In the mid-nineties, inspired by the rise of FMV and the concept of treating video games as interactive movies, Kenji Eno decided to take what he deemed the next logical step: creating a digital actress. Laura would go on to star in three games, portraying a different character with a different surname each time:
- D tells the story of Laura Harris, a college student. While attending school in San Francisco, she receives word that her father, the respected Dr. Richter Harris, has started randomly murdering everyone at his Los Angeles hospital. Rushing to the scene, she enters the hospital and is confronted by a bloody scene... one that swiftly alters to a mysterious abandoned castle. Despite visions of her father warning her to leave, she makes her way deeper inside, coming ever closer to the Awful Truth of what exactly caused her father's rampage...
- In Enemy Zero, Laura Lewis is awakened from her cryogenic slumber on the AKI space station by a malfunction. This error wipes out most of her memory. As if that wasn't unfortunate enough, the station is being attacked by aliens — completely invisible aliens whom Laura can find only by listening for them. And being only human, Laura can't take much damage, and has but one life to live...
- Despite the name, D2 has no plot connection to the original D. Laura Parton's peaceful flight is interrupted when terrorist-cultists hijack her plane and crash it into the Canadian wilderness. Awakening from a coma 10 days later, she and another survivor witness one of the terrorists transforming into a plant-monster. Laura must find other survivors and some way of contacting the outside world, all the while dealing with the horrific mutations...
After D2's commercial failure, its developer, WARP, folded, bringing Laura's career to an end. However, the original D is available digitally on both Steam and GOG.com under the title D: The Game as published by Nightdive Studios and Throwback Entertainment.
Unrelated to Corpse Party D2: Fatal Operation.
The D Trilogy contains examples of:
- Auteur License: Reading up on the history of the series, it's pretty clear that the whole trilogy was an auteur project for Eno, from the legally dubious methods he used to net D a Teen rating, to his infamous bridge-burning with Sony and jumping ship to Sega after the former manufactured far too little copies of D to meet the demand. The below-mentioned rare D's Diner Updated Re-release of the game even had to be specially ordered and was hand-delivered by Eno himself.
- Fake Difficulty: Each of the games has at least one gimmick intended to make the game much tougher than it would be otherwise.
- D must be beaten within two hours, with no saving or even pausing. Some of the game's puzzles include blatant time-wasters, such as the Wheel puzzle.
- Enemy Zero makes Laura a One-Hit-Point Wonder: die to the invisible enemies, and you have to start all over again. The player is also given limited saves via a battery on the voice recorder used to save, which drains whenever the game saves or loads.
- D2 makes Laura stand still while fighting.
- Legacy Character: In each entry, the main heroine is named Laura and has blonde hair. The surname changes to indicate each character is meant to be different.
- Reused Character Design: Kenji Eno did this. All of the protagonists are named Laura and have the same design, but are different characters with different surnames.
- Virtual Celebrity: Laura, as outlined above. Several of the cast members introduced in Enemy Zero also reappear in D2 in new roles.
D also contains examples of:
- Amnesiac Dissonance: The scarab beetles, if collected, give Laura visions that reveal she murdered her own mother and ate her flesh.
- Do Well, But Not Perfect: One of the potential locations for a scarab beetle is down the pit in the armory room, meaning you have to fail the Quick Time Event at least once in order to find it.
- Downer Ending: Even the "good" ending is pretty bleak. Though Laura survived the ordeal, Richter and all of the patients are dead, and Laura now knows the truth about her past, that she murdered her own mother.
- Dracula: The origins of Laura's family.
- Eye Scream: The box art implies this, with bloody tears running down from mercifully shadow-veiled sockets. In-game, sharp and pointy things seem to love stopping juuuuust short of Laura's eyes...
- Foreshadowing: As Laura explores the reception area of the hospital at the start of the game, two signs are seen: one encouraging visitors to donate blood, and another saying no food or drink is allowed inside. They both serve as a small bit of Black Comedy (as the reception area is littered with dead bodies) as well as subtle hints of the game's central themes of vampirism and cannibalism.
