Kim Peters
Catharium is a narrative focused, first-person puzzle game. You play as Thomas Drewitt, a man who wakes up in a hotel unsure of how and why they are there. He is greeted by a Detective who seems to be investigating a murder.
After following the Detective’s instructions, it is revealed that Thomas is the murder victim and is being held in the hotel until he accepts his death.
The hotel is “Catharium”, a place similar to purgatory, that’s purpose is to hold souls until they progress through the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance) for their own death.
CHARACTERS
Collectibles & notepad
Catharium has a diegetic inventory system in the form of a notepad. In the game the player uses this to view their objectives as well as thoughts that the character of Thomas has while exploring the hotel. In the game the player can find torn pages from this notebook. These provide small hints about the story.
dialogue
All dialogue was implemented into the game using Fungus. As Catharium is a narrative-focused game, there is dialogue present throughout the entire game. The video below is a short clip showing one of the conversation present early in the game.