DEMEMORIZE: a 2.5d story/horror game about...

NEURAL-9: A degenerative, neurological disease that eats away at memory and spreads through eye contact.

WARD #6: A pediatric ward for suffers of N9, but it seems somehow very far removed from the normal world...

PATIENT 2876 aka Tess: a resident of Ward #6 who can no longer speak, but might possess the level head needed to unravel the truth of Allsaints Hospital... and evade its dangers.



Dememorize is an exploration/horror/story game originally developed for Screamjam 2021. Gameplay is under an hour and mostly involves talking to other ward residents during the day in 3rd person, and then exploring the greater hospital by night in 1st person.

Audio + sound design: https://itch.io/profile/crystalchambersounds
Portraits: https://psycho-sun-interactive.itch.io/

StatusReleased
PlatformsWindows, macOS, HTML5
Rating
Rated 4.6 out of 5 stars
(41 total ratings)
Authorspsy_wombats, Galactica M., crystalchambersounds
GenreAdventure
Made withUnity
Tags2D, 3D, Female Protagonist, Horror, Pixel Art, Psychological Horror, Story Rich
Average sessionAbout an hour
LanguagesEnglish
InputsKeyboard

Download

Download
Dememorize v1.4 Windows (better performance) 29 MB
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Dememorize 1.3 MacOS 31 MB

Development log

Comments

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geez that sucks. was on night 4 and went up the stairs but the game crashed. am on chromebook and playing it in browser tho so thats prolly why. incredible game, will definitely try on a PC to get to the ending!

Loved this very much! Can i ask, what engines did you use to mix pixel art and 3D?

(2 edits)

Hi, glad you enjoyed the game.

The game is made entirely in Unity.  Sprites use a billboarding technique for a 3D effect (and some shader tricks to work with the geometry properly). The 3D maps are made with homegrown in-Unity editor originally design for tactics games. If you're interested, the source for all this is available at https://github.com/psywombats/scream-2021 .

Wow! Thank you so much, i've been thinking about making a game with this aestethic 2.5D, btw, you did this in a few days? :O

Neat, yeah 2.5 isn't much more difficult to pull off than 3D, provided you've worked with 2D stuff like spritesheets.

And yes the game was made in about two weeks. But it's a team of three, I work professionally in Unity, and I cribbed a bunch of old code to get some basic systems (mapping, cutscenes, sprites, audio) all going. ...and didn't get much sleep haha

Amazing, yeah I've been making Pixel Art for a few games before, but haven't done any 3D,  yet. Yeah i feel you, 2 weeks grinding will mess me up for a whole month

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My review will have a lot of SPOILERS, so finish the game first:




Not a spoiler free review.

Not a spoiler free review.

Not a spoiler free review.
















This is a really, really good game.

The game really handles story-telling well, especially of how it builds up the atmosphere, and the visible life on the characters and the atmosphere;

The way the game gives information about the characters to the player is handled excellently!

The game makes believable characters by giving slight information about their hobbies, backstory, and how they feel without information overload and with their mystery still in tact.

The game doesn't care if they "please" people which made the game more humble like a literal person, but I feel like after Day/Night 1, and especially Twilight; the game switches to a new path and becomes desperate and tries really hard to please you by having a cliche plot twist in the end. To be honest, I didn't really liked the game's ending; maybe it's because I'm salty and I don't like sad endings like that.

It makes me feel like I'm in an alternate timeline where the game chose ending B since it really does seem like "Fate's bad ending" for me.

If I could describe the game's ending A it would probably be like this;


  • N9 would be a real deadly disease with different side effects for people.
  • The Ward would be a huge, functioning, and guarded location.
  • The doctors would be working on a cure for N9.
  • No more "doctors making clones of Tess till the being awakens, and that disappointing, 'you are a bug in the system'".
  • Tess and the player are the same person



  • Owen and Tess save Cecily, who is an actual different patient in the ward.


