Spin Doctor: The Ending (Story)

 After completing the industrial, medical and study areas, Harland (the player) will enter the last room in the study, the end room as it appears to the player. Camera is zoomed close to both the player and Dr. reeves, whom is waiting for Harland behind his desk on the other side of the room, in what seems to be like his office, with bookshelves behind him. Player is unable to move at this point, and this triggers a still cut scene, a monologue. Reeves is shocked that Harland made it so far, and congratulates him. He is suddenly hit with the realisation that even though Harland made it this far, being the only subject that had ever made it this far to meet Reeves in person, it did not change a thing. At this point he feels like it was all for nothing, even though he believes he can keep his wife "alive" through harvesting epinephrine he realises he has taken the lives of others for his selfish goals, his own desperate attempt at trying to manipulate nature.  Reeves also realised he is coming to an end, even if he believes his wife can be immortal he has finally realised he does not share this ability, and his time has come. He believes he can't keep up his wife's desperate need of adrenaline. He also feels remorseful and guilty of his own actions while looking upon Harland's face and bruised body which is chained to the vest and devices. Reeves apologises to Harland, and finally has a mental breakdown. Reeves desperately seeks redemption. Reeves finally leaves the room by pulling a hidden switch next to the book shelf in the middle, exits through the door to the back of a hidden corridor that leads to his private living quarters. The bookshelf then slides back into place and covers the hidden corridor. Player is given control of Harland, the camera zooms out far enough to reveal that the final study room, Reeves' office, is in fact a major last puzzle that has to be solved to gain entry to an alternative route that leads to the same corridor Reeves entered. After the puzzle has been solved and upon entering the corridor, the player must walk down a long corridor, decorated with final portraits and the artwork of Reeves and his wife. Capturing much of Reeves' once happy life. At the end of the corridor, after finding one last journal entry written by Reeves, the player can enter a single room, which happens to be Elizabeth's room. Upon entering this room, it is revealed that Reeves has hung himself and is hanging from the roof, with a chair below him that has been kicked out of the way. The rest of the room is moderately empty room apart from a few decomposed plants and decorations. Not far from Dr. Reeves is the skeleton of Elizabeth, revealing that she is dead and has been for a very long time.

After the story aspect of the game has ended, the player can go back to the hub world, where the player can examine notes, load and save games, replay the game or enable time attack mode. In other words, the game can keep going on after Reeves has hung himself, although there are no means of escaping the facility. 

Spin Doctor: Notes by Victims

These notes are written by Reeves' subjects or people who have been in touch with him in general. They will have unique fonts and a separate template from Reeves' journal entries.

Note written by "Ida":

"I always carry this journal with me, that my father gave me for my 13th birthday. My father was an explorer and I've always admired him, I used to read his journal but I never thought I had anything worth mentioning for my journal, not compared to my father who travelled the world. I've had a few exciting incidents over the few last years, but I chose to write about my irrelevant and petty affairs in a less sophisticated journal. I believe now is the time to write about current events. I attended a masquerade ball today. My father helped me acquire a beautiful masquerade dress accompanied with a bewitching mask. He escorted me to the ball, and told me to have a prowl while he conversed with the other guests. It seemed most of the guests were intoxicated, some had even struck up a jig atop the furnishings.  I noticed what seemed to be a pairing shortly after. Husband and wife or courtship? It definitely looked like a loving pair. They looked exceptionally happy together, smiling and laughing. They slipped out through a back door, and my curiosity was piqued. I followed them. I stole a glimpse of the man kneeling down, but while this occurred, someone came up behind me and covered my mouth with a rag. Everything was black. It felt like minutes until I woke up again. That is when I ended up where I am now. It is a cold, dimly lit room, in what appears to be a medical facility. I hear footsteps, they can't know I'm awake. I don't want to die."

Spin Doctor: Reeves' Journal Extracts

Unknown, Early 1851

“Something is wrong with Elizabeth. She isn’t her usual self. She is constantly tired and sleeps the whole day away. She does not tend to the garden these days. She used to love gardening. I will have to find out what is wrong with her.  She is gradually growing weaker for each day. I’ve never seen anything just like it. It is not the flu or your common cold. It is something far more threatening. I will have to do research.”

