Cue a letter from the murderer (introducing himself as Oscar) that he's kidnapped Sam's love, Anna, and that Sam has to play his little game if he ever wants to see her again.
The plot is largely about exploring the mansion and grounds in which Oscar has set up his operations, trying to make sense of the clues Sam discovers about him and find a way to rescue Anna.
It was released for PC in 2011, then ported to iOS in 2012. The Collector's Edition, featuring a bonus chapter, and the original game can be found and bought on the Big Fish Website.
, or on Steam.
A sequel was released under the name Brink of Consciousness: The Lonely Hearts Murders; this time set in Victorian Britain, players are put in the shoes of a completely different protagonist, Owen Wright, who seeks to rescue his daughter Olivia when she's kidnapped by the Lonely Hearts Club Killer.
Brink of Consciousness: Dorian Gray Syndrome provides examples of the following tropes:
- Bad "Bad Acting": Anna, particularly in the "Marriage" skits that Oscar plays over the intercom, with her reading wooden and full of stutters. Justified because she's terrified out of her mind.
- The Bad Guy Wins: In the bonus chapter, Oscar not only fulfills his ambitions of becoming a great work of art, but also frames Sam for his suicide and all of the previous murders.
- Damsel out of Distress: Anna is kidnapped by Oscar and spends most, if not all, of the game as his captive, she does take opportunities to communicate with Sam when Oscar isn't around, and at the end of the game she is the one who saves Sam from Oscar's taxidermy tube, after bludgeoning Oscar on the head.
- Disproportionate Retribution: From Oscar, given to the people he "preserved", whenever he describes it as a punishment. He also threatens to kill Anna if Sam scratches his car.
- Foreshadowing: Oscar makes a big deal of talking about love with Sam — if he thinks Anna really is his true love, whether or not their relationship will work, that marriages are doomed to fail and that all love ultimately disappoints. This seems to imply relationship troubles in his past, but it's actually because he plans on making Sam and Anna into his new "Lovers" exhibit.
- Freudian Excuse: Oscar describes many incidents in his life that caused him pain, and the player can find a number of letters that appear to indicate a messy childhood and father issues. In the end, it's revealed that he made everything up to mess with you, subverting the trope.
- I Have Your Wife: Oscar kidnaps Anna at the start of the game and is using her as a hostage to get Sam to go along with his mind games.
- Insane Equals Violent: Some of the littered documents Sam can find discuss Oscar being diagnosed with different mental disorders, schizophrenia among them. But Oscar later reveals that everything Sam found out about him was a lie, leaving the question of Oscar's sanity (or lack thereof) up in the air.
- Jail Bake: One of the items Sam needs is baked in a cake. Oscar even lampshades it.
- Karmic Death:
- Of a sort. Oscar dies by being drowned and preserved just like he's done to so many of the people he kidnapped... but that was exactly as he planned it.
- He also claims that he gave a Karmic Death to some of his exhibits.
- Malevolent Masked Man: Oscar, of course.
- Stealth Pun: The villain calls himself Oscar. Sam's last name is Wilde.
- Taxidermy Is Creepy: Oscar preserves the bodies of his victims in huge jars of green fluid, and many a jumpscare in the game is to reveal these bodies in unsettling ways as you traverse the grounds.
- Unreliable Narrator: Oscar. But he's a serial killer, so what do you expect?
- The Unreveal: Who Oscar is, and why he does what he does, is a mystery Sam slowly unravels as he goes along with Oscar's games. Then Oscar tells him that everything Sam thinks he knows about him is a lie, and his true nature is never revealed to the audience. The only real clue to Oscar's backstory that players get is from the second game, where it's implied Oscar's preservation process is based on Matilda Graham Taylor's experiments.
Brink of Consciousness: The Lonely Hearts Club Murders provides examples of the following tropes:
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: You play as Logan the detective in the bonus episode, since Owen no longer has a personal stake in catching the killer.
- Bittersweet Ending: Though a lot of people did end up dead at the Lonely Hearts Club Killer's hands, Owen does eventually find and rescue Olivia. The bonus episode is even more bittersweet, though, as Matilda has been arrested for her crimes, but not before she killed an entire town for her experiments on human preservation. As she's being arrested, she also notes that she has created a new kind of art with her experiments, and that others will surely follow in her footsteps. Players of the first game know she's right.
- Interrupted Suicide: Of a sense; during the confrontation with Archie Thompson, the killer, Archie prepares to stab himself because he feels he's stopped being true to his art with his recent doings. He's shot and killed by Benjamin before he has the chance.
- Love Hurts: The theme of the game, where the people being killed are those who suffered painful heartbreak. The killer himself claims that he's setting these hearts "free".
- Papa Wolf: Owen Wright, who goes through the game determined to rescue Olivia from the Serial Killer that's kidnapped her. During the confrontation with the killer he becomes especially heated and snarls insults at him, while the detective Logan urges him to stay calm.
- Stealth Prequel: The sequel of the game takes place in the Victorian era, while the first game was in a much more modern setting, and the cast of characters is entirely different. It's not clear that the game takes place in the same continuity at all until the player sees the familiar green taxidermy tubes from the original, and it's revealed Matilda's work is likely what ended up inspiring Oscar.
- Taxidermy Is Creepy: This game has even more of the green taxidermy tubes from the first game, though this time they're made even creepier by being opaque so the player can't quite make out the details of the victims inside.
- Villainous Mother-Son Duo: It turns out that Matilda Graham Taylor aka the mother of Archie Thompson, the Lonely Hearts Club Killer, is equally villainous and murderous, and takes you on herself in the bonus episode. It's revealed she had a hand in almost every crime he committed.
