About this project

This page is not part of the story.

Critter Corner is a work of interactive horror fiction. It is presented as an archived virtual pet website from 2003, and it is entirely invented. Nothing on it is real.

Content notes

The story deals with heavy subject matter. Please read this before playing:

• Child exploitation and trafficking
• Grooming — an adult building trust with children in order to harm them
• Online predation, and the manipulation of children through a friendly interface
• Harm to and death of children, referred to but never shown

These themes are handled through implication: documents, euphemism and absence. Nothing is depicted, and no violence or abuse appears on screen. That restraint is deliberate, but the subject is still the subject, and this piece is not suitable for children.

Everything here is fictional

Critter Corner is not a real website, a real organisation or a real charity, and it never was. Every character, sponsor, guestbook entry, town and name is invented. Any resemblance to a real person, place or organisation is coincidental and unintended.

About your data

Part of the story involves the site asking you questions. Those questions are fiction, and so is the thing that appears to be collecting the answers.

Nothing you type is transmitted anywhere. Answers, your pet, and your progress are stored only in your own browser's local storage. There is no account, no server-side record of you, no analytics and no tracking. Clearing your browser data for this site erases all of it permanently.

If the story asks you for something you would rather not give — including your real name, where you live, or a photograph — you can answer with anything you like, or not answer at all. The piece works either way, and it is designed on the assumption that some players will decline.

Support & reporting

This is fiction. If anything here resonates with a real situation, these are places to turn.

Brazil — Disque 100 (Disque Direitos Humanos): dial 100. Free, anonymous, 24 hours, every day. Receives reports of violence and rights violations against children and adolescents, including sexual abuse and trafficking.

International / online child sexual exploitation: report to INHOPE's network of hotlines at inhope.org, or NCMEC's CyberTipline at report.cybertip.org. For anything else, contact local authorities.

Credits

Written and built by Paola Lopes.