::Warning: Graphic content::

Not all that glitters is gold.

..

My name is Steris. I am a young adult. I enjoy superstition and trashy romance novels. I used to wait tables in a diner. I am currently dead.

These short sentences are all I can remember.

I was the subject of a mysterious group's mindless experiments. What they were supposed to test is not clear. How long I lay on the operating table under the flashes of busy scalpels I do not know. The only thing I remember is walking home from work after a late shift, then... nothing. Nothing at all.

When I came to, there was nobody around and the warehouse was in a state of disrepair. My body was twisted, mutilated from the repeated dissections. My mind was clouded. And my heart was stilled. But through all this, I now understand one thing. And that understanding seethes in me, burning brightly so it is all I need with which to see the world.

My name is Steris. And life is no longer sacred.

--

A reverse-horror/stealth game in a constant state of night where you play as Steris, an unliving human-turned-weapon whose morals and sense of humanity were stripped away as a result of macabre experiments performed on her body and mind for unknown reasons. Awakening in an abandoned warehouse on an operating table, the game moves in a 2.5D format using 3D graphics to create a third-person sense of winding alleyways and dark corners, with the player having an overall sideview and options to move in other directions.

Unlike other horror games where you run from a predator, you instead play as the predator, skulking around darkened militaristic streets. As a result of the strange experiments, your wrists end not in hands but in oversized surgical blades, razor sharp and waiting. The area is rife with all manner of targets, from home guard to hoodlums to ordinary civilians, each with a different face and story to tell. But you won't be talking to them. Your new body has a keen taste to blood, and every time you claim a new victim you receive flashes of their memories and feelings through absorbing it. You hope by doing this enough times that you may unlock secrets within yourself, as well as the adrenaline rush from fulfilling your new calling. Different people have different memories and skills, so while a policeman has knowledge of firearms and intimidation tactics, a shopkeeper would make a safer target while still giving a chance of uncovering something useful.

As for useful, looking at people's memories and thoughts can be nice. But what you are really after is a lead to the shadowy group who took your life and left you discarded on that table. You look forward to returning the favour. Your scalpel arms can deal quick, devastating flurries that quickly rip through armour, your hangman's rope can be used to yank victims closer, your pain suppression can be activated to withstand punishment, and your eye of fear paralyses your victim where they stand or scatters others far and wide. But your one drawback is that you have a limited reach on your attacks and are vulnerable to being outranged by targets with firearms. You will need to sneak or ambush your target, making use of the element of surprise to single out small numbers of victims - or even one at first - and prey on their memories. As you become better at what you do, you can follow the chain of memories - reviewable at any time - to pursue high-value targets that become clear and hunt down the shadowy group once and for all, as well as the mystery surrounding the experiments.

==

"The price of a memory, is the memory of the sorrow it brings." -Pittacus Lore

--

Evening light shines through the windows of the empty house, casting a jagged shadow on the kitchen's cracked tile floor. Water stains seeping down from the sink blur into something dried and red. Cupboards hang ajar. A lone lightbulb swings loose from its socket, dulled and powerless. Something terrible happened here long ago.

You are a ghost, and that's all you know of yourself. Drawn to this abandoned house, unconsciously, you found yourself awaking as you spent time inside its broken walls. There are memories everywhere here, and you want to remember...

--

::Warning: sensitive content follows. Please read at your discretion.::

In this game, you play as a nameless ghost inhabiting an abandoned house, drawn to it by the threads of memories from the departed which still cling to objects; objects like a broken window, a fallen flower vase, a shattered picture. If you come close, these objects project glimpses of the events surrounding the memories, overlapping the physical with the ghost world to show portions of the past: a small body thrown through the window, a domestic dispute that swept the vase to the floor and scattered the roses, a lover scorned who destroyed a dear photograph amid their weeping.

As a disembodied ghost, you look in on these snapshots of lives once lived, disconnected from them; it is not their story you were drawn to. Amid the wreckage and scattered fragments of the tragic tale that played out in this house are small details and hints that remind you of something in yourself, tiny pieces that whisper to you who you might have once been.

Different rooms contain different fragments of memories to uncover or avoid, with varying danger depending on what happened in each one. But should you draw near to their objects, the unresolved memories of the two previous inhabitants as well as your own will emerge in the ghost world, replaying their scenes once again. As they appear, they may come alive and lash out at you, or wander off to roam the halls, stopping only to erase anything that would interrupt their drifting. Your purpose here in the now is to collect trinkets and talismans that reminded you of your own life when you were a living thing, sorting through the grief and the violence hanging in the air to find moments that make sense. When you find a memory that stirs you, you must carry the object it is tied to carefully back to the room you dwell in, upstairs; safe from the malevolent reach of the dangerous remnants yearning to unleash their grief on something. It is your altar, your place of refuge, and as you put together these precious fragments you also try to remember who you were and the life you lived through pieces of theirs, knowing that if you can just figure it all out, you may be free of this curse and be ready to move on from the threads of memory binding you here.

--

Personal note: I do not endorse or condone fictional or especially real-world instances of domestic abuse, and understand it is a very serious subject. If you know anyone who may be suffering from abuse or are suffering from abuse yourself, please seek help from any available source in your area.