Video Game / Alfred Hitchcock - Vertigo

Truth is sometimes worse than madness.

Alfred Hitchcock - Vertigo is an Adventure Game developed by Pendulo Studio and published by Microids, released in 2022.

The story follows Californian author Ed Miller, who wakes up in the crumpled ruins of his car: he's miraculously unharmed, but his wife Faye and daughter Jenny died in the crash. There's one small problem with this, however - the police didn't find any bodies in the car, let alone evidence that this family of his ever existed in the first place, and ever since Ed has been having of fits of vertigo so severe that he can barely get out of bed. A few years later, Ed's old friend Robert Carrigan hires therapist Julia Lomas to consult him, now living under the care of his Aunt Claire in the town of Cerro Lake, to hopefully shed a light on what really happened - for both Ed's sake and his own. Meanwhile, the police reports deaths and disappearances happening at Cerro Lake around the same day of the incident. Ed becomes the prime suspect, and starts wondering if he isn't simply insane.

The game features three playable characters, and acts as a blend of Point-and-Click and Interactive Fiction similar to what Telltale Games has produced before.

As the title suggests, the game is inspired by the works of Alfred Hitchcock, particularly his movie of the same name, Vertigo, albeit loosely.

The game was released for Windows on December 16, 2021 and for consoles, including Playstation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X/S and Nintendo Switch in September 2022.

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Alfred Hitchcock - Vertigo contains examples of:

