Catathrenia - Sister Game news

This is my mini-project following me through the next couple of months where I'm having a very time consuming job. That is also why all my more serious projects are left sliding a little bit and I'm doing something light on the side I don't have to think about all too much: this right here.

Its a sister game to euthanasia and very similar in style, thats why I didn't bother to open up an extra game profile on this. The difference is that this game is more of an adventure with shooter elements than a run'n'gun shooter like Euthanasia was...I bet it will be a bit more interesting too but I'm not the one to decide that, thats you ;)

Now I know this won't be an award-winning game but I hope I can interest some of you folks in the development of this title. I release a multi level demo for free, full version will cost 2 Dollars and will be published on desura.

Plot-Summary

Jacob Craven is trying to keep his frayed life from unraveling. His days are increasingly being invaded by his nightmares which manifest into the dark corners of his existence. Beings incarnating nothing but his fears. Although he tried to escape for years, a strange outlandish being finds and contacts him every night in his dreams showing him uncomprehensible images and messages. Although a new clue about the remains of his long-lost equally troubled sister allows him to hold on to a last beacon of sanity, the line between reality and delusion is steadily growing more and more uncertain.

Read this letter to get a grip of the games storyline and tone:

My dearest sister,

It has been too long since I ever saw you for me to remember your face...time left nothing more
than a ghostly shadow of your face on the only photograph I have... maybe I'm just too old now to remember.
I'snt that what being old is all about? Slowly fading out like your memories.

I used to deny it for years... run from it as it grew stronger. The dreams.
It is save to say that I saw every single part of the world. Russia, China, the states...
All of them drenched in the dark shadows of my nightmares. Our Nightmares.
You see... Samantha... typing down your name almost made be burst out in tears. Strange... I felt so empty for
so many years. You where strong enough to admit your nightmares...to talk about them as they started to slowly
manifest in your daily life...as they started to stare at you whenver you looked in a mirror or your reflection in
a puddle of water. Thats why they locked you up...they told me you where dead. Died in a carcrash on a schooltrip I later
found out never happened.

Nobody will ever read this letter... All hope is gone. The only reason for me to take this last step is the sheer fear to face
my dreams without waking up. To be trapped in them forever. I am too old now for running. I ran 30 years. Odd! How the intensity of
my dreams just decreased depending on how much I moved.

I think it has troubles finding me, connecting with me whenever I keep moving. It is getting impatient and more agressive...the dreams get more intense, they start to show up as shadows in the corner, as reflections in the buildings and I am not the only one sensing them. It is getting worse. It keeps talking to me silently showing me these pitchblack images of impossible geometry and I can feel its
terrible loneliness and I can see its eyes... I can see an eternity of waiting. If I only could understand its demands...
You see, my beloved sister, I don't think it wants to harm me... its being is just too powerful for my weak soul... these dreams are just becoming so real because... my head is so full I sometimes can barely understand my own thoughts.

Mother died last year...that is how I found out about your past...your real past. They locked you away in this 3rd class mental hospital. Almost no documents where left, no adresses, no phone numbers. Only a card where all relevant information has been burned away. New Hope Mental Asylum. It took me a few months to find it. Almost no records have been left of this asylum... the only somewhat relevant information was on a hobbyphotographers website.. some clam who takes pictures of abandoned places. He refers to his gallery as "in the mouth of sadness" and claims the "air" in the hospital to be so dreadfully hostile... that there is some unnatural presence there that he only took a few pictures of the entrance hall and didn't dare to venture any further. Oddly enough, the place closed down due to a fire shortly after you died. Oddly enough, there are no traces of firedamage on the pictures on the website.
The author claimed to return to the building at daytime...his webblog hasn't been updated since. At least I got a location now.

All I hope for is to find any sort of clue from you that might help me end this nightmare... how I doubt it. Isn't this just the last resort of a dying man? What is left in such an asylum after 30 years of decay? I hope more than there is left of me.

Screenshots:

Current Budget:

(this includes no content I already had, only media strictly bought for catathrenia)

5€

Gameplay:

This isn't a horror game. More of a mystery adventure. I settle more for a dence and dreadful mood than flatout scaring you like in former titles. The gameplay revolves around finding clues about your sister while wandering between dream and reality. I like to call this "bipolar" gameplay as it has 2 completely different sides in the same game. Also the puzzles will work that way later on in the game. 2 choices, you do either get rewareded or badly punished for your action. No in-betweens.

This has slow adventure gameplay in the real world and more fastpaced "condemned" like gameplay in the dreamstates.

Trivia:

The focus of this project lies on how low I can keep the memory cap. Most levels only use 1300 to 1500 Megabyte. I chose an abandoned asylum as those abandoned buildings have little furniture left. So I can do most athmosphere with the textures and the lightmapping instead of cramming it up with stuff. It also features a lot of selfmade models...but not that much, its a miniproject, lets keep it lazy.

Another interesting note is that you can choose between full postprocessing, simplified postprocessing and black and white postprocessing in the final game :) I think thats a nice touch.

This game has custom characters.

Also, if you ever wanted to see a running tub in FPSC:

If not, now you saw it anyway.