A simple, 3d video game based around a single mechanic and linear story. I needed a break from the long, complex, branching storylines of my recent projects. You play as two characters on the opposite sides of a city, who are trying to find their way back to one another.
Miss Frank has been taken prisoner by the City-Killers. She is trapped in a penthouse hotel room, well accomodated but pretty much unable to do anything. She has no memory of who she was, and no idea how she got to where she is. Her room has some peculiarities, however, that may help her figure it out. There is a locked closet in the corner of the room. The mirrors are covered. There are weapons hidden inside the mattress of the bed. And a rather bossy creature (is it a ghost? Hologram? Hallucination?) is constantly "providing for her needs," which seems to consist of zapping her painfully whenever she disobeys.
Feliks is camped out in a dockside warehouse on the city harbor. He is a hardened solider, skilled with a weapon and rough from years of experience fighting the City-Killers and their Hollow Army. His mission, as he is told by his superior, is to find and recapture the key to finally defeating the City-Killers: Miss Frank. He must make his way across the city, fighting all the way through, and storm Miss Frank's prison to save her.
Miss Frank has to eat. There is a nutrient dispenser in her room. However, every time she uses the dispenser, Hollow Soldiers are released into the city, destroying everything in their path, and making it very difficult for Feliks. She can decide which holding facility they come from, and therefore how close they are to Feliks and which direction they come at him from. She can plan all this from her penthouse window, from which she can see the whole city. But she cannot stop the soldiers altogether without starving.
Miss Frank also has the opportunity to explore her room and find secrets that will help her uncover the story, and ultimately allow the player to win the game. She can uncover the mirrors, break into the closet, find the weapons in the mattress, and discover the true nature of the creature - and of herself. If she does not do her part, the game is unwinnable. She alone has the power to defeat what needs to be defeated.
Feliks also has the opportunity to uncover the story of the game, but he has the entire city to roam. Yet he must be careful. Death is around every corner, and he does not have unlimited time.
What are the City-Killers? Well, a very long time ago, the City was just like any other city; people went about their mindless business among faceless buildings, and over time, they forgot there ever was a meaning to life. One day, things got so bad that depression tainted every single person there. On that day, the combined pain of all those people came together and created the City-Killers: the living personifications of all the resentment and rotting promise inside all these people. They were led by the City-Spirit, the embodiment of all their wasted potential, finally ready to go free.
The City-Killers promptly took over the City, revengefully killing any people they could get their hands on. Now the humans are refugees, in hiding, and occasionally resisting. The few people who figured out the nature of the City-Killers and learned their lesson from the conquest have formed La Résistance. Feliks is a runner for them. The Resistance have developed a weapon that might finally grant them a victory againt the City-Killers.
Out of seven Resistance members, who gave their lives for the project, they have sewed together a new body, composed of all the life and will in those seven. It is invulnerable to the City-Killers' effect and to any other despair, and what's more, it has psychic powers.
They call it Miss Frank.
- Characters
- Miss Frank
- Amnesiacs are Innocent: Starts out as this. Later on, if you want to win the game, becomes a subversion as she recovers her memories, but remains innocent.
- Damsel in Distress: At the start of the game, which kicks off the plot.
- Damsel out of Distress: It's Felix's job to fend off the City-Killers and Hollow Soldiers and get her out of there, but only she can defeat the City-Spirit in the end.
- Hairy Girl: If you lift Miss Frank's skirts, you can see that her legs are unshaven. The Creature makes a comment on it.
- Jeanne d'Archétype: She is a young woman who was chosen by the leaders of La Résistance to be the sole key to defeating a supernatural enemy, who hears the voices of the people killed to create her and is completely dedicated to her cause (once she remembers it, that is).
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Exploited by her creators; she is designed to be one for the entire City.
- Mind-Control Eyes: An inversion. She gets the traditional swirly-eyes when she is using her powers.
- Naïve Everygirl: In personality, tends towards this trope. She is inherently lively, loyal, and kind. The "naive" part mostly comes from her amnesia, but the fact that she is incapable of depression, ennui, or Heroic BSODs makes it hard for her to understand human suffering.
- 90% of Your Brain: Not an example of the literal myth; rather, the idea is that most humans have simply chosen not to use their full potential, and instead adapted to their worthless lives. She is a solution: a being built of a group of different people's active minds, preventing her from ever losing the ability to use her full, sevenfold mind.
- Pimped-Out Dress: Miss Frank is wearing one (which can be partially seen without uncovering the mirrors), complete with visible corset, Giant Poofy Sleeves combined with a waist ribbon, ruffles, pleats, petticoats, and High-Class Gloves. She is also wearing a tiara.
- Plucky Girl: Falls somewhere between this and Naïve Everygirl, above.
- Princess Classic: Subverts and deconstructs this trope by having the pure, innocent princess in the Pimped-Out Dress be a Frankenstein-like creature sewed together out of both male and female bodies. Not to mention the psychic powers.
- Sealed Good in a Can: The City-Spirit "sealed" away Miss Frank, the only being capable of destroying him, by removing her memories and taking her in as a pet, with the goal of turning her to his side. It's Felix's job to unseal her.
- Felix
- Cultured Warrior: Carries a book of poetry that gives you perks if you quote it during battle, and is hinted to be the thing that kept him from crossing the Despair Event Horizon after being discharged from the military. Lose it, and you are a million times more susceptible to the City-Killers.
- Determined Expression: Wears one constantly.
- Eyepatch of Power: Lost one eye in a Noodle Incident.
- Miss Frank
- Perma-Stubble: Has this, to illustrate his badassery.
- The Creature/ The City-Spirit
- Driven to Villainy: By being suppressed, wasted and and forced to serve meaningless goals for literally hundreds of years.
- Finger Muzzle: Tries this on Miss Frank, but considering he's insubstantial, it doesn't work very well. He does it again anyway.
- Finger Wag: The Creature has plenty of condescending finger gestures up its sleeve.
- Leaning on the Furniture: The Creature really has trouble remembering that he can't touch anything.
- Looks Like Cesare
- Royal "We": Refers to itself this way.
- Undeathly Pallor: Whether he is strictly "undead" is up to interpretation. Neverthless, he has the skin for it.
- The City-Killers
- Black Eyes of Evil: The eyes of their human "limbs" are pure black.
- Deadly Gaze: Looking in their eyes too long can drain you of your will to live.
- Other NPC's
- Apron Matron: Felix's commander and Mission Control.
- Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: All the people in the city have this, barring the Resistance members.
- Empty Shell: The city people.
- La Résistance
- Never Mess with Granny: Felix's commander, who briefs him on his mission and helps him along the way (and yells at him if he gets off track) is an older woman.
- Gameplay
- Cast from Calories: Using Miss Frank's powers drains her of energy and requires her to eat sooner.
- Deadly Gaze: Feliks must fight the City-Killers without looking into their eyes. This can sometimes require the player to do some impressive tricks with the camera, in order to defeat each soldier without dying inside.
- Delaying the Rescue: Felix can do this in order to explore the City further, but be warned: messing around too long and ignoring Mission Control's warnings will result in Felix being noticed by the City-Spirit and promptly wiped out.
- Despair Event Horizon: The invasion of the City-Killers was triggered by every single person in the city finally crossing this.
- Girl in the Tower: Not only must Felix fight his way across the City, but once he gets to the massive, posh hotel where Miss Frank is being kept, he has to fight his way up the stairs to the top floor to rescue her. This is difficult, as the hotel is the City-Spirit's base of operations, and now he has to fight actual City-Killers, not just the Hollow Soldiers they control.
- Save the Princess: The basic plot.
