Case summary
July 1934, a small water town in Jiangnan, China. You are Axiu, apprentice at the Feng Effigy Shop. The Chen family's daughter has died, and they ordered twelve paper dolls for her funeral. At dawn you take down the shutters and count: thirteen are standing in the shop.
The extra one, a paper maid, already has her eyes painted in — the ink still wet, running down her cheeks. Master Feng recites the shop's rules: never paint a doll's eyes, never write a living person's birth date, cover their faces with red cloth at night. But one red cloth always keeps slipping off.
At dusk you carry the dolls into the Chen family's mourning hall and see that the paper maid has the dead girl's face. That night you burn the dolls by the river. All of them turn to ash — except one, which walks out of the fire.
The Thirteenth Paper Doll is a 50-minute eerie story puzzle game set in a Republic-era Chinese water town: take down the shutters, count the dolls, cover their faces, search the old ledger — and pull apart what this effigy shop has hidden for thirty years. Free to play in your browser.
