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[N0ught]

https://rpgmaker.net/games/10356/


Though not a true roguelike, your answer to the "Serial Killer Roguelike Hoax" has finally appeared (in alpha 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: sex, 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 is 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.
~ Nearly-monochrome graphics will have you seeing red.
~ Basic weather and time-of-day system.
~ Two possible "endings" for now. To be continued...
~ Ten different character Classes to choose from.
~ Cannibalize one of six different human body parts from each kill, to build your stats to your specifications.
~ Gain an entire experience level from each human you kill.
~ References to real serial killers galore.
~ 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.
~ Sex, drugs and rock and roll.
~ Hallucinations.
~ S-Mart! Shop Smart!
~ Police bribes and brutality.
~ Evidence disposal.
~ Premeditated murder.
~ Suicide.
~ Bleeding.
~ Donald Trump.
~ Secret stuff. Shhh.
~ Cows.


***

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 this article, regarding the scandalous "serial killer roguelike hoax" via roguebasin.com:

https://blog.roguetemple.com/2010/08/29/the-serial-killer-roguelike-hoax/

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.

***

[George_Chickens]

Oh, wow. I remember that hoax. The creator changed his story like three or four times. First it was a school project, then it was just trolling, then it was a statement about violence and so on and so on. I'm glad someone took the initiative to build on the concept.

[Farce]

I actually really miss the video the SKRoguelike guy put up.  It looked cool as hell, even if it was a hoax.

[Vivalas]

Well damn, that description is a good selling point for me... although I want a game that lets me play a serial killer..  not become more terrified of them...   

[George_Chickens]

Well, the opening doesn't really paint a very good image for the rest of the game. It comes across as containing lethal amounts of juvenile edge, like what you'd see Xx_DarkSlipknotSepiroth_xX upload to his Youtube back in 2006, fit with bad fonts, terrible dialogue, and nu-metal to send it off. I was hoping for something disturbing and predatory, not something that gives the impression that it was made for a certain age demographic preyed upon by disturbing predators.

I didn't notice that this was actually posted by the creator. I wouldn't have been so abrasive or unconstructive if I realized. I'll try to break down what bothered me about it early on.  The swearing practically every second sentence feels very contrived, like edge for edge's sake (but cuts off fairly early so it isn't a big deal), the early sample used in the music is very unfitting, I can see what you were going for there, but it feels less discordant and creepy and much more like a drummer out of tune with the rest of his band to me.

The intro dialogue drags on for an undesirably long and there's something about it that evokes "bad Hannibal Lector cosplay" to me. I can't quite put my finger on it specifically. I think it's in the right direction but it just misses the mark, sometimes giving the impression of trying to go too hard. Then you have the font, which occasionally sticks together and is difficult to read, and seems to only be there to increase the edge factor. The intro after the prison section I think is quite well done, though, it's chaotic and you aren't entirely sure what is going on, who you are, or what role you are playing. Then the "spider and fly, WOOOAH" text and unfitting nu-metal comes in and immediately brings me back to edge territory. Other than that, I like the concept and I think the game over screen is fantastic.

[N0ught]

Hey thanks for the feedback!

First of all, keep in mind, this is an alpha, and many things may change. Faith is especially a pottymouth, but she is based on an actual person, and I tried to stay "Faith"ful to that person. Norm is supposed to recall feelings of Hannibal, or other hollywood killers - to begin with - and so that is fairly spot on. The font was a late addition, and may certainly change. The music choices are mostly self-indulgent, since many are from genres I personally listen to, and they are not necessarily there to be enjoyable - many are there because they are simply about actual murders, and there is no other reason.

Much of this game is deliberately meant to be abrasive, and so it sounds like I hit that mark pretty well. It's very edgy - but so is the real world. I was going for a setting that seemed familiar to hollywood, with subject matter much closer to home, before skyrocketing off into the world of Lovecraftian horror.

I look forward to hearing what anyone else has to say too!

[ACE.]

Well damn, that description is a good selling point for me... although I want a game that lets me play a serial killer..  not become more terrified of them...   

If you become one you can't not become scared of such killers.

[Vivalas]

Well damn, that description is a good selling point for me... although I want a game that lets me play a serial killer..  not become more terrified of them...   

If you become one you can't not become scared of such killers.

I was referring mostly to the mention of including pictures of bodies and such. Graphic violence is one thing when it's under the cover of ASCII or text, but images can be damning. I'm not very queay, but I do have a limit, as I learned pretty soon after discovering LiveLeaks...

[N0ught]

Oh there isn't too much visually violent in the game - no images of real bodies per se, though the game over screen does feature a dim image of Trayvon Martins feet where he lay dead in the famous film footage.

The photographs I mentioned that were from Rodney Alcala's house seem like fairly normal pictures - what is disturbing is almost none of the people have been identified. And those pics are in a somewhat weird montage in the main storyline.

The atmosphere may be disturbing at times, but the visual violence is minimal - in fact, if the dialogue was not so profane, and there wasn't pixel nudity, there would not be much need for a disclaimer.

[xX5N1P3RXx]

I checked it out. Emphasis on "checked".

The intro was way too long, and the font used for the text was too hard to read. When the intro ended, I didn't even realize it, and didn't know that I was supposed to evade the police. I lost almost instantly to the cop who caught up to me. Icing on the cake is that I would have to start the game again from the start, along with sitting through the whole unskippable intro, because I didn't have any opportunities to save.

[N0ught]

Working on a fix version for many issues, including the unskippable intro, and bad font. Also found a few more bugs/fine points. It should be available soon for download, and already feels immensely more playable from the start.

Thanks so much for the feedback! It will help me make the game better.

[N0ught]

Norm, Fix version Beta1 now available: https://rpgmaker.net/games/10356/

Multiple fixes and enhancements, including a skippable intro, and leaving the intro in Faith's house instead of on the main map. New Murder count, and murder Affinity to describe victim preferences. Two hidden Affinities. A hidden character Class. A better font. This new version has it all, in a 55 gallon barrel.

Get it while it's cold...

[dennislp3]

Hope this doesn't get derailed.

The closest thing we have to this is "hitman" which is somehow acceptable...but a serial killer game is not...hmmmm

[N0ught]

Oh, nothing will stop me from completing this project - and RMN has some games that even feature rape and other morbid themes i have not even really touched on. I am not worried.

New Version Beta1C available now:
https://rpgmaker.net/games/10356/
This version should be pretty concise. Let me know if anything is out of place.

BETA1C:
* Murder count and Affinity was still not working entirely properly. Fixed
* Some fixes for behavior in the clerks at S-Mart.
* Investigators only have a dog for backup now.
BETA1B:
* Murder count and Affinity was not working properly upon Escaping random encounters or Bribing police officers. Fixed.

[George_Chickens]

Bribing seems like a cool feature. I was skeptical, but so long as you keep putting in interesting ideas and unique features I think it'll be good.