Daniel is a somewhat successful artist, who tends to spend most of his time in his home with his two cats. He is recently (a few years ago) divorced, and has cut off all ties with his ex-wife. So that’s why he found it rather odd he received a letter from her in the mail, telling him he needed to get out of the house, live a little, and go on a cruise. They had always talked of the idea, but now she was telling him to go, and had even bought the tickets.

The Cruise was one that went towards Alaska, and offer a much more interesting alternative to their tropical counterparts. Tours of glaciers, local ports, wildlife, etc all are on the itinerary for this trip, and it actually looked interesting enough to Daniel that he decided to go.

After packing and setting everything he’d need aside and taking care of his cats, he expected to meet his ex-wife at the dock where they’d be boarding the ship (He was only sent one ticket, and told to ‘wait for me’). While he was…distasteful of his ex-wife (To say the least) he decided since she’d gone to all this trouble he’d go ahead and go (A free cruise is still a free cruise).

At any rate, he doesn’t find her there waiting, and is the last to board the ship. He asks if she’s on the guest list, and the boarder does a quick check. No one by that name has purchased a ticket. Odd…maybe she simply wanted to send him off. He boards the ship and quickly finds his room, and unpacks for the 7-day voyage up the Pacific Coast.

After he unpacks, he is able to explore the ship a little, as it disembarks from the port, and heads out to open waters. He runs into the captain and First Mate of the ship, and learns the name of the cruise ship (It is then that he finds it odd to himself the tickets had no mention of it, nor any signs as he was boarding): The Shining Tear. The captain explains it is her final voyage, and the travel company wanted to save money by simply printing generic items for the final cruise it was to be taking, before being decommissioned and sold for scrap.

After exploring, he returns to his room, tired, and falls asleep. However, he doesn’t sleep for long before he feels the need to get some fresh Sea air. It is there that he meets up with the strange woman, who is out apparently getting the same thing. She doesn’t say much to him, beyond a few cryptic words, and finally bids him a good night and leaves for her quarters. He finds the whole encounter a bid odd and unsettling, but not so much as to ruin the rest of his night.

A few more days pass, and on the evening of the 3rd day (As they are in Alaskan waters) he goes for the same thing he’s been doing: Going out for a walk in the crisp sea air. He finds the woman again, only this time she looks like she’s seen a ghost…or worse. She doesn’t say a word to Daniel, but instead breaks away from him and runs back towards the guest quarters. He decides she must indeed be insane, and shrugs it off as best he can. But when he returns to his room, he finds an awful smell, almost like burning garbage. Not enough to cause him to not be able to breathe, but enough to make his eyes water. And now there’s an odd stain on the door to his bathroom.

He investigates.

Ok, now here’s the part you’ve all been waiting for…how has the game changed? And -why- has it changed? The short and sweet version is there really was little to no interest in creating a 100% unique tileset (as in no rips from any other games) even for the amount of money I was offering initially. As such, I started to think what I could do to make this game actually happen, and not become (like so many ambitious projects before it) vaporware.

So I came up with (along with the wonderful assistance of Rye) the CriminalDreamer idea. Basically, I would take the game style of the old (never Stateside released) Radical Dreamer SNES game and add in different elements from two other genres. The Dating Sim, and the Dungeon Crawler. Well, the OLD dungeon crawlers (Pre-Diablo :P). Ever hear of ShadowGate? Or perhaps the Uninvited? And how about dating Sims where the choices you make in dialog affect the outcome of the story as to who will ‘choose you’ and make sweet sweet love all night long?

Ok, scratch the love making, but those elements are all apparent in the CD engine. The game will basically look as follows (And please not this is a very rough mock-up):

http://www.pcis-studios.com/sketch/rmxp/deo/Entry.png[/img]
This is a general ‘whenever you enter a new room/area and need to be told something’ screen. It will be a good deal of text describing certain aspects of the room, from certain items that may catch your eye, to survivors, to any number of other things.

http://www.pcis-studios.com/sketch/rmxp/deo/talking.png[/img]
This screen is what happens when you encounter anything that is either going to talk to you, or is directly talking to you at that time. The player’s ‘battler’ will appear when they speak, and vice versa for the NPCs. This is where the dating sim comes into play. Just because you’re alive, doesn’t mean other survivors will go with you immediately. You may need to sweet talk them, or convince them otherwise.

http://www.pcis-studios.com/sketch/rmxp/deo/options.png[/img]
Sub-Options! Picking anything that will allow you to have other options (Such as Look…well, look at what?) will give you things you’re able to select in the text screen at the bottom. This is lifted from the Shadowgate type games, only removes the cursor from the game entirely.

http://www.pcis-studios.com/sketch/rmxp/deo/Menu.png[/img]
The Menu. Seems pretty basic, but it gets the job done. This is where you can use different items to defend yourself, restore lost health (If I decide to go that route in the finished product) and various other game related things. This is where you’ll also access the map, which is used to travel from location to location on the ship.

http://www.pcis-studios.com/sketch/rmxp/deo/Fight.png[/img]
Fight! Battles are the most unique aspect of this game. Again, this is taken from Radical Dreamer. Basically, you are presented with a number of options, and picking any one of them will have a certain effect on the outcome. However, while it may seem like a player could get all the ‘right’ answers to combat to survive each time, they can only progress in the game (And not die) after they unlock a certain selection that is specifically used to ‘defeat’ each enemy you encounter. Doing this is a large part of the puzzle of the game, and not doing it will ultimately result in certain death.

