D (video game)
In the mid-nineties, inspired by the rise of Full Motion Video and the concept of treating video games as interactive movies, Kenji Eno decided to take what he deemed the next logical step: creating a digital actress. Laura would go on to star in three games, portraying a different character with a different surname each time:
- D tells the story of Laura Harris, a college student. While attending school in San Francisco, she recieves word that her father, the respected Dr. Richter Harris, has started randomly murdering everyone at his Los Angeles hospital. Rushing to the scene, she enters the hospital and is confronted by a bloody scene... one that swiftly alters to a mysterious abandoned castle. Despite visions of her father warning her to leave, she makes her way deeper inside, coming ever closer to the Awful Truth of what exactly caused her father's rampage...
- In Enemy Zero, Laura Lewis is awakened from her cryogenic slumber on the AKI space station by a malfunction. This error wipes out most of her memory. As if that wasn't unfortunate enough, the station is being attacked by aliens—completely invisible aliens whom Laura can find only by listening for them. And being only human, Laura can't take much damage, and has but one life to live...
- Despite the name, D2 has no plot connection to the original D. Laura Parson's peaceful flight is interrupted when terrorist-cultists hijack her plane and crash it into the Canadian wilderness. Awakening from a coma 10 days later, she and another survivor witness one of the terrorists transforming into a plant-monster! Now Laura must find other survivors and some way of contacting the outside world, all the while dealing with the horrific mutations...
After D2's commercial failure, its publisher, WARP, folded, bringing Laura's career to an end.
The D Trilogy contains examples of
- Fake Difficulty: Each of the games has at least one gimmick intended to make the game much tougher than it would be otherwise.
- D must be beaten within two hours, with no saving or even pausing. Some of the game's puzzles include blatant time-wasters, such as the Wheel puzzle.
- Enemy Zero makes Laura a One-Hit-Point Wonder: die to the invisible enemies, and you have to start all over again.
- D2 makes Laura stand still while fighting.
- Legacy Character: In each entry, the main heroine is named Laura and has blonde hair. The surname changes to indicate each character is meant to be different.
- Let's Play: supergreatfriend did a run through D and D-2.
- Virtual Celebrity: Laura, as outlined above. Several of the cast members introduced in Enemy Zero also reappear in D-2 in new roles.
D also contains examples of
- Amnesiac Dissonance: The scarab beetles, if collected, give Laura visions that reveal she murdered her own mother and ate her flesh.
- Bittersweet Ending: In the Good and Golden endings, Laura survives her ordeal, but was forced to kill her father.
- In his Let's Play, supergreatfriend points out that this is more of a Downer Ending, as Richter is dead, all the hostages are dead, and Laura now remembers what happened to Mommy. D:
- Dracula
- Eye Scream: The box art implies this, with bloody tears running down from mercifully shadow-veiled sockets. In-game, sharp and pointy things seem to love stopping juuuuust short of Laura's eyes...
- Final Death: Couldn't make the time limit? Well, there goes two hours of your life.
- For Science!: Richter implies this was why he allowed himself to succumb to Dracula's curse despite the fact that he'd seen Laura fall under it before and was able to reverse it then. He wanted to know how he would be affected.
- Full Motion Video
- Hint System: Laura's compact offers a single-screen vision hinting at what she should do next. Each time she does this, however, the mirror cracks a little more... If used three times, it shatters.
- I'm a Humanitarian: This is required to transform into Dracula. Laura attempted it in the past with a side of her mother's arm.
- Loophole Abuse: A Real Life example: In order to ensure that D was published in the form he wished, Eno actually tricked the censors. First, he developed the game with no storyline, concealing the cutscenes from his own staff, then submitted a 'clean' version to the board for approval. He then delibrately submitted the master late, knowing that he would then have to deliver it by hand to the U.S. manufacturers. That gave him time to 'switch' the clean disc with the version he intended, bypassing the censors completely! [1]
- Mad Doctor
- Multiple Endings: There are four:
- A Good Ending where Laura reaches her father and Just Shoots Him.
