Bildungsroman: Murders in the Sanatorium

Guete Tag. Welcome to the Maldeberg Chateau Sanatorium. We hope you will enjoy your cure.

The Story

The Kingdom of Vheissu. Spring 1906.

Jean-Augustin Amrouche is a 21-year-old French-Algerian consumptive who journeys up to the Alps for a short visit at a sanatorium.

Here, he meets a group of diverse characters, each patient luring him into intoxicating world views atypical of the prewar era.

Amongst the assortment of fellow patients, one respectable German philosopher holds a unique distinction: he has been found dead with a dagger in his back.

Soon, the dream-like atmosphere of the facility will collapse into a nightmare, and one by one, each inhabitant of the sanatorium will decline into a permanent rest. And none of the deaths will be from illness…

 

A murder mystery story occurring in the middle of a philosophical novel. A historical fiction with speculative elements.

Inspired by And Then There Were None-styled murder mysteries and the setting of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain.

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Project started and demo made as part of the month-long NaNoRenO 2022 game jam

Features

The NaNoRenO 2022 Demo features:

• 16,000+ words
• First 3 murders
• 9 characters with unique sprites and expressions
• Character Notes and Descriptions
• Blueprints of the Sanatorium
• OpenDyslexic Font option

The fully planned game will include three character routes for the three main female patients:

Princess Anastasia Konstantina von Lembke: A seemingly delicate Russian noblewoman. If it were not for her tragic illness, she would have continued being a spoiled brat.

 

Celine Ribeyrolles: A French-Romanian sensationalist journalist. An adventurer, gossiper, tomboy, and overall, very aggravating for a consumptive.

 

Emilia Balsamo: A stoic, Maltese-Indian statistician. Has a strong, rational, amateur detective’s intuition, but not strong enough for her to see the most obvious of all solutions.

 

Disclaimer and Content Warning

This game contains blood and minor references to sex, drugs, alcohol, suicide and self-harm.

This is a work of historical and speculative fiction. All characters and events in this game are the products of the writer’s and artists’ imaginations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Real locations and people are sometimes mentioned but their histories are also fictitious.

All characters in this game are 18 years or older. The opinions expressed are those of the characters and should not be confused with those of the writer’s.

The Team

Original Logo by Christofer Rademacher

Original Character Sprites by dhk117 and shiroyanya

Written, Developed and Produced by Improb

Special thanks to NEETs Initiative for extra assistance

Please download the text file for detailed credits