27^th of November 1851 (After a year of research on wife's condition)

" I have come to a conclusion.  After examining Elizabeth and her condition for nearly a year, ignoring my own duties as a doctor to take care of her, I have realised she has some sort of heart disease. I'm not entirely sure what it is, but I know she needs her heart to be replaced, her heart is giving up."

22nd of December, 1851

“I need to save her. She cannot die. I need to build her a mechanical heart. The only way to get it to work is if I inject a tube with epinephrine into the mechanical heart. That way she can be immortal, as long as I harvest from people. I will start creating it today.”

January, 1852

"I need a volunteer. But no one seems to want to be a part of my project. I've not told them what exactly for, but I said it's dangerous. I said I would have to experiment on them and it would come with a risk. If I could just find a volunteer, someone that would just let me harvest epinephrine from them, I could save my wife. But they don't care about my project. I even said it would help save my wife. How could a person lack such empathy? I can understand they will not give up their life for someone's wife, but I can almost assure them they would not die. I would treat them with care and caution. I think my only option is to find a "volunteer" myself, but it would be difficult to get them to trust me. If only I had something that could knock them out. I think a rag soaked in chloroform would do the trick. I believe I should just go for a walk and if someone I deem fit appears, I will cover their mouth with the rag and they shall fall unconscious if everything goes to plan. Then I can bring them back to my facility and experiment on them with no interruptions."

"No, no, no, no, no! Someone caught me as I was about to knock someone out. I have to flee, I cannot end up imprisoned because of this. I know of the perfect place to flee to. An old abandoned military base I used to work at in my younger days. I used to tend to the injured soldiers in the medical area of the facility. I will bring my belongings and flee there with my wife in a few days."

"I read in the newspaper today that I, being one of the best doctors in England, has been kicked out of the medical community. I don't need them, it is their loss. Although I can never go back, I am a wanted man now. The police found evidence at my now abandoned house. They said I am wanted for questioning because of the contents of my belongings. I need to stay in hiding."

March, 1852

"I have made myself at home at the old abandoned military base. It's been kept in a good condition, even after all these years. It brings back old memories of my once so very happy life, when I had just met my wife, and we had our lives ahead of us. I was once a happy man. I want those days back. I will save my wife, I am working on the mechanical heart she will need to stay alive."

July, 1852

"The mechanical heart is ready, I will replace my dear wife's real heart with it tonight. Finally, I am able to save Elizabeth. She will be immortal. She will live on forever, with me. She can never leave this world, not without me. She is meant to be here, right here, with me. Forever. "

"The transplantation has been completed. There were complications at first. She seemed to struggle quite a lot. Her body was out of control. But then she was put to rest. She looked more beautiful than ever before. I have never heard her heart beat faster or louder in my life."

18^th of October, 1852

"I have major difficulties falling asleep. I lay awake all night staring at the roof, into the nothingness of my dark room, a black abyss. The few times I manage to fall asleep, I wake up shortly after and can't get back to sleep. This happens frequently. Even if I have a night of sleep, it will feel as if I never went bed. I am always awake, and all that is on my mind is saving my wife. I need  to find someone without getting caught this time. An easy prey, someone I can drag into an alley, knock out and bring back home to my facility, to experiment on, get the adrenaline I need for my wife's mechanical heart. I need someone that will not be missed. I can't let myself get caught this time. Although, to get a subject all the way to my facility, I need to experiment with different types of anaesthetic chemicals and make the perfect barbiturate."

"I created it after a few days of hard work. A custom tailored barbiturate. It's perfect. It contains wolfsbane, henbane, opium and last but not least: chloroform! No doubt in my mind this will make them unconscious. Now all I need is a subject."

10^th of February, 1953

“I’ve watched her every move for a few days. I know her schedule. She works nights, every night of the week. She returns to her home in the early morning, just in time for the sunrise. She moved to England three years ago.

Her name is Margaux Boudeville, some prostitute from France. What are the

odds someone will come looking for her? She has no family in England, as far as I am concerned. She is just a pinchcock. I am certain she will not be missed. She is perfect."

12^th of February, 1953

“Tonight is the night; I have chosen the first subject for my experiments. I will need to harvest epinephrine from her manually. I will pay her a visit tonight, drag her into an alley and inject her with the barbiturate. When she’s unconscious I will bring her back to the facility and experiment on her."

