The Seventh Door

... ok, maybe the first six doors weren't the right ones?

Oh, hi, players!
The seventh Door (originally "La Septieme Porte") is a RPGmaker XP adventure game released in 2013 in french and translated into inglish during 2014-2015. This work was done by the Famas, a french rpgmaker community, in fact the game is divided in various segments and each one was made by a different member of the community (sriden, Creation, trotter, Amalrich Von Monesser, Roi of the Suisse, Criket, AlterEgo, mapache, Zeus81 and Kisth). And the interesting thing is that, despite this makes this work a sort of chain-game, the final result is particularly coherent and... interesting!

There were some rules, for example all graphics assets had to be custom, RTPs were used just for a couple of sound effects, and the soundtrack was made by Sriden, plus one track by Roi of the Suisse. Also no default battles or menus.


Investigation? Yes, this game is a thriller and includes the a playable detective...

The Seventh Door is a thriller about a man, Julian, a man who wakes up on a rooftop only knowing a name, and he feels like he wasn't in control of his body for a short period. He's arrested but thanks to some mysterious powers he possess, he's able to escape and soon discovers that some dangerous men are on his tracks. Meanwhile Detective Zikas is investigating the death of a young woman, and solving this mystery will throw him right in the middle of a grand scale conspiracy. Paloma is instead a blonde girl that has the power to read minds and... no ok I've already told too much, now play and see how the story unfolds!

Ok, now let's talk about the gameplay: the game is divided into totally different segments that features different activities. We have classic exploration already seen in many other adventure games, in which you have to talk to people and look for clues, take items and combine them. But there is also a stealth part, a driving section, a dangerous escape on the roof of a skyscraper, and so on. To be honest the enjoyment of these parts for me was variable, some minigames were good, others (especially the driving part) were mediocre. But the main course, the exploration/investigation/walking simulator parts were pretty good!
There are also many cutscenes that will connect the various parts and different moments in a coherent story, since we will experience the whole situations from various perspectives.

I mentioned the cutscenes, so let's talk about the graphics: the style is mixes since about ten people worked on this game, and this was inevitable, the good thing is that despite the clash of styles (some parts use pixel art, others a cartoony style, some a more hand-drawn style, etc), the game does not look like an Rpgmaker XP game at all. In any case mapping is very good (some maps like the alley are excellent!) and also the custom charsets are made well. And music? Fantastic, I liked it a lot and really fits this dark, mysterious noir adventure with a modern setting,


Time to play a minigame! Let's cross the ledge and escape from the pursuer...

Final Verdict
The Seventh Door may be a bit disturbing due to the "Frankenstein effect" of having various parts made by different developers sewn together, but the final result is a surprisingly coherent story with some twists and surprises. The final part dragged a bit due to the necessity to tie some loose ends, anyway it's a pretty good game that lasts for a couple of hours and includes four different endings. It's really a good game, and good ad usual means 4/5!