First-person · Single-player · Story-driven survival
Son SeferNine Letters
Nine years. Nine letters. One last run.
An avalanche derails the Eastern Express in the frozen forests of Kars, Türkiye. Survive the cold, keep a boy from the wreck warm and, by the fire, read the letters you never sent.
Demo first on itch.io
Akyazı village · 9:30 PM
01 — Story
Nine yearsof silence
He knew how to build a fire. He never learned how to keep someone warm.
Allahuekber pass · 10:00 PM
Not a dad who protects. A dad who has to apologize.
The hardest winter in forty years. An avalanche derails the Eastern Express, bound from Erzurum to Kars, in the forests of Sarıkamış (Sarikamis).
Süleyman Akın is a retired Eastern Express train driver who served thirty-one years. This time he wakes up in the sleeper car as a passenger. He hasn't spoken to his daughter Zeynep in nine years.
In the wreck he finds a crushed box of medicine with his daughter's name on it. Zeynep is the doctor at the Soğanlı health clinic.
With Deniz, a ten-year-old boy from the wreck, to keep alive, Süleyman must cross the frozen mountains on foot and finally say to his daughter what nine years of unsent letters could not.
02 — World
Kars, in thehardest winterin forty years
Crash site · 9:00 AM
- Eastern ExpressThe wreck: a cab on its side, a conductor trapped in the dining car.
- ŞehitlikA letter from 1914 and a pair of red shoes. Nothing here can be taken.
- The ranger's lodgeA lodge in the forest. A fire, a night and a radio.
- AkyazıAn empty village. A lamp burns in a single window.
- The passNight and blizzard. Thin ice on the reservoir, wolves in the dark.
- SoğanlıZeynep's clinic. The end of the road.
The game takes place in Kars, in northeastern Türkiye (Turkey): the forests of Sarıkamış and the Allahuekber Mountains. Four days in the hardest winter in forty years.
The Eastern Express (Doğu Ekspresi) runs east from Erzurum to Kars. Between Karaurgan and Sarıkamış, an avalanche throws it off the rails. From the wreck, the only way on is on foot: through the forest, to a village, over the pass.
Sarıkamış, winter 1914–1915. In the first winter of the First World War, tens of thousands of soldiers died in these mountains, many of them not in battle but from cold and hunger. This game remembers that winter not as a war story, but as the story of people who never made it home.
At Şehitlik, a memorial to the fallen soldiers, nothing can be picked up; what was left there can only be examined.
03 — Letters
Read them,or burn them
Sarıkamış forest · 8:30 PM
- Read
- Use as tinder
- Throw into the fire
For nine years Süleyman wrote to his daughter and never sent a single letter. Letters can only be read beside a burning fire. Reading one takes 20 minutes of game time.
Out of tinder? You can turn a letter you have already read into tinder. You can also throw the whole bundle into the fire. A burned letter does not come back.
Every letter appears in Süleyman's own Turkish handwriting, with the English translation beneath. What you read and what you burn both matter.
04 — Survival
Keep the fire.Keep the boywarm.
Sarıkamış forest · 8:00 PM
A realistic survival game. Cold and hunger are with you at every step.
The boy beside you gets cold too. There is only one box of antibiotics on the whole journey, and you decide who gets it. Give Deniz your gloves, and your own hands freeze.
Cold
Your body heat drops. Fire and clothing keep you alive.
Hunger
You won't walk far without finding food.
Fire
Matches, tinder, wood. With bare hands, a fire is harder to light.
Clothing screen
Head, hands, neck: each slot has its own job. Hands left without gloves can freeze.
Thin ice and wolves
Ice cracking under your feet. Wolves in the dark.
Radio and transceiver
Listen to the broadcasts. The transceiver's battery lasts for only one conversation.
Choices
Who you help, what you say, what you burn. Each one has a consequence.
Multiple endings
Your choices decide how the road ends.
05 — Characters
The peopleon the road
Süleyman Akın
58You. A retired Eastern Express train driver who served 31 years. Lives alone in Erzurum. Hasn't spoken to his daughter in nine years. Hides behind rules, says little, has a dry sense of humor.
Zeynep Akın
33Süleyman's daughter. The doctor at the Soğanlı health clinic; she asked for a village posting herself. Tired, busy, professional.
Deniz
10A boy traveling alone on the train. His mother is a nurse in Soğanlı; his father works in Istanbul. Asks a lot of questions.
Hasan Çelik
47Conductor. Worked the same train as Süleyman for twenty years. Trapped by the leg in the dining car after the crash. Quick to joke, and a little bitter.
Nana Gülsüm
78Stayed behind alone in the village of Akyazı. Her son Murat has been in Germany for twenty years. Grumbles, gives orders, and puts a lamp in her window every night.
Mahsum Kaya
52Forest ranger, 22 years on the mountain. Angry at the government in Ankara. Hasn't seen his daughter Elif, who lives in Kars, in seven years.
Sevgi
—Deniz's mother. A nurse in Soğanlı and Zeynep's colleague.
06 — Release plan
Demo first.Then Steam.
- 01FirstA demo on itch.io, for early feedback. All of chapter 1 and part of chapter 2; target length 60–90 minutes. Turkish voice acting, Turkish and English subtitles.
- 02NextA "Coming Soon" page on Steam, where you can wishlist the game.
- 03Target: June 2027Steam Next Fest. The date is not final; the target is June 2027 or later.
Soğanlı · 10:00 PM
Press
Son Sefer is a single-player, story-first survival game with The Long Dark's realism: a retired train driver walks through the snowbound mountains of eastern Türkiye to the daughter who hasn't spoken to him in nine years.
Developer: Sykara
Content note
Contains death, grief and animal attacks. Depending on your choices, a child character can die.