
Bug? stuck into an infinite loop at 50% of D2Q1 after denying the AI & receiving thanks from Worker #1973.
Thanks so much for playing!
Are you closing the email? It's not terribly obvious, but the small X will close it and time will resume. Time pauses when reading emails, resumes when you close them, and days end at 16:00 :)
There's so much fun story content that heats up after that, sorry you missed that! It goes up to to Q3, Day 9, 3 days per quarter, so it will also include quarterly reports and things like that. Also, be sure to use embed version as the download zip is the submitted build which had some bugs I fixed in the live embed. Please let me know if this works for you and if you're able to finish the story
Hope you like it!!
-N