- A Golden Ending where along the way to the Good Ending, Laura finds all of the glowing scarab beetles and views the optional cutscenes detailing her mother's death.
- A Bad Ending where Laura lets her daddy eat her so he can become Dracula.
- And the Time Elasped Ending where she fails to get through to Richter in time and falls through her pocket watch.
- No-Nonsense Nemesis: Just shoot him? She does... in the good ending, at least.
- Our Vampires Are Different
- Padding: In an attempt to ensure that the player feels pressured by the time limit, several puzzles include elements blatantly meant to waste time, such as the Wheel.
- Poor Communication Kills: Seriously, Dad, you couldn't have warned Laura off before she entered your Mind Mansion?
- Press X to Not Die: A brief QuickTime event occurs when Laura confronts the suit of armor. Failure doesn't mean immediate death; you merely fall into a pit, and have to waste time climbing back up.
- Re Cut: D's Diner: Director's Cut, a rare edition that included new sequences, background information on Laura and her family, and a soundtrack disc.
- Save Game Limits: There are no saves. You can't even pause.
- Spooky Painting: A painting of a little girl suddenly smiles and laughs when examined, suddenly swirling to briefly show a set of 4 animals. This shows the orientation of the miniature carousel the player should set it at to open the next door.
- The Stinger: If the player collected all the scarab beetles and got the Good Ending, the credits end with a baby's cry.
- Timed Mission: You have a mere two hours to finish the game. If you fail to reach the ending in time... Laura falls into her pocketwatch. ...Wait, what?
Enemy Zero has its own page.
D2 also contains examples of
- Anachronic Order: For some reason, the intro movie is on disc four.
- Ascended to Carnivorism: Thanks to D2, we know that wooly mammoths subsisted on a diet of tundra grass, tree roots and angels.
- Amazing Technicolor Battlefield
- Attention Deficit Ooh Shiny: At one point, Kim is worriedly telling Laura that Jannie's disappeared... only to stop short and admire a butterfly fluttering past.
- Attack Its Weak Point: Every monster has a weak point, usually its eye.
- Author Tract
- Body Horror
- Book Ends: The game begins and ends with David picking up Laura's compact and introducing himself.
- Bowdlerise: While not a kid-friendly game, quite a few things are edited or blocked, the scene in the beginning where Kimberly gets a tentacle down her throat is slightly panned away, the placement of Jannie's Grandfather's tentacle was much more... Questionable (or Fridge Horror), and a few other edits.
- Broken Bird: Kimberly.
- Check Point Starvation: Get comfy once you enter the fight with Martha, because it'll be over an hour before you get a chance to save. Fortunately, this was one of the first games that let you pause cutscenes.
- Color Coded for Your Convenience: The monsters are Palette Swapped to various color schemes to signify relative strength; green are the weakest while red are the strongest
- Dead Hat Shot: Used after Parker's death.
- Difficulty Spike: Disc 4. Hope you saved those grenades...
- Driven to Suicide: Kimberly's mother, unable to cope with her late husband's debts or the Loan Sharks harassing her.
- Does Not Like Men: Kimberly, due to childhood trauma, reacts to men with hostility, but is apologetic and frustrated at her own behavior once they're gone.
- Do Not Run with a Gun: When fighting, Laura cannot move at all, she can only stand in place and move her weapon sight around.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: In a bit of a Big Lipped Alligator Moment towards the end of the game, Jannie just randomly melts for no apparent reason.
- The Dulcinea Effect: David meets Laura on the plane and is instantly protective of her. Parker acts similarly towards Kimberly, despite Kim's automatic hostility towards men, and Laura towards Jannie.
- Dull Surprise
- Exposed to the Elements: Laura's legs must be awfully cold...Kimberly almost averts it except for the belly shirt. Justified in that it's what they were wearing on the plane, but you'd think with all the mountain cabins they explore, some of them would have some warmer clothes.
- Fantastic Drug: Linda.
- Fatal Family Photo: Laura finds one of these after defeating Jannie's mutated grandpa and takes it very poorly.
