1979 Revolution: Tehran, Black Friday

The game opens its 1978 story on a rooftop in Hasanabad, where Reza and his friend Babak watch a march fill the street below. Babak offers Reza a cassette of Khomeini's speeches and asks him to photograph the crowd; the player frames banners, photographs held overhead and the column of people on the bridge. Hasanabad is a real district of Tehran, and its Qajar-era square is part of the old city fabric. The game never names the building, so the pin marks the square at the district's heart.

Location precision: The game names the Hasanabad district but not the building; the pin marks Hasanabad Square.

Back on the street, Reza and Babak walk Shahreza Avenue, one of Tehran's main central streets, past a street bazaar, book stalls and cassette sellers. The game turns the walk into a photo essay: a man hung with portraits, a queue for oil, a bread seller, a woman handing out pamphlets. Shahreza Avenue is now Enghelab Street, and the stretch outside Tehran University is still lined with bookshops. The game never names a block, so the pin marks the avenue itself.

Location precision: The game names Shahreza Avenue but not the exact block; the pin marks the Tehran University stretch of Enghelab Street.

Babak takes Reza to the rebels' hideout in the Radio City cinema, a real Valiasr Street picture house. The game uses its corridors and darkroom as the revolution's back office: Ali argues with Bibi about tactics, Abbas recovers from his wound, and Reza develops the photographs. Radio City opened in 1958, seated 1,400 and was one of Tehran's most popular cinemas. Within weeks of the game's September 1978 scenes, a mob burned it; the ruined shell still stands near Valiasr Square and was listed as national heritage in 2018.

Location precision: The cinema is not geocoded; the pin marks Valiasr Square, at the end of the street where the article places it.

Hossein takes Reza back to the family home in Shemiran, the wealthy northern district under the Alborz slopes. Over dinner the brothers argue about Ali, the phone rings, and their mother is kept in the dark about the arrest. Afterwards Reza's father sends him to his office for a camera, the one Reza will carry into the next morning's march. The game gives the Shirazi family a comfortable home in a real district of embassies and fine parks; the house itself is fictional, so the pin marks Shemiran rather than a doorstep.

Location precision: The Shirazi house is fictional; the pin marks the Shemiran district the game names.

On 8 September 1978 the army opens fire on the crowd, and the game puts Reza in the middle of it. A man in black clubs demonstrators, soldiers fire, and Ali is hit as he stands on a car; Reza runs through the gunfire, presses bandages to the wound and helps carry him away. The real Black Friday killed at least 64 civilians and wounded 205 in Jaleh Square, the event the game is built around. The square was renamed Shohada after the revolution; the game stages the shooting in the street, so the pin marks the square.

Location precision: The game stages the shooting in a Tehran street; the pin marks Jaleh Square, where the army opened fire.

The frame story lands in Evin Prison in April 1980, where Reza is interrogated by Asadollah Lajevardi, the man who later became the prison's warden. The game makes Evin a table, a folder of documents and a tape recorder; the real prison was built in 1972 for the Shah's SAVAK, designed for 320 inmates and expanded past 1,500 by 1977. After the revolution it became the Islamic Republic's most infamous detention facility. In the game the interrogation keeps cutting back to the streets of 1978.