- For Science!: Richter implies this was why he allowed himself to succumb to Dracula's curse despite the fact that he'd seen Laura fall under it before and was able to reverse it then. He wanted to know how he would be affected.
- Game Over: Couldn't make the time limit, or didn't pick up the flintlock? Well, there goes two hours of your life.
- Getting Crap Past the Radar: In order to ensure that the game was published in the form he wished, Kenji Eno resorted to actual fraud
. First, he developed the game with no story line, concealing the cutscenes from his own staff, then submitted a 'clean' version to the board for approval. He then deliberately submitted the master late, knowing that he would then have to deliver it by hand to the U.S. manufacturers. That gave him time to 'switch' the clean disc with the version he intended, bypassing the censors completely and allowing the game to be published in a lower-than-intended rating of ESRB T and BBFC 15 in the US and UK respectively!note - That being said the GOG version has a "Please note: the game contains strong violence and is intended for mature audiences." while the Steam version page did not gave any content warning at all. Both rereleases aren't even given formal age rating.
- Heroic Mime: Laura never utters a single word throughout the game, only gasping or breathing heavily when encountering horrific things in the castle.
- Hint System: Laura's compact offers a single-screen vision hinting at what she should do next. Each time she does this, however, the mirror cracks a little more... If used three times, it shatters.
- I'm a Humanitarian: This is required to transform into Dracula. Laura attempted it in the past with her mother, and Richter ends up doing this to Laura in the Bad Ending.
- Interactive Movie: The whole game is presented via full-motion video.
- Loophole Abuse: See Getting Crap Past the Radar above.
- Mad Doctor: Richter, who went on a killing spree, massacring his patients.
- Mood Whiplash: The end credits of D consists of generic J-Rock with various daytime photos of the development team, which is jarring from the dark and moody tone of the entire game.
- Multiple Endings: There are four:
- A good ending where Laura makes it to her father and kills him, destroying the alternate reality created in his mind, and freeing her from the trap.
- A Golden Ending is available in the D's Diner releasenote , which is exactly the same as the good ending, but with a Stinger - the sound of a baby crying.
- A bad ending where Laura is killed and eaten by her father, who transforms into Dracula.
- And the "Time Elasped Ending" where she fails to get through to Richter in time and falls through her pocket watch and returns to the real world.
- No-Nonsense Nemesis: Laura just shoots her father in the good ending.
- One-Letter Title: D.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Laura and her lineage.
- Ontological Mystery: Despite Richter's continuing warnings to "Leave now", you can't.
- Poor Communication Kills: Seriously, Dad, you couldn't have warned Laura off before she entered your Mind Mansion?
- Pre-Rendered Graphics: The entire game is done in prerendered 3D.
- Press X to Not Die: A brief QuickTime event occurs when Laura confronts the suit of armor. Failure doesn't mean immediate death; you merely fall into a pit, and have to waste time climbing back up.
- Re-Cut: D's Diner: Director's Cut, a rare edition that included new sequences, background information on Laura and her family, and a soundtrack disc.
- Save-Game Limits: There are no saves. You can't even pause.
- Spooky Painting: A painting of a little girl suddenly smiles and laughs when examined, suddenly swirling to briefly show a set of 4 animals. This shows the orientation of the miniature carousel the player should set it at to open the next door.
- The Stinger: If the player collected all the scarab beetles and got the Good Ending, the credits end with a baby's cry. This was to serve as a Sequel Hook to the cancelled original version of D2 for the ill-fated M2 system.
- Timed Mission: You have a mere two hours to finish the game. If you fail to reach the ending in time... Laura falls into her pocket watch. ...Wait, what?
- Tragic Keepsake: The compact in Laura's inventory is said to be the only thing she has left from her mother.