- Full-Frontal Assault: Clone Kimberly. Unlike the entries under Bowdlerise, this was not censored for the American release.
- Gaia's Vengeance: The Cosmos themselves want to wipe out humanity. Also Inverted, as the Great Mother wishes to defend humanity against The Shadow.
- Go for the Eye: Most monsters have a William Birkin-esque extra eyeball, which is almost always a weak point. Good luck shooting it with this targeting system, though...
- Healing Potion: The First-Aid Sprays.
- Heel Face Door Slam: Late in the game, Laura meets the surviving terrorist (the one who blossomed before) Larry. He's regained his human form and will, and swears he's fine, and a good guy now. Then he blossoms again and attacks against his will, forcing Laura to kill him.
- Heroic Mime: Laura gasps, screams and makes inquiring noises, but doesn't do much in the way of actually speaking until the very end. A good example of why this trope doesn't really work in a story heavy game as the cutscenes with other characters make her appear to have some kind of mental handicap.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Combined with Dying as Yourself by Parker, who blows himself up to open a path and ensure he won't blossom. Sadly, it doesn't work.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Laura can heal by eating Meats, obtained by hunting the local wildlife. Though she carries a Portable Cooker, she can also instantly recover by eating in the middle of battle.
- I'm Melting: The fate of poor Jannie.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Kimberly.
- Infant Immortality: Subverted by Jannie.
- Interface Screw: During the final battle, The Shadow takes away Laura's senses one by one.
- Interspecies Romance: You meet a scientist midway through the game who is married to a talking flower. No, it does not make any more sense in context.
- Large Ham: Many infected bosses, and the crazy guy at the beginning of disc two.
- Madness Mantra: Much like the Taken, The infected bosses tend to ramble on about things that were important to them before their transformations.
- Mercy Kill: Lucy Parton begs Laura for this.
- Mutual Kill: Between Parker and Kimberly.
- My Beloved Smother: Martha.
- My God, What Have I Done?: She doesn't actually say it, but Laura screams in horror upon finding the Fatal Family Photo Jannie's grandfather was carrying.
- Off-Model: Kimberly's giant neck.
- Reset Button Ending: Sort of. The Earth Mother sends Laura back in time so she can hook up with David. Jannie is briefly seen, and David mentions that Kimberly's poems are full of life and hope, so presumably she's in a better way. Presumably Parker and the rest of the flight are alive too, but hopefully not The Sorcerer, since that would kind of make the whole game pointless if the virus is just going to break out again. Does this mean there are two Lauras in 1999 now?
- Seen It All: By the time Parker sees you fall through the ceiling for the second time in a row, he just decides to leave the room, mumbling to himself.
- Senseless Sacrifice: Despite their intentions, Parker survives his Heroic Sacrifice and takes out Kimberly, precisely what he was trying to avoid.
- Stage Mom: Martha pushed her son to become a great pianist, to the point of moving to an isolated cabin to minimize distractions and forcing him to take Linda to improve his senses.
- Stock Footage
- Split Personality: Though it's not explicitly stated during the game, Kimberly has a hidden psychotic side that kills a terrorist, Tom the musician and possibly the Priest. Notice that none of them are torn apart like Clone Kimberly's victims, and Kimberly's blood is still red when she dies.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: To the entire human race, delivered by the game itself before the credits!
- Time Bomb: Which leads to a...
- Timed Mission
- Together in Death: Parker and Kimberly.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Jannie and cherry pie. It kind of shows.
- Tragic Keepsake: By the end of the game, Laura has plenty of these.
- Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Laura has a bad case of this after waking up from her coma.
- Was Once a Man: Every single enemy.
- Whole-Plot Reference: As supergreatfriend Lampshades in the thread title for his LP, D2 is basically Kenji Eno's "The Thing".
- Wizard Did It: A sorcerer known only as The Evil One is the main antagonist, with no real explanation offered for his motivation.
- X Meets Y: It's The Thing meets Metal Gear Solid with a big ol' dose of Hentai!
- Zero Effort Boss: XILO.