• Abusive Parents:
  • John Miller wasn't the loving father Ed remembers: in reality, he would often get angry and raise his fist, threatening to punch him. He would also lecture his son on how he was just as much of a failure as himself. He also killed Jenny, though he did so after learning she wasn't his actual daughter.
  • It is also said that Veronica's biological parents were incredibly violent with her, which would explain her psychopathic traits according to Dr. Lomas. Note that Veronica herself wasn't exempt from being this to Jenny whom she regarded as nothing more than a prop.
• Affair? Blame the Bastard: The car crash that killed Maddy and Jenny Miller was actually a deliberate act on John Miller's part, as he learned that she had cheated on him and Jenny wasn't actually his daughter.
• The Alcoholic: John Miller began to drink heavily to alleviate his ambiguous troubles (implied to be due to his perceived lack of success as an author), and it's apparently where his abusive side started.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: In-universe. Ed wonders what pushed his father to jump off a bridge a few days after the death of Maddy and Jenny. Was it a Murder-Suicide planned from the start or a result or a growth in guilt that he couldn't bear? Or was he just afraid he would be arrested for his crime?
• Awful Truth:
  • The first part of the story has Ed learns that his childhood didn't happen as he remembered it: His father, John wasn't a playful dad who hid candies and treats in the house so his son could seek for them, but a compulsive drinker who made him seek for his alcohol behind his mother's back, the latter, tired of John, started dating Nick Reyes and got a child with him, Ed wasn't playing spies with his father when he took a photo of his mother and left it on John's office, the picture he took was actually of her kissing Nick. And when his father learned that, the car crash that killed the mother and little sister wasn't an accident, but a deliberate murder on the part of John, which Ed unwillingly and indirectly caused. While Ed is at first in denial, he learns to accept it as the childhood he had and decides to become the person these events made him to be.
  • For Robert Carrigan, if learning that his adoptive daughter died drunk and falling off a building wasn't awful enough, he has to learn she actually killed her "best friend" and impersonated her, being alive the whole time and on a criminal spree only to die for real eight years later by falling off a bridge.
• Awful Wedded Life: While Maddy Miller willingly married John, her wedded life fell apart as the latter got lost in alcoholism and other obsessions. She tried to divorce him, but it ended very badly for her...
• Big Bad: Veronica Carrigan turns out to be the one behind the murder of Samuel Franklin, the disappearance of his wife Esther and the attempted framing of Ed for these crimes, whom she wanted to have interned into a psychiatric facility so she could be his malevolent caretaker.
• Big Good: Dr. Julia Lomas. Out of all the main characters, she is the closest to morally white, as opposed to Ed being ambiguously insane and Sheriff Reyes who is prejudiced against the latter over the action of his father.
• Byronic Hero: Ed is a invokedlone author who lives in a remote house in the hills and is not very sociable, not to mention the fact that he may be insane and a murderer. Thankfully, the latter two aren't true, though the journey to clear Ed's name digs up a whole suite of buried issues.
• The Cameo: Alfred Hitchcock himself (or a look-alike considering the different time period) appears in the back of the movie theater at the beginning of the story. Likely a reference to Hitchcock's own habit of doing Creator Cameo in his films.
• Character Development: Ed, at the beginning of the story, is a Deadpan Snarker author who hasn't written anything in more than ten years, and possibly insane. By the end, as he learns the truth about his past, he learns to overcome what he previously didn't accept and become a more genuine person. He even gets to be the one helping others, as seen when he calms down Esther Franklin when she's having a freak-out.
• Cassandra Truth: Nobody believes in the existence of Ed's wife and daughter with the exception of Dr. Lomas, who upon hearing Ed's testimony knows they can't have been made up.
• Chekhov's Gunman: A few minor characters turns out to have much more important roles than it seems at first:
  • Barry Dennison, the truck driver who saved Ed from suicide, turns out to have actually been an accomplice of Veronica, though he isn't aware of her entire plan.
  • Veronica herself, at first she is mentioned by her father on a phone conversation he had with Dr. Lomas, and she is said to have died eight years ago. Turns out she is alive the whole time and the actual Big Bad.
• Classical Anti-Hero: Ed may be a well-meaning man but plagued with regrets and spent most of the story being in need of help rather than being the one helping others.
• Clear My Name: As befitting of a Hitchcock-inspired game. Ed is suspected of the murder of Samuel Franklin, and his own lack of understanding regarding what he went through doesn't help him, but with the help of Dr. Lomas, he hopes he can make sense of this situation and clear his name.
• Close to Home: The reason Sheriff Reyes is so hostile towards Ed Miller is that the whole incident forces him to relive the death of Maddy and Jenny Miller as well, and they were his girlfriend and daughter. He believes Ed to be just like his father whom he hates.
• Cool Old Guy: Samuel Franklin, a friendly old man who enjoyed fishing and playing chess with the much younger Ed, his neighbor.
• Da Chief: Sheriff Nick Reyes, the head of the police department of Cerro Lake.