- Unique Game play relying heavily on thinking and story based play. Not your normal Adventure Game, or RPG.
- Custom Artwork specifically for this game, including Characters, Monsters, Window Art and Backgrounds.
- 100% originally composed soundtrack
- Multiple Endings depending on how you played the game
- Unique Boss Battles
- Complex puzzles, with multiple solutions.
- Dark, gothic atmosphere
- Easter Eggs!
- And Much, Much More

Daniel Hatch
Age - 28
Weight - 185lbs
Eyes - Hazel (Bluish-Gray)
Hair - Light Brown/Dark Blonde

Daniel is a simple artist who rarely leaves his home. However, it is not fear, or even something as simple as being a recluse. He simply finds he has little reason to leave his home, beyond getting supplies for his art, or food and things of that nature.

While soft-spoken, he is a kind spirit, who usually tends to his artwork, which sells rather well, and helps to support him and his two cats. He has no romantic interests, and speaks very little of his marriage that started and failed a few years back. He also never mentions or speaks of his family, so even his closest friends don’t know anything about his past. He merely keeps to himself.

Dr. Richard Forth
Age - 57
Weight - 217lbs
Eyes - Green
Hair - Almost Gray from Red

Dr. Richard Forth has been a psychologist for over 30 years, and has helped to treat and ‘cure’ hundreds of people in that time. His proper diagnosis of certain ailments early on in several cases allowed him to not only help his patients sooner than most other ‘shrinks’ but it also gave him a type of trust with them that most other Doctors spend years building.

His type of medicine is simple. He rarely prescribes medication, save for the most extreme of cases (and even then he is unable to prescribe them, as he never received the proper medical training, only suggest and refer them to a psychiatrist), instead relying on a more holistic approach. Cure the mind, heal the body, so therefore heal the body, cure the mind. So he uses exercise and eating right as part of his approach. He also tries to set up a more personal relationship with those patients he feels would benefit from such interaction. In fact, several of his closest friends now in his old age were former patients.


Mysterious Woman (Alicia)
Age - Unknown. Looks Late 20s-Early 30s
Weight - Looks to be around 115-125lbs
Eyes - Brilliant Blue
Hair - Burgundy

The woman Daniel meets on the cruise ship is little more than an attractive woman he happened to meet while out ‘exploring’. However, it soon becomes frightfully apparent that she is somehow involved in what is taking place on the Cruise ship. Whether she is a willing participant, or another victim like Daniel himself, is unclear. All that is known is that she speaks in cryptic riddles, forcing Daniel deeper and deeper into what is going on, ultimately forcing upon him a choice of sacrifice. Or will she? It’s hard to say what this woman may end up getting Daniel to do, but he seems strangely drawn towards her.

When they first meet, she is in a casual party dress, but the night he runs into her and first hears her cryptic words, she is dressed in stark contrast. She is merely in a sweatshirt and jeans, and her face is plain…totally devoid of the makeup she wore when they met. And from then on she is seen in either outfit, but never the same twice.

Captain Griffin Archibald
Age - Late 40s
Weight - Around 185lbs
Eyes - Brown
Hair – Black, Balding

The only African American cruise captain for the company he sails for, he’s actually pretty impressed with himself and his accomplishments. A well spoken and worldly man, he’s seen it all. He is a former Navy Captain, who is highly decorated, and was fit to simply spend his retirement on dry land, but missed the call of the sea. So for the past few years he’s been sailing the Deo Capax.

This being her final voyage, he feels a bit sad, as it will most likely be his final voyage for a few years as well, his wife having given birth to their second child recently, and him wanting to be around for this one, unlike his first child. But he’s determined to make it the best of his short cruise captain career.

More to Come

These are the major ‘bosses’ within the game, if you want to describe them in a traditional sense. While Daniel and whomever he’s able to save and convince to join him along the way will face many things of nightmare, these are the ones you must avoid at all costs until you are ready to face them.

Rebirth - The Dark Mother

What can be said of a mother compelled to take the life of her child? What causes a woman who gives life to something so fragile to decide to take it away? Religious zealotry? Trying to protect an innocence from becoming yet another corrupt soul? Or perhaps it is merely a lust for death, and the knowledge that once that life is gone, another may come to replace it again.

