Bird CD Key

Bird is a social impact game about mass incarceration, told through the real-life memories and artwork of Darrell Fair—an artist, activist, and mentor represented by the Exoneration Project. Wrongfully convicted in 1998 after a coerced confession, Darrell has been incarcerated in Illinois ever since. Part documentary, part virtual art gallery, and part video game, Bird invites players to step inside a personal story shaped by a larger system.

The game’s core structure is inspired by the “birdcage” metaphor discussed in Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: a single “wire” of injustice can be hard to notice on its own, but together many connected disadvantages form a cage that traps the bird. This metaphor drives the experience and encourages players to reflect on a central question: what can I do to free this bird?

You explore surreal environments while collecting and revealing artifacts from Darrell’s life, including moments connected to Cook County Jail and Stateville Correctional. The narrative unfolds through a layered mix of media: recorded audio interviews with Darrell and his family, diegetic “home-movie” style videos, and radio-played interviews that ground the journey in lived experience. Along the way, the game presents facts about the criminal justice system through voices from inside, focusing on human impact rather than abstraction.

Visually, Bird is defined by its hand-drawn art and animation, created frame-by-frame within Stateville Correctional and mailed out to be scanned and assembled—making the artwork itself an extension of the story. The soundscape is anchored by a dynamic choral soundtrack performed by the multi-Grammy-winning choir The Crossing, with lyrics drawn directly from interviews conducted in Stateville, creating a powerful bridge between testimony and music.

Key features include:

• A rich narrative portraying Darrell Fair’s true story
• Exploration-driven discovery of memories, artifacts, and personal history
• Interactive moments such as telephone calls from Stateville Correctional
• Hand-drawn artwork and animations created in prison
• Documentary-style interviews and system-focused facts woven into gameplay
• Dynamic choral music that responds to the unfolding experience

Bird is a journey through struggle, loss, and hope—asking players not only to witness a life behind prison walls, but to consider the interconnected forces that keep the cage closed.