So I did a quick search and it looks like Pathologic has been only
mentioned five times in this forum's history. I'll start off with the synopsis stolen from Wikipedia.
The game is about three people who are known mostly by their nicknames. Two men the Bachelor and Haruspex, and a girl nicknamed Devotress, each of whom tries to uncover the source of a strange lethal sickness that befalls a small town. Although you can play as each of them, there is only one storyline, which is seen from different points of view depending upon the chosen character. Some of the secrets can be uncovered only by the consecutive playing of each character. Every day you receive quests from NPCs and at exactly midnight of each day, the incomplete quests are erased from your notebook. Quests are divided into main missions (one per day, which decide if a major character will die), and side quests to complete to earn money and items.
The game is downright creepy to the point at which all of the faceless nobodies wandering the town have a burlap ragdoll for their portrait when you talk with them. Your told that this is how you can tell the major characters apart from the minor characters. Not to mention the Stagehands (skinny guys dressed in black with a faceless white mask) and Birdmen, both of whom exist only to provide you some insight into the game
as a game and otherwise "play no role."
Combat is deadly, to the point at which you're forced to make a choice between killing a street bum to steal his rags to bind a gaping wound in your side or using your own meager supplies to heal
him to raise your reputation (if it falls too low the town stops trusting you, calls you a fraud, and tries to kill you).
The Bachelor arrives in the town to meet with the town's oldest living relative, said to be over 200 years old to find that he (and anyone who knows anything about the murder(s)) have been murdered the night before.
Haruspex arrives in the town, summoned by his father, only to find that he's been accused of murdering his father, the oldest living person in the town. He starts wounded and with no reputation, and basically no supplies (though you can
harvest the organs of your two assailants if you want to--supposedly someone in town will pay money for them).
The Devotress is locked until you complete the game with one of the two men, though what I know is that she meets with the eldest man just before he's murdered. She also heals people with magic (which may or may not be powered by small children) and may or may not have slain the old man.
There's one point early on where you discover that the town's children have been playing Hospital with each other, injecting each other with substances (the kids who stop moving lose the game, why do they stop moving?) to find out which drugs make them feel better. As a friend of mine exclaimed, "None of them! These are hard drugs! They're all bad! Stop it and give me those!"
Oh, and did I mention that there's a time limit? Yes, the game ends in 12 days whether you like it or not. And you can die from hunger and exhaustion too.
Link to the game's site.
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Topic: Pathologic. Obscure Russian Indie Horror Game. Remake on Kickstarter (Read 21380 times)