More below.
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I'm not too bothered about where it 'fits', and I thought the goal of the game (primarily to find the murderer, and hopefully 'help' (rather than cure, which would be impossible) the patients as much as possible while you go about it. The latter requirement led to me not asking certain questions, and in some cases advancing the day with questions left unanswered, which I can't help feeling hindered my 'investigation'. I mean, when a patient asks you whether you like them, or if you'd like to meet outside work or whatever, surely that shouldn't be answered? Though I liked the 'Should I kill my husband (again)?' plotline!KSubzero1000 wrote: ↑August 6th, 2018, 11:55 pm The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker
Okay so first of all, I don't understand what this game is to begin with. I don't know if it expects me to cure the patients (based on what? I'm not a real-life psychiatrist), solve the murder (I can't use the evidence to point out contradictions like in Ace Attorney and 95% of the dialogue seems to be unrelated chatter), or simply sit back and enjoy (?) the story. Speaking of the story, I'm still not sure if it's meant to be either a classic whodunit like something from Agatha Christie, a high-concept tale dealing with the nature of dreams and sanity like Silent Hill, or an ingenious meta-narrative with carefully foreshadowed plot twists like Zero Escape, which I initially suspected and was hoping for at the beginning but didn't seem to go anywhere towards the end. The inscrutable sanity "mechanic" hints at the middle one, but that didn't go anywhere either as far as I could tell. I find sanity mechanics to be an fascinating concept when committed to like in Eternal Darkness, but this one never made me question the protagonist's mental state. All I saw were a bunch of loopy folks talking nonsense.
But yeah, it threatened to veer off in a number of directions, as you note. I think I was happy to just follow the roller coaster - I did like the way they deepened the plot for each character via the gradual introduction of new elements (eg the mysterious stranger that turned up in Bryce's Midnight Hour).
I am colourblind, so I only noticed the sanity dots a couple of hours in, didn't see any explanation for what they were, and then never thought about them again. I did wonder what the sanity-related trophies were, but found out afterwards that if you really pushed the patients, this came into effect, but as I say all this was lost on me. I only popped the first sanity-related trophy so I guess my effort at not agitating the patients was successful.
I actually got drawn more into the story as things went along, as the patients added twists to their stories. Claire's husband and Bryce's mysterious stranger were hilarious, I thought, and I was on tenterhooks as to what to answer Claire when she asked advice on the type of issues you definitely shouldn't be giving advice on. I didn't realise that your choices changed the murderer - I thought each game picked one at the start and the responses were then tailored accordingly. I have issues with this though, see below.The dialogue sections often overstay their welcome with all the pointless babble they throw at you. I officially checked out of trying to understand the overarching story at around Chapter 4 or 5 due to the deluge of obfuscating information.
Like I mentioned in the other thread, I gave up on the "ask a question" feature early on after being repeatedly confronted with the limitations of the program. According to this Steam discussion, the identity of the murderer depends on what dialogue choices (?) you've made throughout the course of the game, which is something I straight up dislike. Good writing needs proper character arcs, and a character that can simply be turned into a completely different person at the last minute without retroactively changing anything about their previous portrayal isn't a good character in my opinion. It renders the whole plot completely unsubstantial, same issue I have with choose-your-own-adventure books.
I was amused that at first at you saying that the plot suffers in Choose Your Own Adventure books (just because plot isn't the first thing that occurs to me about those) but you're right. If the responses and killer are determined from your choices, then you'd think that the plot would certainly have some holes, if not massive ones. I'll have to think about this, it was at least well done, I thought.
Was he the Quantum Bettor? I loved himThe acting is mediocre at best, but I don't think the actors are sorely to blame for that. There is something very unnatural about emulating one half of a conversation without any sense of rhythm or anyone to bounce off of while staring blankly at a camera, and most of the scenes feel rather phony as a result. Although some are better than others, like the older dude who only appears in one chapter. 3, I think?
Didn't really notice these, there were a few lingering glances at cleavage etc, I thought, but maybe that was just me.The weird aggressive close-ups that the game uses whenever it wants to let you know how craaazy your interlocutor is gave me nervous whiplash.
It's great feedback! I had some questions earlier but have forgotten them. We are in agreement about the text entry-element taking you out of the game - do you think you'd have a better idea at the end of the game if you'd used this? I couldn't bear to use it so it's a failure on the game's part for sure. Also, did you ask every question, or did you move onto the next day with questions left unanswered?It's not all bad, though. Some plot elements / dialogue strands were more interesting than others, and at the very least it gave me some insight into a facet of gaming I know nothing about. Considering I bought it at discount price, I can't complain too much.
I'm sorry if this isn't particularly substantial feedback, buddy. But I'm really scratching my head as to what else I could write about this game that left me with a truckload more questions than answers. But by all means, ask away and I shall do my best to respond to the best of my abilities.
The 'plot' behind the plot was something about Dekker encouraging his patients' madness in an effort to hasten the return of Cthulu, or something like that. Did you make anything of that? I was interested to see where it went when Marianna was talking about something Cthulu-like, but it petered out a bit. I liked the mistress-kidnapping and that Dekker was a dangerous lunatic.
We can probably agree that there is no resemblance whatsover to real therapy? And if that's the case then how should we treat the game, as something fun and frivolous, or as something more serious. I was happy and sad for the characters at different times, and felt completely out of my depth at times, so I enjoyed the experience overall. Not sure what to make of it though.
And your own character - what was the deal with him ringing people's doorbells, living at Dekker's house and owning his dog? I felt this was a kind of random plotline that jumped into my timeline because it made no sense whatsoever in light of my questions.
Bryce (the gravedigger ) was my murderer, and I totally did not get him. This was the big question for me: does the game give you enough info in order to identify the killer, or was it entirely my failure (by not picking the correct conversation options). At no point, I believe, did I see any evidence linking Bryce to the murder. I had a pretty good (if not cast iron) alibi for two of the characters, so I was able to reasonably discount them (Marianna and Elin the Angel of Death). Then right at the end Elin pulled the cookie stunt and I lost all reason and accused her. I was pretty convinced it wasn't Claire, as she was busy murdering husbands, mistresses etc. But I had absolutely nothing to go on for the rest.PS: I almost forgot! Jaya was the murderer in my game. I accused her (out of 70% blind luck and 30% "Well it could be her, I guess?") which led to her talking vaguely threatening shit to me for 30 seconds and the game congratulating me. Cue credits. What.
All the other characters received happy endings in the epilogue. And the same epilogue also implies that one other doctor was in cahoots with... someone (?) and was declaring people insane for some legal scam or other. I have no idea what's going on.
PPS: It's entirely possible, though I firmly doubt it at this point, that the identity of the murderer had actually been subtly foreshadowed and hinted at during my playthrough. If that is indeed the case, then I'll gladly hold my hands up and admit that I didn't catch any of that subtext and that this game is significantly smarter than me. I'd love for an in-depth analysis to come out at some point and show me all this potential brilliance that I'm just not seeing at the moment.
I had really taken a shine to Bryce by the end of the game, maybe this clouded my judgement?
I really liked some of the characters - Jaya was agreeably demented too - and thought the characterisation was quite good. Drawn in broad strokes but agreeably deepened as the game went on.
The only happy ending I got was Nathan, so I guess I made a real pig's ear of the whole thing. This might be one of those things where trying to act like the caring liberal screws you over in the game.
Oh, I think I got a happy ending for my Dr, at least he didn't seem to be committed himself at the end of the game, though I agree that was handled very bady indeed.
It does sound like your experience is also that you are not given enough info. Congrats though, you did really well!
What are we playing next?