Quick Look: The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker

Yay an hour long quick look always like the longer videos more

FMV with GBE.

"They think I'm loopy, like some sort of spongy moebius strip!"

First line in the game and it's already fantastic.

Is there any Salvia Divinorum? Any what would it mean if I did this?

Okay game. It's like 10+ hours long, though. And get ready to use that hint button.

10/10 if you have a foot fetish.

I reject Alex's assertion that LA Noire isn't a good game. You can tell that game had a troubled development though, but it was very ambitious.

Sexy lady on the thumbnail, awww yissss. GB knows how to get them clicks mang.

I... actually have a crush on Marianna now. I would LOVE to see the beach with you, girl. XD

The games tries to be natural in how it takes your responses but as you can imagine, there's only so much you can do with pre-recorded video and free entry for text. There are improvements they could make but I don't think this is bad.

It's strange because I've watched people play this that 'get' what the game wants you to do and how to phrase things but if you aren't in sync with the game then it just becomes a frustrating mess. The illusion is broken.

Edit: They keep trying to follow up on segments that they game explicitly tells you there is nothing to follow up on. I know it isn't natural but that's the way it is.

I don't mean to be rude or anything, but Dan really doesn't have any critical thinking skills does he? The question phrasing seems frustrating, but he keeps suggesting vague and full sentence questions when it clearly wants key words... Seeing that he didn't notice any of the environmental puzzles in the Witness, this isn't really a shock, but it's always kind-of surprising.

Given how obtuse the questioning system appears to be, I really wouldn't fault him on this.

@mylifeforaiur: I assumed as much based off the thumbnail, but purchase made based on your advice lol :p

Is Bryce just a huge fan of Persona 3?

@alistercat: I remember really getting into it at the time. Felt like a detective RPG with some decent action sequences.

Was the weakest link never a tv show in the US?

@scylo: It was, didn't reach the same popularity. Kind of a flash in the pan over here

When your in the rhythm of it this game it works very well. I think the usual trying to rush trough a puzzle game because of the fear of it get boring on a quick look is what is causing them to get stuck.

A tip when answering a question in this game is to type answer(yes/no) + Keyword, not just answering no as the game will not know what the answer is in correlation to. Also re-watching the answers is the key to finding the keywords, guessing mostly gets you stuck and frustrated. The game usually wants the phrasing the character you talked to used.

I'm starting to tire of game titles sounding like something Troy Mcclure would star in, though in my opinion nothing tops The Contrabulous Fabtraption of Professor Horatio Hufnagel.

My reaction to seeing this posted was a resounding YES.

Doctor Upper Dekker

I hope they do more of this game. Be fun to watch another Contradtiction esque thing.

Also Marianna is a total babe.

This seems kinda like a bummer, if you allow free text input the game should account for a whole lot more phrases than it currently does. It seems to be impossible to have a normal conversation!

I'm intrigued by the mystery but imagine I would find this infuriating to play. Might just see if someone has a let's play of this online.

Andie MacDowell is also pretty great in Magic Mike XXL.

wow - went to the comments immediately after that bit to see if someone made the connection. Heh. It almost could be a copyright violation how close this is.

@vinny I would love to see a play through of this. Looks very interesting and following the hints here probably could learn to play it better. I also like to support these type of games as I find them interesting.

@mezmero: HA!

FMV game that lacks all the charm of a "good" FMV game. Hope this won't steal a spotlight from the next FMV playthrough.

@mezmero: AMAZING!

It was. It filled the void in "Snappy British person yelling at Americans" until Gordon Ramsay broke through here.

:jeffu

I started playing this over the weekend and like my first thought was "I hope GBE Quick Looks this."

I'm playing the game now, and I agree with this. It's frustrating in the early going until you get the game's approach - stuff like how it wants you to act like a psychiatrist and follow up on even seemingly-obvious topics just to get your patients talking (and answer yes/no questions typed full out, like "yes i knew doctor dekker" or "no i did not know doctor dekker"). You are playing (as LPer supergreatfriend put it) Solid Snake the psychiatrist a good deal, but you do need to ask better-formed, more targeted questions at certain points. I'm about 4 hours in (about a third done, by the game's reckoning), and I am enjoying it.

