(Note: This is a copy of the same post I made at Bay12 and a couple other places. Apparently I am not allowed to link offsite, but the game is currently hosted at RPGMaker - all the downloads, links and other related content is there.)
Though not a true roguelike, your answer to the "Serial Killer Roguelike Hoax" has finally appeared (in beta form so far). Full historical blog post at the bottom...
Norm: A Serial Killer RPG
... is a very dark RPG/Adventure game, created in RPGMaker VX Ace.
*WARNING: This game contains graphic descriptions and moderate depictions of: s*x, violence, drug and alcohol use, death of humans, animals and the American Dream, extremely foul language, Donald Trump, and other themes unsuitable for the workplace, those of a young age, or those with a sensitive or impressionable nature. Player discretion is advised.*
It is a story about two people...
Faith Powers - a prison nurse with a hero complex, who is nowhere near as lily-white as she seems, but managing to maintain her veneer. She is occasionally tormented on the job by her most high profile patient...
Norman Peoples - a cannibal, convicted of thirteen counts of murder, and serving a multiple life-sentence in the bowels of a correctional facility. He will do anything to escape, and he has his ears peeled for opportunity to knock...
It is not a story about love. It is a story about survival. It is a story about what is considered "normal" - and the actual truths of the universe that send people screaming from their beds in the night. It is a story about the lies we are told. It is a story about the lies we tell ourselves. It is a story about murder, debauchery, cannibalism, fraud, extortion, torture, Stockholm Syndrome, drugs, war, heresy and black magic. It is a story about tedium... it is a story about entropy... and there will be no happy endings.
But there will be plenty of macaroni and cheese...
***Current Features***
~ Non-linear, story-heavy gameplay, set in the Washington D.C. of the Cthulhu Mythos.
~ References to real serial killers galore.
~ Killer soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails.
~ Nearly-monochrome graphics will have you seeing red.
~ Basic weather and time-of-day system.
~ Two possible "endings" for now. To be continued...
~ Four different murder Affinities to choose from, and two hidden Affinities.
~ Ten different character Classes to choose from, and three hidden Classes.
~ Cannibalize one of six different human body parts from each kill, to build your stats to your specifications.
~ Kill Count with comparison to actual historical serial killers.
~ Gain an entire experience level from each specific human you murder.
~ Random murders still yield experience.
~ Grinding if you want it. I don't see nothin' wrong with it.
~ Giant rats.
~ More giant rats. (D.C. has a serious problem...)
~ At least one hooker.
~ S*x, drugs and rock and roll.
~ Hallucinations.
~ S-Mart! Shop Smart!
~ Police bribes and brutality.
~ Evidence disposal.
~ Premeditation.
~ Impulsiveness.
~ Suicide.
~ Bleeding.
~ Severed limbs and decapitations.
~ Comas, organ failures, and terminal illnesses.
~ Donald Trump.
~ Secret stuff. Shhh.
~ Cows.
~ Dogs.
~ Pigs.
~ Evil teddy bears.
~ Redemption.
~ Zombies.
~ The end of the world as we know it.
***
A little more than two years ago I was going through a... dark period in my life. I had my heart, and possibly my mind, broken terribly - I think that love almost turned into a consuming hatred. And with no way to express how I felt at the time, I turned towards morbid entertainment, as is my wont.
She had taught me some serious lessons about pain. While I will not go into those details here... on this search for sadistic video games, I happened across Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer, by Calunio. I was delighted and shocked by the blend of fictional and actual torture themes, and the detail paid to the psychological profiles of the characters was sublime. It was a very dark love story, and so really called out to me - and it sparked my interest in creating a spiritual sequel, of sorts. I knew I wanted to use an rpgmaker engine (and I settled on VX Ace), but I did not want to recreate the same game with the same themes, so I did further research...
I have been a fan of roguelike rpg games for a long time, and so I ran across the article, regarding the scandalous "serial killer roguelike hoax" via roguebasin.
I felt it was truly tragic that such a project turned out to be a blatant hoax, and the fact the "developer" got on his high horse about the morality of such games was offensive to me. I am a rather gentle person by nature, and I play the most violent and disturbing games I can get my hands on - not a fan of jump-scares, mind you, but true cerebral horror. Games that stress you out a little bit (or a lot if you really get into them). So I resolved to do something about it.
I knew what my protagonist would be now, and a nebulous idea of a plot somewhere between Silence of the Lambs, American Psycho, and the Evil Dead movies, with a little bit of Sling Blade thrown in (mmmhmmm...), began to form.
I wanted a clever plot that was slightly recognizable, but with twists that would make people think.
I wanted a platform for my emotional garbage, and for my disgust at the politics and religion and society of this age; at the way misery and fear are sold side-by-side with candy.
I wanted to create a story that reaches inside the viewer, and rips out all their fears, and slaps them in the face with them...
And it had to have a killer soundtrack too. All the music is by Nine Inch Nails.
All of the visual media included is art manipulations made by me, and many of the themes are from actual serial killer and murder cases - notably, an altered newspaper article from the Jeffrey Dahmer case, and a montage of all of the over 100 photos of unidentified people, found in the home of serial killer Rodney Alcala.
There are no real serial killers in the game. The story is entirely fictional, and so are all of its characters. Especially Donald Trump...
The game includes themes from the Cthulhu Mythos, as created by H.P. Lovecraft, and several characters from that fictional universe.
The dialog, and many of the themes in the game, will offend you. This is intentional. So clearly, complaining will get you nowhere. I just thought I would point that out now. The language is filthy, and so are the hookers. Deal with it.
***
