Release Date: 19/05/2017
Played On: Win
Available On: NS / PS4 / Win / XBO
Time Played: 7h 29m
Progress: Completed
Developer: D'Avekki Studios
Publisher: D'Avekki Studios / Wales Interactive
I've mentioned it before, but I'm really enjoying this renaissance of FMV in gaming, as we're at a point now where the technology has reached an equilibrium with the concept. What used to be a fairly janky way to include photo-realistic graphics in a game, has since become a viable and high resolution solution. In fact, I would argue that a lot of the modern FMV games wouldn't be half as interesting if they had gone with an all-CG cast instead.
Let's face it though, the use of FMV in games these days is often due to budget limitations, as all the big studios love to show how much they can achieve in the virtual world. It's not surprising, as CG really allows for a lot more flexibility in what you create, and allows realities to be stretched and manipulated easily and with arguably better results. However, I would argue that these days FMV is perfectly suited to the right kind of game in the right kind of setting, and no amount of artistry would make a digital world more appealing.
When it comes to a game like The Infectious Madness Of Dr Dekker, it's a formula that we've seen proven over time. After all there have been a couple of sequels in the same universe already, not to mention some closely associated competitors featuring some of the same actors for us to interact with and order about.
My own interest in FMV games largely comes from the fact that it seems to be used a lot in choose-your-own adventure type stories. I suppose that the limitations of filming scenes that can't be changed on a whim, means that you're locked into certain aspects along the way. Although, with enough variation and choice, these inflexible scenes can seem a lot more fluid by offering a number of branches on their narrative tree.
There are other genres that share this kind of branching narrative, such as visual novels, which are essentially on-rails, but offer enough choice to obfuscate their true linearity. When it's done well, there's just enough choice to prevent you forming a clear map in your head about all the possible paths, and there's enough variation on offer so that you never feel like you're stuck in a virtual corridor. What's really fun about The Infectious Madness Of Dr Dekker, is that it takes this choose-your-own-adventure formula and adds in some modern tech to spice things up a little.
Before diving into what makes this particularly unique, let's look at the game as a whole. We play as a new psychiatrist who has taken over from the eponymous Dr Dekker, who has recently been murdered. Consequently we are left with his former patients, as well as his excellently performed receptionist, all of which may or may not have motive and means with which to have murdered their former therapist.
Only by talking to each client, getting to know them, and working through their unique problems, are we able to discover what might have happened. At the same time, we learn more about our predecessor, and just how unorthodox he may have been with his treatments and psychiatric techniques. By the end of the game there are so many red herrings and possible outcomes that it becomes a real head-scratcher to try and determine who Dr Dekker's killer may have been, not to mention their motivation and actual capabilities.
What makes this a truly interesting and mysterious case to crack, is that each of your new patients have something of a supernatural story to tell. They aren't your usual clients with well-known mental illnesses or behavioural problems, as each one reveals their own fantastical secret as time goes on. Although, one thing I really enjoyed about the writing in this game, is how some clients come straight out with their seemingly ludicrous claims, while others simply hint at something mystical, but remain grounded in the facts they present.
For example (and none of this spoils anything that isn't revealed right at the start of the game), one client believes that he has an extra hour in every day. He tells us stories about how for a single hour each day, everyone and everything around him stops and he is free to move about and do as he pleases. Meanwhile, another client reveals that her happy marriage with her husband might not be all as it seems. Especially considering that she killed him a while ago, before bringing him back to life in order to continue their happy life together.
These are just a couple of examples, but each client you talk to will slowly reveal these kind of details the more you get to know them. However, instead of this falling into the depths of pure fantasy, the writing is elegant enough to always keep a foot firmly in reality, throwing up questions about the true nature of each character's life. Has the woman with the dead husband actually brought him back to life, or is she living with a corpse under the delusion that he has been resurrected? These subtle inferences and details make this a compelling mystery, and we're often left to make up our own minds on the truth of each situation.
To really drive home the excellent writing, The Infectious Madness Of Dr Dekker employs a rather interesting system of interaction that I haven't really seen before in other FMV games. Instead of simply clicking on choices that appear as you progress through the story, you're given free reign of who to talk to from the start. What's more, there's no restriction on what you can ask each character, as the main gameplay loop involved typing questions that you want to raise, using keywords to trigger responses.
Let's say you want to know more about that characters dead husband. Instead of clicking on an option to ask about her husband, you would type a question such as "what happened to your husband?" There's some kind of algorithm running in the background that pulls keywords and sentence structure from whatever you type, and matches it to clips of responses that each character will provide.
It reminded me a lot of the tag system in Her Story, where you discovered clips based on tags you typed in to search on. In the beginning you know very few relevant tags, but as you hear more of the story, more keywords are revealed to you and open up more clips with more words to take note of. This game is the same, although it wants you to ask questions like a therapist, rather than just search for keywords on a computer.
Most of the time the system is incredibly intuitive and feels close to having an actual conversation with a real person. Each character is sitting in front of you after all, and if you manage to successfully ask a sequence of questions that elicit new responses, the game really feels like you're having an organic conversation. In these moments it's at its best and feels just about as immersive and realistic as FMV games should, but that's not to say that it's flawless.
Sometimes you'll get stuck and not know what to ask next, even though the game tells you when there's more information to be gained from each character. At this point I found myself taking some wild stabs in the dark and asking random questions involving incongruent keywords and concepts that had come up in previous dialogue. Sometimes the most nonsensical line from me, would trigger a fresh bit of information, but in those instances it can be hard to figure out which part is relevant to the overall investigation. Although, despite the game's mechanics being revealed in these moments, it never ruined the overall experience for me, as any new information tended to steer me back on track for a while longer.
The real joy of playing through The Infectious Madness Of Dr Dekker, is that the madness really does become infectious. By the end of the game I had started questioning everything I saw and heard, not knowing what to trust and who to suspect. This is all thanks to some very strong writing that holds the entire experience together, as there's just enough information to keep you speculating and questioning the facts, while leaving enough room for theories and guesses to fully form.
The whole time I was playing this game, I felt like I was being spoon-fed just enough to keep me wanting more. Every time I learned something new and impactful, I had to tease it out and focus on the topic with each character to find out what they knew. Just as I started thinking I'd hit a dead end, someone would add something fresh that changed preconceptions and had me taking an entirely different perspective on what I was hearing. In this way, the writing is excellently paced and the actors involved all manage to deliver their lines and characterisations in a way that really plays to the mystery of the whole story.
I mean, it's not as if this is a Shakespearean drama featuring all the greatest actors in the world, but that's not to say the cast aren't talented. In fact, I was sold on every performance until something about it being a game took me out of my immersion. It's unavoidable that there will be moments that feature a strange edit, or a sudden jump between moods when you hit a keyword and change the subject unexpectedly. However, despite all of this I really enjoyed what each actor brought to their overall performance. It's a little campy, and a bit over the top at times, but that's all part of the charm and fun of it in the end.
While this is certainly another case of modern FMV done well, the added layer of the question mechanics really takes The Infectious Madness Of Dr Dekker to another level. It might just be a case of a particular format finding a genre that fits its limitations well, but I don't see that as something to disregard.
On the contrary, if you have any passing interest in what a modern FMV game can offer, then this is one that should be on your radar. Not only is it well produced with some interesting systems and believable gameplay, but the writing is top-notch and managed to keep the intrigue rolling right up to the final credits. Even now, as I write these thoughts down for this post, I'm not one hundred percent sure that I know what actually happened to each of the game's characters, and I'm totally fine with that.