(I should note that the short help video you can access at the start/main menu really is essential viewing to get how the game works.)

ETA: Beaten by @thorize on a lot of this; their post also has a lot of good advice.

This seems interesting

How did they not comment on how the posters in the office looks like the wrestling NWO? lol

Given that my only real success with the game has come from me parroting back what the patients say, I can only think that Dr Dekker is nothing more than a sly dig at the current state of therapy...

I can see what the game is trying to do and am keeping on plodding through, but it's hard. Performances are fine but there's something sterile about the whole experience.

This game is actually really great when you figure out the rules it wants you to follow. Always start by saying hello, then, any time there is a * next to an answer, review it and ask about a keyword from each sentence until that response was no longer highlighted.

The game wants you to act like a Psychologist. Don't guess things. Don't assume things. You want to prompt them to elaborate on what they just said. You're not an investigator: you shouldn't be leading the conversation. You should be asking for explanations on what they just said, and also responding to their questions. So if they say "Can you help me, Doctor?", you should respond "Yes, I can help you".

-Edit: I should say, I'm not particularly happy with how restricted the game is. And It's not particularly fun to figure this out (so I'm not surprised most people are turned off by it - and the Beast crew were frustrated by it), but I do think it works well when you get used to it.

All the finest drop-outs of acting school

A golden combo.

I hope they continue this. It can take a bit to figure out what the game wants from the player, but it really picks once you get deeper in. Though at that point I can see how it can lose its charm. You are often just scouring for key words in past responses rather than having a natural conversation. Perhaps more leeway in the word recognition would help.

I had a good laugh that they came to the conclusion that Marianna is a mermaid.

I wonder if I too phase in and out of reality as these patients do when they are seeing the therapist. Kind of a weird design decision, I guess it makes it more dream like?

I don't think yhou should play through this game but please play through another FMV like Contradiction as that was one of the best things GBE has ever done.

I was definitely counting the days until this showed up on GBE, so thank you for delivering. I'm certainly interested in playing this myself - for as flawed as it seems in places, I will always admire the ambition of people going for this weird style of FMV puzzler. Good on them for making it happen.

I think I recognized one of the guys at the start of this from that Contradiction FMV game. He was the leader of the... cult or whatever it was. Him and his father.

Was one of those opening patients Gary Witta?

At 2:48

The story seems to get pretty interesting. I'm at like 90%. It ties in with a belief I have about the functioning of reality. (Row, row, row your boat ;) I like it when they f with your mind a little. And if I'm guessing correctly about what is going on... Let's say without spoiling anything that I dug a little too deep.

I wouldn't mind seeing more games like this. Glad I bought it to support them if anything.

But yes, the parser has some flaws. I got stuck a couple times only to find out I was not asking the wrong thing... I was supposed to phrase my question slightly differently than the 10 variations that I already tried. Sometimes it wants you to ask something that you feel you already got an answer to. In one instance I asked for a hint and tried to ask the question it inferred and none of my attempts worked. That said I am not a native English speaker. That does not help with a game like this.

Good on you Dan for immediately asking your client whether she kills her patients. I did the same thing before realizing that's a weird question to ask on your first session. XD

@fracture According to the steam page yes - he has a part in this game also.

Boy this game seems bad.

That photography sentence mad no sense

She blacks out in the Marina and wakes up naked. Saturday night!

"Is Cthulhu Satan?"

Cthulhu is honestly just a large, old, powerful alien whose existence is just vastly beyond anything we can humanly comprehend. Well...you know...if they were real :p Lovecraft went from being more supernatural with a sci-fi bent to sci-fi with a supernatural bent near the end. Also no, that necklace doesn't really look like Cthulhu...unless you think Cthulhu is just a regular octopus.

Also, the sunken city in the Pacific Ocean where Cthulhu is imprisoned and sleeping is called r'lyeh.