Requital is a cross between a traditional RPG and a 1^st personal shooter, combining challenges of physical combat with intense mental tests and problem-solving situations. Requital is a console game, compatible with Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, and would, for all intents and purposes, be a sandbox game. Comparable to the layout of Grand Theft Auto, the player will be free to roam the city at their leisure, but they will have very specific challenges to meet in order to advance to the next level. The majority of those challenges will be associated with a timetable for successful completion. Continuous failure to meet those challenges could result in a level-down, so the player will want to make steady advances to progress in the story. If played continuously by an intelligent, observant, and steady player, it should be completed in 60-80 hours.

Set in modern day Gainesville, Florida, Detective Rachel-Lynn Anderson [or Jason Anderson, as the player can choose to be male or female at the onset] must crack the case of a serial murderer. The killer, dubbed “Dr. Monster” by the press, appears to be on the mission to take out the entire medical community of the nearby UF Medical Hospital, as well as other random, unrelated victims along the way. I envision this game as a cross between L.A. Noire and CSI.

At the onset of the game, Anderson will be a rookie in the Gainesville Homicide Division, recently transferred in from a small town in upstate Alabama. Exploring the station early on, Anderson will gain awareness of the horrific murders of the notorious “Dr. Monster,” dubbed as such by the press for the violent use of medical paraphernalia to torture and kill his victims. Too wet behind the ears to take on such a big case, Anderson must first pick up smaller, less public homicide cases to prove her skills as a detective.

Through these smaller cases, the player will learn to gather evidence, pick up intel through interrogations of witnesses, and even learn to defend themselves against surprise attacks when their investigation encroaches on local gangs and drug houses. A series of copycat killers lead the police astray throughout the gameplay, and Anderson must constantly determine which cases to pick up and which to delegate to other detectives as she gains rank within the department.

During one of these smaller cases [training for the player, in all respective purposes], a photograph of Anderson is found pinned to the wall with a surgical scalpel. Anderson and the homicide division are shocked, trying to understand how the killer has identified the player and what the connection must be. After being interviewed by the lead detective on the case, Anderson reveals casually that she had been treated at the UF Medical Hospital as a child for a rare, but easily curable disease. The rest of the homicide division, viewing it as inconsequential, brushes this information off, but Anderson realizes it must be the link between her and the killer.

Researching her own childhood illness and medical records, Anderson is able to find a link, previously undiscovered by the homicide division, between the serial murderer’s earliest victims: they had all treated the same patient, a Mrs. Katelyn Gragovich for the very disease she had overcame as a child. In reviewing the records, Katelyn had been misdiagnosed repeatedly, resulting in her dying from what could have otherwise been an easily treated disease. Her husband, Jarod Gragovich, had gone mad with grief and been treated on and off again for mental illness at the Gainesville UF Medical Hospital for the last decade…until he stopped seeking treatment fourteen months ago, which happened to be the date of the first murder.  Anderson realizes that he’s not only seeking to kill off the doctors and nurses who failed him, but also all of the patients from the UF Medical Hospital that survived the illness that his wife succumbed to – putting Anderson next on his list.

Ultimately, the game is based on problem solving, pattern-identification, and the deep-set theme of good versus evil. As Anderson gets closer to capturing the murderer, she learns more about who “Dr. Monster” actually is – a man who lost his wife due to the negligence of a doctor– and must overcome that potential sympathy when finally face-to-face with the killer in an operation room of the Gainesville UF Medical Hospital.

You can download the opening cut scene for my game, Requital, by clicking here.