Dark Parables: Desire of the Forgotten Princess [ON HOLD]

INTRO

The moon shines like a silver penny in the cloudy and starry sky. The logo of the game appears after the logos of Blue Tea Games and Eipix. The camera tilts downwards, revealing a cityscape complete with the cottages of villagers and the imposing structure of a castle in the distance, all against the backdrop of beautiful grassy hills. All of the windows are dark.

The camera drops down, gliding between houses and along darkened corridors and moonlit roads. It approaches the castle's steps, but quickly veers off, heading into an alley. It slows, focusing on a young woman dressed in her dirndl, her hair tied up neatly in a bun. She wears a cloak and holds a lamp housing a wavering flame.

She is humming while walking leisurely when she spies movement out of the corner of her eye. She glances to her left and gasps.

A woman dressed in tattered clothes is facing her. Her skin is deathly pale and strands of her grey hair escape from her bun like cobwebs floating in the breeze. Her clothes are drab and dusty and she moans softly as she shuffles about limply, her limbs hanging loosely off her bony frame. It is as if the colour was drained from the very woman herself. She brings to mind an old rag doll, taken out from a dusty closet. The scariest thing about her is her face, which is starkly white, and instead of eyes, dark holes of nothingness glare back. Her mouth is stretched open impossibly wide in a ghastly 'O', and there is only darkness within.

The spectral entity takes a few staggering steps towards the woman, who yelps and turns away to run, only to face another similar-looking entity who resembles a man.

Panicking, the woman turns around as the camera zooms out, revealing half a dozen or so of similar entities surrounding her. They round in on her slowly, howling and moaning like banshees.

Breathing heavily, the woman spots a gap and bolts for it. She rounds a corner and sees more entities barring her way. All of them were similar in appearance, save for one. The camera zooms into a beautiful woman, with a china-pale complexion and auburn hair, dressed in a gown which, although a little bit aged and tattered, still looks like it is once a dress that would make other women jealous. She looks regal and stunning, her face flawless and cruelly expressionless. Her hair is done up in several interlocking braids and her eyes are greyish blue, as if it is a piece of the sky, intensely clouded over. She stares at the camera wordlessly.

The camera cuts to the petrified face of the woman who was chased.

'Who...who are you? What do you want?' She managed to stutter.

The mysterious woman just kept staring at the camera. From nowhere, one of the entities jumped right in front of the camera, which enters the black nothingness within the entity's mouth.

Blackness.

A scream, then silence.

......

One week later, the Swabian Jura, Northeast Germany. 

The camera takes the perspective of a person on horseback, moving on a grassy hill. Trees pass by and buildings can be seen in the distance, getting closer and closer. Above, mountains loom against the sky.

Gloved hands appear, holding an open book displaying scribbles and blurred pictures of entities, and a tape recorder. The record plays as the hands flip through the book every now and then.

'Welcome to the Swabian Jura, Detective. Your mission leads you to the kingdom of Vergemberg on these mountains. There has been sightings of mysterious entities wandering around and attacking townspeople. No one is able to approach them as their bites prove to be fatal, leaving people senseless and suffering from severe memory loss. Days later, the victims would turn into those very entities. Theorists say that it may be an outbreak of a dangerous virus, and our reports show the occurrence of a similar case in the past. One particular entity is a woman dressed in royal garb and is never seen to attack. She appears to be the ringleader, and rumours have circulated that she may be the princess of a forgotten kingdom, stealing memories to regain her power. Your mission is to uncover the secret behind this woman, and stop the attacks on Vergemberg before they spread further. Good luck, Detective.'

The hands retreat back down, revealing the gates to Vergemberg in the distance. Trading grassy grounds to hard cobbles, the person is approaching the gate when suddenly, a goose flies right in front of the horse, causing it to rear up and neigh as the person stumbles and manages to get off. At the same time, a woman shouts, 'No, Hanna, keep back!'

Managing to get a stable footing, the person looks up to see a woman standing beside the gates who cries, 'Watch out!'

The person swerves around and sees a tattered entity pouncing towards the camera. There is suddenly a loud whistling sound as something huge rushes between the Detective and the entity. The woman jumps in front of the camera and pushes the person to the ground as the entity's moaning grows softly and eventually fades away. The person gets up from the ground and turns towards the gates. The woman, dressed simply in her dirndl, with a long, dark brown braid whipping over her shoulder in the strong wind, is holding the horse to stop it from galloping away. As it does every other time. Around her knees, geese wandered and waddled about. She has the kind of face that seems like she can smile very, very easily.

The camera stills and the conventional tutorial box pops up. You choose 'Yes'.