It doesn't really matter if you implement those or not, but I did play this game near May or April and instantly stopped at Night 1 to take months of break, then continued and finished the entire game last week. But I swear, Day 1 really built up the story just to have it fall in the bottomless pit in Twilight.

Though, I am content with the game's ending and I am okay if it stays like that. I was kinda expecting this game to be like The Promised Neverland during and after my 1st session of game.

But if there's anything the game can improve on it's to;

Make the abstract writings readable without the stereotypical writing like Cecily's letter, instead of random words appearing.

(The writings could be vague if you want, as long as they each contain backstory, or lore, or foreshadowing.)


This game may be just something for a game jam, but for a game jam entry; this game is really good, this game seems to have life in it. The game makes me as well wonder what's the outside of the Ward if it was real and how the people would be doing in the Ward, as if it seems comprehensible enough. If this game is given more care, this could stand alone as a game.


EDIT: (also if you're planning to make this more polished or a game, maybe more replay ability would help; at this point, this post is basically a wishlist for a game)

(3 edits)

Also wanted to say that: 


Uhhh... spoilers spoilers for Death Note and the game of course

Uhhh... spoilers spoilers for Death Note and the game of course

Uhhh... spoilers spoilers for Death Note and the game of course









(ALSO, THIS GAME REMINDS ME OF DEATH NOTE, AND DEATH NOTE'S ENDING KINDA SUCKS BECAUSE LIGHT DIED AND TERU IS KINDA A DUMBASS AND TERU KINDA PARALLELS DR COOPER HERE. Anyway, enough of me being salty)

(3 edits) (+1)

Haha, "wishlist for a game" is a perfectly legitimate post. Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful feedback.

The game is indeed "just something for a game jam," but for me a jam is an excuse to braindump a ton of plot half-ideas that I don't have any other outlet for -- partially with the goal of seeing what works as part of compelling story and what doesn't. I tried something new with DEMEMORIZE in writing a lot more abstractly, with a mood in mind more than a destination, and I think what I've learned from feedback is: characters/dialog matter a lot more than the mood or specific plot points.

Specifically, the setting for this game is sort of an abbreviated version of a setup I'd intended for a larger story that /does/ hinge on more interaction with an outside world, more complex relationships with the staff, and more worldbuilding w/r/t idea of a memory disease. And it seems that scenario makes up the good parts of DEMEMORIZE a lot more than the other growing plot stuff (which is drawn from some other horror fodder, mostly around the fear of being forgotten).

One of the advantages of this weirdo plot though is that some of the events are open to interpretation, and while I have my interpretation that is internally consistent, there /should/ be multiple consistent interpretations... which sounds like a really lame excuse haha but I at least believe Tess and Cecily to both be their own people, regardless of Gray's conclusion.

But yeah, really, it's very encouraging personally to read your thoughts and it's pushing me to expand on some of the ideas explored here in a larger-scoped project.

(+1)

(Here's another feedback, if you don't mind: )

I may have overestimated this game too much, to the point that I forgot that this was just a game.

This game somehow describes my life, but declaring it as if it's something that is "relatable" to me is a misconception.

I also wanted to differentiate the research papers (abstract writings* with random words on first post) and the game's day intro; the research papers were kinda bland, but the game's day intro was very interesting and more ominous.

The game knows how to implement certain features such as; switching perspectives at night and day, without making it scuffed.

One last thing: Story games die off after knowing the end, especially when you already know what's someone is gonna say or know what's gonna happen. That's for the game's mystery.

Though that's optional if you want to solve that problem since part of a game being excellent is by being imperfect.

As for relevancy, a game called Undertale deals with this excellently; the countless mysteries of the game, back the game up, but it's also its disadvantage since all you have to do is to know all the mysteries to get rid of its value.

And not even bothering to read also makes story games pale.