• Deadpan Snarker: Ed, at first acts like this towards Dr. Lomas.
  Dr. Lomas: Those slippers... are a little far from the bed, aren't they?
  Ed Miller: Very subtle Doctor.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Ed Miller's pet cat is named...Pet, short for Petronius.
• Dramatic Irony: Played with:
  • The audience learns prior to the characters about Faye being actually a wicked woman manipulating Ed. Through a cutaway scene that plays right after Dr. Lomas states that "if there is a psychopath in this story, it's not Ed Miller".
  • Nobody learns the true reason as to why Veronica was found dead at the bottom of Brody Canyon and assume it was a suicide. In reality, the final scene of the game reveals that Petronius, Ed's cat, is the one who pushed her.
• Driven to Suicide: John Miller, as he jumped off the bridge of Brody Canyon, in presence of his 9-years old son.
• Enfant Terrible: Veronica Carrigan. When she was little, she framed her caretaker for an injury she inflicted on herself, so her father could spend more time with her. It only got worse in her teenagehood, when she attempted to frame Ed, Robert Carrigan's friend at the time, as guilty of pedophilia. She was eventually busted and sent to the psychiatric center but she managed to get out by disguising her "friend" Lisa Horowitz as herself, letting her fall of the roof drunk, and impersonating her the day she was about to leave the facility.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Ed's pet cat is appropriately hostile towards Veronica, and is the one who ends up killing her, conveniently leaving her body with much evidence of her being the culprit to the police.
• Fake Memories: Ed Miller's memories of his childhood have been greatly influenced by his aunt Claire sugarcoating it, upon reliving them through hypnotherapy, the events are seen in a new light, case in points:
  • Ed remembers how his father used to hide treats in the house and played pretend with him as a "secret pirate brotherhood" behind his mother's back. In reality, it was alcohol his father was hiding from his mother and he used him to retrieve it, there was also no "pirate brotherhood".
  • Ed also recalls that a broken tire, bursting in the middle of the road caused a car accident when his family and he were going on vacation. The car stopped on the ledge of a cliff, his father evacuated him from it, but the car slipped into the canyon with his mother and sister before he got time to do the same for them. In reality, John had voluntarily crashed the car and pushed it into the canyon to prevent Maddy from starting anew and taking the children from him.
• False Friend: Veronica called herself Lisa's BFF, but considering how she only manipulated her, killed her and impersonated her, it was probably a lie.
• Gaslighting: Oh boy! Basically everything that happened to Ed Miller was done by Veronica with the intent of making him believe he was insane. Meeting him one night, sleeping with him, then disappearing without trace only to come back a year later with a baby that is allegedly his. Then disguising as his deceased mother in the middle of the night and showing before him then drugging him so he loses consciousness and believes it was only a nightmare. And finally, faking a car crash, disappearing once again with the baby, then disguising herself as Ed's dead father and making him reliving the latter's death.
• Good Parents: Robert Carrigan was this to Veronica, his adoptive daughter. Until he had to send her to the psychiatric center after he realized how out of control she was.
• Good Samaritan: The truck driver who saves Ed from an attempted suicide at the beginning, he doesn't seem like the sweetest guy, but he sure did save a life. Subverted as while he did save his life, he was an accomplice of Veronica and the reason why Ed was about to kill himself in the first place.
• Greater-Scope Villain: John Miller, Ed's father. He is long dead by the time the events of the game take place, but is in part the reason why Ed carries repressed trauma that pushes him to doubt his sanity.
• Happily Failed Suicide: Sheriff Reyes attempted suicide after the death of his girlfriend and their daughter, and their assassin, John Miller, killing himself before giving him the opportunity to do it himself. He moved the gun at the last second, ending with a large scar on the face but glad to be alive.
• Hollywood Psych: The game takes a lot of liberty with how therapy works. Dr. Lomas's use of hypnotherapy wouldn't be something a therapist would think of using before attempting other options, and it surely wouldn't allow someone to relive their memories so vividly.
• If I Can't Have You…: The reason stated by John as to why he killed Maddy when she attempted to divorce him:
  Maddy: Next week I'm taking the kids, and I'm leaving. The sooner you get it in your head...
  John: To be with him am I right? With Jenny's father. You're not going to tear this family apart.
  [Beat]
  John: I'll tear it apart first.
• In Name Only: Despite the title, the game is only taking a few ideas and themes from its namesake movie, but it is otherwise a completely unrelated work.
• Intergenerational Friendship: While young Eddie viewed Esther Franklin as an Honorary Aunt, his relationship with her husband, Samuel is more of a friendship in spite of the generational difference.
• Internal Reveal: The moment Dr. Lomas and Sheriff Reyes find Faye's corpse leads to them making many discoveries that the player is already aware of at the time.
• Kill and Replace: Young Veronica Carrigan befriended Lisa Horowitz at the Riverhead psychiatric hospital, but in reality, the friendship was only a way to gain her trust and manipulate her into sharing a birthday party on the rooftop during which Veronica made her drink alcohol as a way to celebrate Lisa leaving the hospital the next morning. But as Lisa became drunk, Veronica swapped clothings with her and made her fall off the roof. Lisa's death was mistaken for Veronica's who took the identity of Lisa for the rest of her short-lived life.