13^th of February, 1953

“My experiment was unsuccessful. I have failed my wife. Not entirely unsuccessful, I managed to extract a small dose from her but it seems I need a stronger and bigger dose of epinephrine. If I could just come up with some sort of object or machine that could harvest the epinephrine for me, something to give the subject an adrenaline boost at the same time. Perhaps something I could equip them with. I should get back to work.”

March, 1954

"I completed the vest. All I need to do is sew it into my subject's flesh, plug the tubes into the back, and the vest will do all the work for me. When my subjects get an adrenaline boost, it will harvest all the epinephrine directly from their bodies. All I have to do is wait. Wait for the subject to fail, or wait for them to succeed my test. The test, or torturous maze if you like, will be inside my facility. It will cover the industrial and medical zone, and for the most gifted subjects, it will also take place in my own study! If they can make it here, that is."

Unknown - The last note the player finds at the ending (Study Room)

"I brought my wife some plants from our old house. They are beautiful, but for some reason it doesn't seem like my wife bothers to water them. They are being neglected. Slowly decomposing. It looks so depressing."

Spin Doctor: Collectibles

Journal extracts from Reeves' diary can be collected and are spread out around the facility, in no particular order. Once these are found, the can be taken to the hub world and placed on the wall and read. Corpses can be found in traps, and in the medical zone in Reeves' laboratory. These corpses have previously been experimented on, and one man can be found at a table with his driver's license in his pocket, this way the player can identify him. A few select corpses, including the man on the table and the couple, were invited to a masquerade ball Reeves had set up in order to easily distract the crowd while he could sneak in and drag a few carefully chosen victims into his facility to experiment on.  The medical zone will also have machinery, syringes and ingredients/tools to create barbiturate, blueprints of the mechanical heart along with the plans of the facility, and there will be a dying man the player can interact with before he dies. No corpses will be found in the study room as Harland is the first subject to get that far. The front page of a newspaper with the headline "Doctor Reeves is wanted for questioning after the discovery of illegal substances in his house and attempted assault", with a photograph of Reeves, can be found in all zones except for the last section of the study zone. The newspaper can't be read, the text below the headline is blurred out but there for the aesthetics and immersion. Unfortunate subjects carved or painted with their own blood, messages on walls crying for help. "Help me!", "I don't want to die..." etc. These will be in the medical and industrial zone. Near the ending of the game story-wise, in the living quarters and study area in general, portraits of Reeves and his wife, and general belongings can be found. Fragments of a comic book among notes can be found, these are not in order, together they can make a puzzle in the hub world that will reveal the comic book. 

Spin Doctor: Timeline

1850-1851 – Dr. Reeves, a respected and brilliant physician, realises something is not quite right with his wife Elizabeth. During this time he is doing research and examining her. In 1851 he has come to a conclusion. Late 1851 he plans to build her a mechanical heart, which will fully replace her real heart. He planned to harvest epinephrine from living people.

1852 -  Lacking volunteers he decided the only way would be to create a custom tailored barbiturate to knock his subjects out and then experiment on them to find ways to extract epinephrine, which was the only way to get his wife’s’ mechanical heart beating. Before he created the barbiturate, he used a rag soaked in chloroform, which had the same effect but was difficult as he would struggle with the victims fighting back and their attempts to escape. When the barbiturate was ready for use, he would fill syringes with it and inject it into his subjects, to make sure they would become unconscious. Getting caught at one point trying to knock a subject out got him kicked out of the medical community and he lost his doctor title and job. This left him no choice but to escape his court trial and he fled to an old abandoned military base, taking his wife with him. He decides to improve and expand the facility. He is wanted for crimes against humanity. The summer of 1852 he has finished the mechanical heart after many months of research and hard work. He attempts to perform a heart transplantation, replacing her real heart with the mechanical heart he created. His wife dies from this, although the heart replacement was successful. Later the same year, he develops insomnia due to psychological causes and recent events.

1853 – Dr. Reeves’ has found his first potential subject, French prostitute, Margaux Boudeville, who moved to England, London in 1850. He found her to be an easy prey since she worked nights; she had little to no family in England, and few friends. She would disappear as stealthily as she arrived. After an unsuccessful experiment on her among a few other unnamed subjects, he realised he had to harvest epinephrine in other ways. He started planning out a vest, which would have tubes at the back of it drilled into their back, harvesting the epinephrine directly from the subjects. The vest would be sewn into their skin, thus impossible to remove, although the tubes were detachable. The epinephrine filled tubes would then be plugged into his wife’s’ mechanical heart.

