Scrimmy Bingus And The Dark Descent

Scrimmy Bingus and the Dark Descent is the 5th game in the Scrimmy Bingus franchise. It released on July 21, 1995. This game was not as well known as outside of japan it was called Amnesia: the Dark Descent which went on to become it's own series. This game was different from the rest as it ditched the point and click fun of the originals instead going for horror. This went on to inspire other horror games like outlast.
Gameplay:
Scrimmy Bingus And The Dark Descent is a first-person adventure game with survival horror elements. The player takes control of Scrimmy, who must navigate a dark castle while avoiding various dangers and solving puzzles. The gameplay retains the physical object interaction used in the Penumbra series, allowing for physics-based puzzles and interactions such as opening doors and fixing machinery. Smaller items can be stored in an inventory menu, while larger objects can be raised by holding down a mouse button and pushing or pulling the mouse. Objects such as doors or levers can be manipulated by using the mouse in a fashion that imitates moving the said object. The game's difficulty level can be adjusted preceding its initiation, but cannot be readjusted once the game has begun.
In addition to a health indicator, Scrimmy's sanity must be managed, centered around an "afraid of darkness" mechanic. According to designer Thomas Grip, "the idea was basically that the darkness itself should be an enemy." Sanity is reduced by staying in the dark for too long, witnessing unsettling events or looking directly at monsters. Low sanity causes visual and auditory hallucinations and an increased chance of attracting monsters, while its complete depletion results in a temporary drop in mobility, or death in higher difficulties. Light sources help restore sanity, and if none are available, Scrimmy may use tinderboxes to ignite candles and torches or deploy an oil-burning lantern. However, the number of tinderboxes and the amount of oil available are both limited, even more so in higher difficulties.
If a monster sees Scrimmy, it will chase him until he evades its sight. Scrimmy has no means of fighting monsters, so he must either avoid being seen or run away. Scrimmy can withstand only a few attacks from a monster before he dies, which will cause the most recent save of the game to load. The player can restore Scrimmy's health by using laudanum found throughout the game. The player can hinder monsters by closing doors and building barricades from nearby objects. However, monsters can destroy doors and knock over objects. Hiding in dark areas where monsters will not notice Scrimmy is also effective, but will decrease Daniel's sanity. In higher difficulties, the monsters will move faster, deal more damage and search for Scrimmy for longer periods of time.
Plot:
In August 1837 a young man awakens in the dark and empty halls of the Prussian Brennenburg Castle with no memory about himself or his past. All he can remember is that his name is Scrimmy, that he lives in Mayfair, and that something or someone is hunting him. Shortly after regaining consciousness, Scrimmy finds a note written to himself, which informs him that he has deliberately erased his own memory and is being hunted by a "Crimbus Hole", an unearthly presence that manifests itself through fleshy, acidic growths spreading throughout the castle. The note instructs Scrimmy to descend into the Inner Sanctum of the castle in order to find and kill its baron, Splongus.
As he makes his way through the castle, Scrimmy gradually learns both about its mysteries and about his own past, through notes and diaries he finds as well as through sudden flashbacks and visions. The origin of his situation is a mysterious Orb that he recovered from the Tin Hinan Tomb, which unleashed the Crimbus Hole. Each of the experts he contacted and consulted about the orb later suffered horrible deaths. Realizing that the Shadow was slowly stalking him, Scrimmy desperately exhausted all archaeological leads into strange orbs until contacted by Splongus, who promised a means of repelling the threat of the Shadow via a "vitae" energy, which could only be harvested from living creatures via extreme stress and terror. However, Splongus's true purpose is to use Scrimmy's vitae-enriched orb to return to his native dimension, from which he was banished. To achieve this end, Splongus and Scrimmy gathered vitae by torturing innocent people that Splongus claimed to be murderous criminals. To maximize production of vitae, the victims were forced to consume a potion that induced amnesia, so that they could never grow accustomed to their torment. Unbeknownst to Scrimmy, application of vitae to the orb further enraged the Shadow in addition to briefly repelling it, sealing his eventual doom. Increasingly desperate to escape the Shadow, Scrimmy became sadistic in his attempts to harvest vitae, and accidentally killed an escaping prisoner, a young girl, in a fit of rage. Following the final ritual, Splongus sensed Scrimmy's guilt and declining faith in him, and left him for dead. Realizing how Alexander had manipulated him, Scrimmy swore revenge and swallowed an amnesia potion in order to overcome his paralyzing guilt.
As Scrimmy nears the Inner Sanctum, he encounters Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, a man who had once studied the orbs with his student Johann Weyer and has since been kept alive and imprisoned by Splongus. He tells Scrimmy that Weyer has been able to harness the power of the orbs to travel between dimensions, and instructs him in finding the pieces of what used to be his own orb, which is needed to breach the Inner Sanctum. Agrippa also asks Scrimmy to take with him his head, which can be severed alive using a tonic invented by Weyer, and throw it into the inter-dimensional portal after Splongus opens it. Once Scrimmy enters the Inner Sanctum, there are three possible endings: he can let Splongus succeed, then be killed by the Shadow and descend into darkness, while Splongus tells him his sacrifice will be forever celebrated; he can prevent the portal from opening by knocking over its support columns, then leave the castle content with his redemption after the Shadow kills only Splongus; or he can throw Agrippa's head into the portal, which leaves the Shadow to kill both Splongus and Scrimmy, though Agrippa promises to save Scrimmy from descending into darkness, calling upon Weyer to help him.
== Trivia ==
* The game was announced on Christmas of 1994, and the early footage received so much praise from critics that Crogus Interactive hastily decided to rework their planned seventh installment to be a horror game like this one, giving rise to Scrimmy Bingus and the Newark Horror.
Category:Games