, that was in development for several years then released in 2012. A supernatural drama with horror elements set in Eastern Europe, Donna and Christian are two vampires who don't realize they are being hunted. Christian is killed and Donna barely escapes with her life, caught in the crossfire of a fascist regime and she must decide whether to escape or help topple it while avenging her dead soulmate.The game can be downloaded here.
Tropes present in this game:
- Adventure Game: Point and click awesomeness complete with lots of dialog and a LucasArts-style verbcoin interface and inventory.
- Big Bad: Dr. Joshua Romero.
- Bigger Bad: Maxim Hutkoff, the leader of the Conservative Renaissance.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The false Gaelish Balsaad.
- The black box given to you by Mr. Nightly. Doubles as Artifact of Death
- Crapsack World
- Darker and Edgier than a vast majority of contemporary adventure games.
- Dead Person Conversation: Donna talks to Christian in a few of her dreams, and this is how she learns of the videotape and where to find it.
- Demonic Possession: It was really Donna who was behind Rennie's and the hotel owners' deaths, and what does her in after she kills Romero and Rightwell.
- Developers' Foresight: Looking at, interacting, and even talking to objects on screen and the items in your inventory produces different messages. It's definitely more verbose than today's point-and-click adventure games. There are also puzzles that involve audio cues, the Read Me contains a code to skip them if the player is hearing-impaired and/or has shoddy speakers.
- The Dragon: Ernest Rightwell.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: Donna's playable dream sequences can be confusing and creepy the first time you play the game, but then they make more sense when you play the game again after seeing the canon ending.
- Dream Weaver: Mr. Nightly.
- Drowning His Sorrows: Dr. Mulkin.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Donna.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Vampires, ghosts, demons, an ancient cult that used runes to summon demons, meta dream sequences, a fascist regime in a nameless Eastern European nation...
- Fictional Political Party:
- The Conservative Renaissance/Countrysons which is meant to parallel the Nazis.
- Vampires, while the general public is not quite aware of them, are regarded as a subhuman species to be exterminated.
- Milena gets called a race traitor abetting Jewry, "race traitor" is a phrase often used by neo-Nazis.
- Film Noir: Or Game Noir really, since nearly all of the game is in black and white.
- Hidden Agenda Villain: Dr. Joshua Romero.
- Incompatible Orientation: Dr. Joshua Romero and Ernest Rightwell. And it's definitely unrequited, with Romero expressing a great deal of Gayngst in his diaries while Rightwell expresses suspicion and disgust.
- Informed Attractiveness: YMMV on the actress' photos representing Donna, but a vast majority of the male characters Donna meets instantly have naughty thoughts about her. Partly plot point, partly her vampirism. Then Even the Girls Want Her.
- Milena succeeds there.
- Intrepid Reporter: Milena Tinto. She's a journalist who is unafraid to spy on the Countrysons, and conspires to take them down.
- Leitmotif: There are two distinct melodies that play when you are in abject danger, and when you are in a safe place such as Dr. Mulkin's or Milena's abodes.
- Lipstick Lesbian: Milena.
- MacGuffin: The Gaelish Balsaad, and the videotape.
- Multiple Endings
- Happy Ending:Donna escapes with Milena to a tropical paradise, but it's not only not canon, it bypasses several extra areas of the game. You also only escape the Countrysons, not take them down, so it's not really a Golden Ending.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Countrysons are taken down and order begins to return to the nation, but Donna dies after the final battle. Doubles as Earn Your Bad Ending because there is a significant amount of extra gameplay and story exposition in this path.
- Immune to Bullets: Donna falls like a stone if a bullet hits her, and this is how Christian dies as well. If your reaction time is too slow or you go the wrong way in the hotel sequences, you'll see how hard this trope gets subverted.
- Multiple Life Bars: The blood meter isn't hit points per se, but rather your allowance for using superpowers (described below.) There is also a calmness meter, which fluctuates depending on various events — looking at the Countrysons poster and some of the letters reduces calmness, but smoking a cigarette increases calmness 'and' acts as the Hint System.
- Only the Chosen May Wield: Donna is The Chosen One to be used as a vessel for the Gaelish Balsaad.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Donna and Christian can be photographed without incident. Although Donna needs blood for survival, her blood level acts as something of a life bar to use her special abilities rather than a frenzied activity or sexual pleasure. Most people aren't aware that vampires exist, with the exception of Dr. Mulkin and the Countrysons. Donna's vampiric superpowers are:
- Super Strength
- Charm Person, comes in handy if you don't want to pay for things.
- Telepathy, although it's more of an assessment than direct mind-reading.
- Superhuman Hearing
- Pyrrhic Victory: The canon ending. Romero is killed, the Countrysons are defeated, but Donna is killed after the Demonic Possession from the real Gaelish Balsaad was just too much for her.
- Putting on the Reich: Smack at the beginning of the game, the black uniforms and runic "CS" symbols seen later in the game signify the Mooks you must avoid.
- Really 700 Years Old: Christian is an incredibly old vampire, while in contrast Donna has only been immortal for about 25 years.
- Ruritania: Played with, in that the setting is a small, nameless Eastern European country but the majority of the game takes place within a sizable city.
- Waif Prophet: That homeless guy who seems to show up at just the right moments, delivering those creepy letters pertaining to Mr. Nightly .
