Polam!choose the tide
A choose your own adventure book and cooperative story game for Katha Labs, designed for 8 to 11 year old children in a coastal region of Tamil Nadu.
26
book spreads
24
cards
3
major routes
60-90
minute session
Project brief
A storybook that behaves like a map, a game, and a classroom table.
Polam! is a cooperative storytelling game where children from a small fishing village decide how to reach the moon and visit Nilla Kutti, a lonely moon spirit on her birthday. The group chooses routes, uses character tools, earns shared item cards, and sometimes rolls dice to see what the story gives back.
I designed the core game system, wrote the script, built the route maps, tested the play flow, rendered pages, and handled lettering. The final book teaches cooperation, teamwork, critical thinking, empathy, and decision making through a story that keeps changing based on what the children choose together.
The project was built by a five person team, with three illustrators including me. My contribution sat across the structure and the finish: the central idea, branching maps, script, game design, page rendering, lettering, and playtesting.
Game Design
Built the branching structure, route logic, challenge rhythm, card economy, dice moments, and replay shape of the choose your own adventure system.
Script and Maps
Wrote and organized the story flow so every spread could work as both narrative scene and playable decision point.
Rendering and Lettering
Worked as one of the illustrators, rendered pages, and lettered the final book so choices, narration, and outcomes stayed readable for children.
Testing
Tested the flow with the team to make sure children could understand choices, collaborate, and recover when a route did not go perfectly.
Game system
Three paths to the moon, but every path asks the group to listen first.
sky route
Balloon Amma
A lighter, wonder-first path where the group travels upward through wind, birds, and shared problem solving.
hill route
Stone Staircase
A grounded path hidden near the village, built around observation, memory, and careful group choices.
coastal route
Rocket Station
A science-forward path where tools, teamwork, and risk checks decide how smoothly the launch goes.
3 to 5 players
One Guide, many players
The Guide holds the story while the group plays children from Manalur, a coastal village where the sea has started acting strangely.
branching book
Choices change the route
Every major spread asks the children to decide together, then sends them into a different scene, problem, tool use, or ending.
tools and rewards
Cards make ideas visible
Character tools help children reason through obstacles, while shared item cards make progress feel concrete and memorable.
no elimination
Failure keeps the story open
Dice moments add suspense, but the game stays cooperative. If one plan fails, the group finds another way through the story.
Learning values
The lesson is hidden inside the argument over what to do next.
Cooperation without one child taking over
Critical thinking through playful route choices
Environmental attention rooted in a coastal context
Empathy for characters, places, and shared consequences
Confidence in speaking up, testing ideas, and revising plans
Book spreads
The book stays wide, because the choices are meant to sit beside the world.
Cards
Character tools and moon objects turn decisions into things children can hold.
Character and tool cards
Roles, local skills, and problem solving props
Shared story items
Rewards and clues carried by the group
Physical kit
The final object had to feel friendly before anyone opened the rules.
The packaging, tote applications, cards, and book mockups make the system feel like a complete classroom kit. The page focuses on finished objects and the play structure they support.
Tote applications
Carrying the visual language into a take-home object.
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