DIRTYHANDS; Les Mains Sales (Act 1 Preview)

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A reluctant killer. 

A would-be martyr. 

A ludodrama in three acts.

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You are Dmytry Bogrov, a young revolutionary with an expensive gambling habit and a penchant for selling secrets to the Tsarist police. When two of your comrade-Socialists end up dead and agents of the Revolutionary Underground sniff out your betrayal, you are a given a simple choice: will you die for your sins or will you kill for The Cause?

You are Pyotr Stolypin, Prime Minister of an ailing Empire, despised by king and country alike. You have lived your whole life in service of the Tsar, yet you find yourself an outsider in his court, shouldering centuries of contradictions. You are already dead, but how will the bullet find you? 

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DIRTYHANDS is a “new retro” visual novel for the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive. Its narrative is loosely-based on the true story of Pyotr Stolypin's assination at the hands of Dmytry Bogrov in 1911, adapted to the branching-path narrative format and with some added elements of the supernatural. 

In this telling, Dmytry Bogrov (inspired by Sartre's Hugo) is a hapless figure, averse to killing and motivated more by self-preservation and the aesthetics of revolution than any one ideology. Stolypin, your mark, is aged and highly principaled, but terminally out in the cold and struggling to reconcile the necessity of reform with the realities of despotism. He is "politically dead", and thus feels that all  that is left for him is to die for his Tsar.

I am developing DIRTYHANDS using GINCS Visual Studio by Ti_ & Alex Drag (3dSchuminator). GINCS Visual Studio and IDE and modification of the GINCS Engine, originally developed by Haroldo O. Pinheiro. Most of the visual assets in DIRTYHANDS are collaged historical photographs which have been made into “Pixel Art” by PixelArtVillage, a non-AI tool by Austin Gray. All music is by Mavo, a Finnish ambient artist and dear friend.

Currently, you can find a preview of “Act 1: Bouquet” in the download section below. Once the game is complete, I will release a full version, which will include all three acts plus a number of small “essays” about the real history that inspired the game and the creative liberties I have taken. (You can find some examples of these essays from the “Extras” menu in this Preview.)

This preview is playable on all Sega Genesis/Mega Drive emulators and flash carts. The final version will be available for purchase as a physical game as well :)