Perhaps, pleasing the people who wants to be pleased is a good tip for the game.

heyy really awesome game - enjoyed it so much!!! SUCH A GOOD STORYLINE WOW!!!!!!

the 'jump' button is super handy when it comes to going back where i left off without having to start from the beginning again.

i got a little stuck with night 2 as i believed i had completed all the 'tasks' or explored all the things i needed to, however nothing has happened beyond the investigation of cecily's report... i went back to tess's room but found no way to carry on to day 3... sorry for being so vague, dont want to spoil anything... but am i missing something?

(+1)

Hi! Glad you're enjoying things so far.

On night 2, in the lab area where you finished night 1, you've found Cecily's report? Right next to that report should be a door into the director's office. Once you've read the paper inside the director's office, something should be waiting for you back in the lab.

oh perfect!!! thanks so much

(+2)

Hey, bud. Finally got around to playing this. Fun stuff! Only thing is that on Day 4 (trying to be spoiler free here), when the thing happens...

1. The doors on the south side of the hallway are gone (but you can still interact with the wall and it says the doors are locked)

2. The door the commons is NOT locked, and when you go in there, the camera perspective is wrong, and it softlocks the game by preventing you from leaving.

But, I had a good time! Glad I finally made time for this. Great job.

(2 edits) (+1)

This was a very cool experience. Good, spooky atmosphere and an intriguing story (which I'm still trying to piece together). 

I did have couple issues while playing, though. Hit one hang during my first appointment with Dr. Cooper (right after he asked for my name), but just restarted the chapter. The bigger issue I had was that vertical navigation (e.g. going up/down stairs) was really clunky and slow, which made navigating certain rooms quite annoying.

Movement speed was also a bit slow, but you happen to be able to double-dip on the movement keys (e.g. left arrow + A) to move faster, which made it better.

Overall, a bit rough around the edges, but I really enjoyed it all the same!

(+1)

Thanks for your feedback! I'll see if I can find a proper solution for vertical navigation -- I was never quite happy with it either. It's a somewhat difficult problem and at the moment the implementation as at "it works" rather than "it feels good."

(+1)

This is very good. I love it.

(+1)

wow, that was terrifying! i loved it!!!

I like how the dialogue window lerps between characters :)

(+1)

Haha, yeah, it turns out it's actually really important to a dialog-heavy game like this to have something for the eye to follow during long conversations, vs having boxes pop up suddenly all over

(-3)

Honest question, but how often did you playtest the game? Including all the previous issues that people have mentioned (Well, including me) the game also managed to crash on night 3.


How did any of these get missed? You might want to replay your game in case you find any additional bug that no one else has spotted yet.

(+3)

haha, I guess the answer is "not enough times."

If you're serious about "honest question," the game is a jam entry, and so was developed in ~10days, the last 6 hours of which were devoted to QA time and misc panicking -- and afterwards the uploads were frozen for a week for reviews until a bugfix could be released, so a lot of people ended up hitting the same known issue. It's a problem with (relatively) long games with short dev cycles that bugs inevitably show up, and I'm looking to improve on it. This is my first time putting out a WebGL build (and working with fmod in general) so it does look like there's some stability stuff that needs to be patched up with my core engine code. My playtesting has been mostly with the desktop version, which doesn't help much with bugs exclusive to WebGL -- and I'm suspecting what you've run into is one, as I can't offhand reproduce it. The other stuff that's appearing in your dev console I think is harmless?

Bu thanks for the report -- I'm a firm believer that a player's most valuable resource is their time, and both "playing bugged stuff" and "submitting bugs" are hits against that. Will try to repro and get a 1.31 out.

(+1)

that was terrifying. 

(+1)

!!Spoiler warning!!
That was so good and left so many questions, like was the latter part all an N9 induced hallucination? Who were you the whole time if you weren't the MC, were you the same person and just different parts of the brain? 
were they clones????

If you have any hints to what this all meant that would be pretty cool, but if you dont wanna give any that's also cool, really good game though like this was really interesting. 