• Like Father, Like Son: Ed is following in his father's footsteps to an eerily similar degree, going as far as also losing his wife and daughter to a car crash in Brody Canyon, at least he thinks so. Played for Drama and later Subverted as Ed learns that his father was not as good as a man as he remembers him and decides to break the cycle.
• Loving a Shadow: Ed's memories of his parents have been sugarcoated by his aunt to the point where he reminisces an idea of his father that doesn't match who he actually was.
• Make It Look Like an Accident:
  • How John Miller killed his wife and her daughter by disguising it as a car crash accident.
  • Also how Veronica faked her own death and murdered Lisa Horowitz.
• Manipulative Bitch: Veronica a.k.a Faye has been manipulating everyone around her, gaining their trust only to stab them in the back. She went to Ed's house, seeking asylum over an injury she made to herself, then seduced him and disappeared, then came back with a child of his, only to gaslight him by constantly drugging him and faking hallucinations with the intent of driving him insane.
• Mind Screw: The promise of the game basically. A man claims he killed his wife and daughter in a car crash which he mysteriously survived, then saw his long-deceased father jumping off the nearby bridge and attempted to do the same. Then we learn there is no proof of the existence of the man's alleged family.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: Veronica attempted to frame Ed for pedophilia by uploading pictures of herself posing in her schoolgirl uniform on his phone. All because she couldn't stand having him taking her father's attention away from her. Luckily for Ed, Veronica's plan was flawed. The police investigated him and uncovered the truth .
• Most Writers Are Writers: A story focusing on a writer, obviously.
• Mr. Imagination: Eddie as a child was often daydreaming and played spies or pirates using mostly his imagination. He also had an Imaginary Friend named Flanagan whom he later turned into a character for his book.
• No Full Name Given: Faye's last name is unknown as she never told it to Ed, which makes finding her all the more harder.
• Outgrowing the Childish Name: Ed used to go by "Eddie" as a child before seemingly having dropped it.
• Perspective Flip: A scene later in the game shows the encounter between Ed and Faye from the latter's perspective. Revealing that she actually injured herself to purposely gain Ed's trust and that behind the innocent facade, she was actually perfectly aware of who he was and had a sinister agenda planned for him.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Barry Dennison, Veronica's accomplice has a limited view of Mexicans.
  Sheriff Reyes: Which role would you like to see me in?
  Barry: In the role of ...a beaner? Si?
• Posthumous Character: Ed Miller's parents and Samuel Franklin are dead by the time the story takes place but are very much relevant and appear regularly in Flashbacks. Veronica/Faye is also dead during most of the story and appears primarily in flashbacks.
• Psycho Psychologist: Veronica got a degree in psychology and planned to have interned so she could torture him as his assigned psychologist.
• Schrödinger's Question: Happens a few time such as when Dr. Lomas asks Ed if his father ever laid a finger on him. The answer is up to the player and the truth is never confirmed.
• Stepford Snarker: Dr. Lomas is quick to speculate that Ed's sarcastic tendencies are likely done so he can keep his distance with her and avoid the pain of reflecting on his past.
• Shirtless Scene: Ed being bedridden with a terrible vertigo, spends a good deal of the story laying down without a shirt.
• Stranger Safety: Ed met his girlfriend Faye when she was seeking asylum at his house after she broke her ankle, ran out of essence and hurried to the nearest house. He accepted and let her spend the night at his house, and the two eventually developed feelings for each other. Turns out Ed was the one in danger the whole time.
• String Theory: The Cerro Lake police department has one when doing a debriefing of all the evidence they gathered.
• Sympathy for the Devil: While John Miller is clearly evil enough to kill his wife and her daughter because he can't stand seeing her leave him for another guy, many usually refer to him as a well-meaning man who "got lost and started to drink" and the game highlight that he had self-esteem issues from the start, making it easier to see a more human side of him.
• Third-Person Flashback: Whenever Ed is under hypnosis, he ends up transported into his past as his present-self, able to see how things really went outside of his warped point-of-view.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Eddie taking a photo of his mother kissing Nick and putting the photo on his father's desk had way more disastrous results than the poor boy could have thought, resulting in the death of his mother by his father's hand and the suicide of the latter.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Faye's injured ankle turns out to be a self-inflicted wound as an excuse to stage a meeting with Ed and lure him into a false sense of trust.
• Yandere: Veronica was a non-romantic example towards her father Robert. She would get extremely jealous of anyone taking his attention away from her. She once purposely injured herself with a shard of glass under her nanny Mary's care so Robert would stop hiring her. She also attempted to frame Ed for pedophilia so he would be out of her father's sight.

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