Ruptured Souls

Hello, players!
I'm here again with another demo made by Max McGee.
This game, made for the 2008 Halloween Game Making Contest is apparently related to Sinfonia OR Backstage III Electric Bogaloo released in 2011 for RMN's 4th Birthday 4-Hour the Cake is not a Lie! event since they both were created with rm2k3 and they both shared an identical map.

In any case the two games have nothing in common aside for few elements since while Sinfonia has a more supernatural horror (even if, due to the alterated status of the protagonist, the monsters can be technically visions of his mind, and being a demo that's actually never explained), while this game from the description technically has a more "realistic" horror with zombies and mad experiments. Or so this is what Max McGee wrote, because I found no real horror element... except for a man that seemed to be "augmented". By advanced technology or arcane powers? We do not know, but the author said that there are at least ten ways to end this demo, so try and explore it, if you are curious!

The plot? Really simple: Mason Lansdale is a private detective that investigates the disappearance of Kyra Leighton, a 17 years old girl. He is now in London investigating the Wingate Medical, a private medical research center that has recently requested the records of Kyra and four other girls just like her who disappeared.


While we're checking a computer someone in the other room smokes in front of a dead body! What's going on here?

The gameplay is also apparently simple: go around, investigate, look for keys and other ways to go through locked/blocked areas. Anyway sooner or later someone will come and that's when you will have to make choices: if someone is coming you can run away, hide, confront him by talking or instead draw the gun and shoot! Your choice. And looks like there are different ways to end the demo.

Now how are the graphics? Well usual rpgmaker 2k3 assets we've already seen in oter games (like the Backstage "trilogy") but really well selected, I mean it's a perfectly mapped pier with a warehouse (even if I found odd all these shirt hanging on the clotheslines, but uhm ok!) and some nicely furnished interiors: all is of the right size and immersive, I do not mind the not-so-fast (I cannot say slow!) walking speed of the protagonist since it's an investigative game and it fits. My only complain is that the very last map is EXTREMELY dark (heh that part saw me dying due to the impossibility to aim well! Sighhh). Really. Otherwise no issues, also the music used is pretty good!

Final Verdict
Another demo from Mac McGee that shows a lot of potential. It's good, and it's peculiar how the game starts like Sinfonia, with the protagonist smoking a cigarette, and ends with the image of a building that the protagonist of Sinfonia enters at the end of that demo! I also noticed in this game a simbol that recalls the Umbrella Corporation logo... surely not a coincidence! Oh yes, this little demo is so full of details and other little things if you care to explore and interact that I was impressed. A very interesting demo with a great atmosphere, in my opinion!