(+1)

Haha, I'm glad you enjoyed the story. It's definitely written to have a few more loose ends than usual at the wrapup, but, I can at least say you're always playing from the same character's perspective. As to to the identity of the other character who seems to occupy that perspective, they make a statement -- "I believe our identities are determined by our experiences."

...which I get I get is not an answer, but part of the exercise of the game is to pose the question that if that person /does/ now have your memory/experience, and everyone else acknowledges that -- does that make them you?

It's the old question ... just imagine a teleporter which doesn't only assemble the new person elsewhere but leaves the old one in one piece. If you enter it - who of them is you? I'ld say, just the old person which steps out of the teleporter and complains that it didn't work. :)


I'm also wondering whether I've got some hints straight. There are some suggestions that much of the experience is somewhat metaphoric, e.g. once the doctor has blinded herself nobody reads your texts anymore or notices you at all (expect Dr. Gray, that is). On the other hand, a room full of bunnies suggests that things are actually real and are repeating themselves only because they get set up anew, e.g. each slaughtered bunny will be replaced by a new one.

(1 edit)

I really like the introduction of the game before the actual gameplay. I also like the fact that the game is designed in a story mode. The game has many different rooms so sometimes I get confused of which room to go to.

(+1)

A bug. Gotten stuck here. No way to continue the speech bubble thing.

(+1)

Thanks again for the report -- luckily that dialog is not needed to continue and about 60 seconds from the end of the game

(1 edit) (+1)

Well, rather intruiging. Sadly I got stuck in Night 2 pushing into that conversation between Owen and the Doctor. At the and I found myself facing down and unable to move (I could still rotate, what you see on the screenshot is a door). Maybe I triggered the scene from a wrong location?

Edit: After watching the walkthrough below I'm rather sure the sequence was triggered to early. I think I've checked the closed door one stairway below - which was locked as in night 1, and when I went back from the the dialoge was triggered below me.

(Another minor bug was: I found the bunny before talking to Dr. Gray. So he was still standing there at Night 1 and I could have the bunny related dialog wiht him.) 

Hi, thanks for playing and bug report much appreciated. There's two triggers for that scene so it's likely you stepped on both at once and things went south. Will address with a bugfix release.

(+1)

I have gotten myself stuck by climbing on this box and descending into this white box.

It is in the "---" room in "Night 1", the one you get into from the same hub where the "Operation Room", "Control Room", and Gray's room are.

In the screenshot I am looking at the entrance and a physics paper.

(+1)

Thanks for the bug report -- will fix asap. If you'd like to continue, you can jump from the main menu to night 1 directly and pull the lightswitch earlier in the room (there's nothing here to explore until later)

Thank you! Great atmosphere.

Good atmosphere and plot. This game deserve more content.

Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed -- definitely will fix that hang asap

(1 edit)

Looks pretty interesting so far, the black & white graphics really makes it look more unsettling.

Tho, I managed to glitch somewhat and walk on air by going onto he night table next to the bed and then walk diagonally out. I could literally stand on the large white table in the middle of the room.

It's nothing game-breaking, but thought I'd atleast report that.

Edit: I have another problem with the game, I played the web version right on itch.io and there's nowhere on the page or ingame that actually explain anything. I kinda guessed that z and space are used to interact with ppl, but other than that it'd be gr8 to have some sort of explanation for the controls, nothing too fancy.

welp, at least it's a funny bug, the entire height system is a bit of a kludge haha, thanks for the report

It's funny, there's actually a graphic for controls that should pop on the title that I managed to break last second. Thanks for reminding to fix

The game locked in the end.

The story was extremely interesting and at times I felt like I almost had the full story just for the game to throw a curve ball at me. Great job. I didn't get to the end of the game because I got hard locked when I talked to a person near the end. Other then that, great game.

Here's my channel for other games I have played. https://www.youtube.com/c/Levont

Ahh thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it. You were about 3 conversations away from the ending anyway (if you want you can use the JUMP feature to get right there) so you didn't miss much. Will fix that lock asap. Thanks again.