Wales Interactive has done a great job at making a full motion video in to a game and vice versa. The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker pulls players in to a full story with unique characters, and is backed by actors that nailed their roles.
First of all, Wales Interactive broke a Guinness World Record for longest FMV captured when they made The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker (7 hours to be exact). This all becomes clear after seeing their previous work with Late Shift which had a similar style. Some may call this game similar to a visual novel when it is actually more of a text-based adventure and psychological thriller.
In the wake of Doctor Dekker’s death, you (a nameless protagonist) have come in to take over seeing his patients. From the beginning the obvious is that Doctor Dekker was murdered. Your goal is to find out who do it and if it was one of the patients. By using prompts given to you from the game and FMV, patients will respond to your questions and give you details. When answers are given, the text will change colors. For example, yellow will appear if the answer is sufficient but turn green when all information has been found. This is where this Lovecraftian story really starts.
Players have to ability to type in questions and dig further in to the truth with the cast. Although this can be tedious, because precision is key, there is always more to find out about the patients. Some of the cast are additional however (like a side quest) and don’t have to be seen, but there’s a good chance that you’ll want to. As the interviews continue, the madness will start to seep in all around. At one point in time a patient completely name drops Cthulhu which will make you stop and think. Eventually you realize that this game is much like a psychological thriller and that the patients are either evolving or devolving.
There are five total acts in The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker and a randomly generated killer is chosen at the beginning of each play through. So, the re-playability is decently high but going back through the conversations can get frustrating. Luckily, the option to skip dialogue and move forward faster is available, making a replay much easier. Since some of the dialogue tends to repeat or if you accidentally repeat a statement then you can now just skip it.
Overall, The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker is a really good game. The madness itself and unique characters kept me invested and wanting more. I like as well that the game is lengthy and feels well rounded instead of a short “I could have guessed that” answer. Compared to the Late Shift which was roughly an hour of play, the developers really thought everything through while making this story. Anyone with the time to play should give this game a try.
8/10
Now available on: Switch, PC, Xbox and PS4
