Wisbech-based indie developer D’Avekki Studios has released its official gameplay trailer and Greenlight campaign for first-person talker FMV murder mystery, The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker. The game is the first FMV to allow players to type their own questions instead of choosing from a pre-determined list.
The player takes on the role of a psychiatrist, tasked with treating the unusual patients of the recently deceased Doctor Dekker. Patient responses are taken from over 1600 full-screen HD videos (note: BAFTA-winning Her Story had 271) providing clues about the murder and themselves. Patients will ask the player questions too, and player responses influence the nonlinear storyline which culminates in one of multiple endings. With six main suspects and five ‘side-quest’ patients, including John Guilor (Ryan Rand from 2015’s Contradiction: Spot the Liar), the story unfolds over five rounds of sessions after which the player must decide which of the patients is the murderer.
“We’ve made the game we wanted to play, with hours of full screen video and a freedom of speech interface?—?ask the characters anything just by typing it,” explains D’Avekki Studios director Tim Cowles. “The player is essentially the protagonist?—?the Doctor who all the patients look to for help, so you’re not just passively observing. You’re right in there making real-time decisions that affect each character’s psychological well-being.”
The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker was written, produced and filmed on a micro-budget (<£3,000) over the course of nine months in the village of Gorefield in North Cambridgeshire, UK, and programmed in California, USA. Development was completely self-funded and the game is due for release at the end of 2016, pending votes on Steam Greenlight where the official gameplay trailer and more details can be found:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=775251608
About the Developer
D’Avekki Studios are a husband-and-wife team who have been making murder mystery dinner party games since 2004, as well as numerous other film and game related projects.