Rebirth is probably the most twisted of the beings Daniel will encounter on this cruise, and rightly so. He discovers her not only taking the life of her child, but…well…I leave that for you to discover. But truth be told she is probably the easiest to escape from. Her charge is not to seek out Daniel, but children. And unless Daniel gives her reason to believe he is one of her brood, there is little for him to fear…that is…well…unless Daniel happened to remind her of someone.

She is a strikingly beautiful woman, who looks to be in her prime for giving life to the world; ample bosom and hips, and well built…but her bloodstained hands and endless tears belie this image grossly. Her bare, bloodstained feet also add to this image, but the most disturbing part of her is the gaping hole where her womb should be. Devoid of life, or anything for that matter, it is filled with dark, viscous fluids, and poisons that would surely kill Daniel should he get close enough to touch her.

She opens her mouth to speak…no…scream. But all that comes forth is an endless torrent of gushing blood.


Infidelity – The Shallow Kiss
The urge and instinct to reproduce is a powerful one. We, as a species, cannot continue to exist unless we reproduce. But what happens when desire is more than what it seems to be, and boils over into obsession? Crimes of passion are almost the norm these days, but the true severity isn’t in the crime, but the criminal. Were they not doing what love bade them to do? Were they not acting out of passion? Something we all are susceptible to? It merely needs to find our breaking point.

Infidelity is the perfect lover. Androgynous so that is may seduce and allure whatever mate it needs to reproduce, but there is something…amiss in this beautiful face. So many lovers, and so little time, it must do what it can to attract them all, and it does this with startling brutality and precision. It is comprised of the skin of past lovers, all sewn together intricately, but in delicate and purposeful ways to try and allure the next victim. Beauty is skin deep, and it wears them well. It accomplish its grisly task of love and death through attracting the mate, and then drawing them in…but once it finds they are unsuitable, or if they are scorned in their advances, then it takes from it what is attractive, and adds it to its amalgam, with hacksaw and scalpel in hands.

Infidelity looks like a beautiful person, from a distance. But on closer inspection it is found that there are fine lines…separating pieces of dead skin sewn together. Daniel would do best not to be taken in by what soothing words this siren speaks, as it could very well be his last act. There is a way to see what lies beneath the surface, but none have lived once they saw the true ‘beauty’ of Infidelity.

It looks so tempting, and the promises it makes are sweet…too sweet…for to lie with it would invite the devil and his court into my bed as well.


Duality - The Maddening Laughter
Insanity is an aspect of human nature that is considered to be the dark underbelly. For centuries, even those who only had minor mental handicaps were considered to be either possessed, or insane. However, what happens when one creates more than one face to show the world? Such insanity create new personalities to deal with traumatic events, where one will hold the pain and the other will simply go forth with life as if it never happened. But over time that precarious balancing act will fall to one side, and rarely does it end well.

Duality is a jester of the darkest sense. He wears many masks, and at times is jovial and comical in his actions, and at others he is dark and sinister, almost as if he were enjoying the most intense pleasure from his sadistic acts. How easy it is for a jester of all things to make one feel at ease, before he lands the killing blow. There is beauty in the deaths he administers, but that is not what fuels him. He relishes in the chance to further fracture himself, and those he seeks to kill.

He looks Thin, gaunt almost. His dress is odd however, looking like a magician, even with the cape…but his clothes are tattered and bloodstained. His limbs are another matter as well…legs with impossible joints, arms long and forever twistedly bent, with a disjointed movement he stalks before the kill. His face is fully hidden from view because of the masks he wears, and nothing can make him take it off…or can it? The weapon Duality chooses is as twisted as its own madness. A Mace, with a human head attached to the end of the pike, shards of glass having been driven though it, two pieces of mirror replacing the eyes of whatever poor soul had the misfortune of donating their head to such a ghastly item.

Mirror images and faded memories repressed he holds dear. He gives weight to the fractures of self, and gleefully shatters each shard further, using the pieces to reflect back the truth.


Chimera - The Forced Choice

When all elements of humanity and what one faces on a daily basis are taken and looked at, once driving theme can usually be found. Confusion. But with confusion can also come the blinding rage, and the inability to correctly deal with this debilitating anger and hatred is what can push people over the edge. Everyone faces this sort of stress, but not everyone can cope. Once a breaking point is reached, only succumbing to that more primal urges and rages can satiate. Is it just? Does it make sense? When the dust settles it rarely does.

But for one shining moment, clarity is reached. However, at what cost?

Chimera is an amalgamation of several deadly creatures, sporting three heads, wicked bone blades protruding from its shoulders and elbows, razor sharp teeth and claws, and a mallet as huge as its own body. It uses this to force judgment on all it encounters, leaving none to escape its harsh sentence. Not much else is known, other than the fact it wants Daniel, and nothing will stop it.

Nothing.

What’s a game topic without little extras to entice people into following it with bated breath? Well, for this one, you’ll see the different concept pieces I’ve received for Deo Capax, as well as official items as they become available.

Also, you’ll get to listen to the Official Theme for Deo Capax.

Please Note: The items herein are NOT to be used with out my express written consent.