1854 – Dr. Reeves has completed the vest that he planned to sew into his subjects’ skin. He needed more and bigger doses of epinephrine that his original experiments if ever successful could never accomplish. He starts planning out the rotating rooms one by one, to create a labyrinth that would take his subjects through dangerous rotating rooms, that would give them an adrenaline boost (epinephrine) that would be harvested and extracted into the tubes attached to the vest.   

1862 – The facility is complete, Dr. Reeves stops improving and expanding the facility. No subject reached the final test. People would die due to traps or starvation during the early tests, some people got far but none of them made it to the final test in Dr. Reeves' study. 


1862-1878 – Reeves gets older and grows weaker for each passing year, gets desperate and kidnaps local people, and slowly give up as it is too much effort for him and his old weak body. 


1878 – One day Harland Shears stumbles across the facility. Dr. Reeves take advantage of this. He drags Harland Shears into the hubworld, where he sews the vest into Harland's flesh, and places the tubes into the back of the vest, all this while Harland lays unconscious. Harland (the player) then wakes up when Dr. Reeves has escaped the room, and the game begins.

Spin Doctor: Methods for the Kidnappings "Does this rag smell of chloroform to you?"

- A different disapperance

1. The Stalk

Dr. Reeves stalked his prey and snuck into their houses at night and injected them with syringes filled with a custom tailored barbiturate (containing Wolfsbane, Henbane, Opium and Chloroform). He also used rags soaked in chloroform before he came up with the brilliant barbiturate. This would paralyse his victims/make them unconscious, and he would bring them with him on his way back to the mansion to experiment on them, or take them through the maze, depending on what year it was at the time. "Does this rag smell of chloroform to you?"

2. The Bait

Dr. Reeves sent anonymous letters under a fake alias, promising gold and green forests (or a sophisticated party they were invited to), in an attempt to lure victims to his mansion. The carefully chosen victims who recieved this, had been watched by Dr. Reeves for short periods of time until he got to know them, their secret desires and hopes. The letters would be tailored for each individual victim to make sure they would eventually arrive at the mansion, invitiation in hand. 

Spin Doctor: Narrative Elements: Corpses

Corpses are found in hallways in-between levels. These corpses usually have notes on them, explaining how they got to the facility, evidence (such as the invitation written by Dr. Reeves, signed with his alias), and their last thoughts before death occurred. A dead couple is found, embracing each other, possessing an invitation to the mansion,which will reveal the couples’ intentions and expectations when they arrived at the mansion. The player can also find previous victims who tried to escape and failed, who ended up getting stuck in a trap or incinerated to death. There will also be a dying man the player can interact with before he dies. Previous experiments Dr. Reeves did before he built the rotating rooms (which are the levels the player will have to face) will also be shown. He had to harvest epinephrine in other ways for the mechanical heart, by experimenting on both living and dead victims in his laboratory.


Information about Corpses and their Location:

Corpse 1#

Name: Unknown

Age: Unknown

Appearance: Pile of bones.

Location: First corpse the player will stumble across after exiting the elevator, in the industrial zone.

Corpse 2#

Name: Mr and Mrs Wakefield.

Age: 35 and 37

Appearance: Mr and Mrs Wakefield is embracing each other, Mr. Wakefield possessing an invitation to the mansion.

Location:

Corpse 3#

Name: Richard Ashcroft

Age: 52

Appearance: Heavily experimented on, with needles and tubes piercing it's flesh. Corpse is laying on a table covered in blood. Possess a drivers' license.

Location: Medical zone, laboratory.

Corpse 4#

Name: Ida

Age: 19

Appearance: Wearing a ripped masquerade costume, torn apart to accommodate the vest.

Location: Industrial zone.

Corpse 5#

Name: Magraux Boudeville

Age: 24

Appearance: Bones, old drained blood surrounding her, with rags of what seems to be an old elegant dress (subtly promiscuous)

Location: Medical zone, laboratory.

Other Corpses:

Not very detailed and insignificant corpses will just be a pile of bones in different traps in the industrial and medical zone, these are duplicates of corpse #1.