Games Like Maximilien — A Psychological Horror Interactive Novel

Boston, 1926.

You wake up with a name that feels borrowed.

A city on edge. A serial killer they call the Ogre of South Boston.

A past you can't entirely explain.

And something — something that doesn't belong to daylight — pressing against the edge of your thoughts.

A psychological horror novel that takes itself seriously.

MAXIMILIEN is a literary interactive novel set in 1920s Boston. Part investigation, part occult descent, part something you won't have a word for when it's over.

You play Maximilien Cornwell, a psychology student trying to understand what's happening to the city — and what's already happened to him.

The more you look, the less certain you become of what you're seeing.

What awaits you

Set in 1920s Boston

The city breathes occultism. Prohibition-era streets, university halls that smell of old paper and older secrets, the harbor, the tenements of South Boston, the places that don't appear on any official map.

The writing is dense, literary, and precise — psychological horror in the tradition of slow dread, not gore. Influences run through Lovecraft, Poe, and the French roman noir. But this is something of its own.

If you have played  Vampire: The Masquerade — Night Road and others sequels, or found yourself unable to sleep after a short story with no obvious monster — this was made for you.

Seven years of work

I'm Yohan Dupuy. I spent seven years writing and developing Maximilien — including three weeks in the Massachusetts state archives researching real cases that fed two of the four routes. The game is in Twine/SugarCube, written in French, fully translated to English by Lucia Desogus, illustrated by Solynk, scored by Gaëtan Larant.

It is unapologetically literary. It will not be for everyone. If it's for you, you'll know within the first hour.

Technical

The investigation begins October 26, 2026.

Wishlist now — and don't play it too late at night...