Video Game / The Vermander Curse

The man who unleashes the horror...all because of that deducted 1%.

J.P. Vermander has a problem.
In his eyes, he's been swindled.
With the offending party being none other than the local hospital.
And by using the power of a ritualistic curse, he will have his revenge.

—The game's description

The Vermander Curse is a 2022 first person horror game created by Zed_Technician.

One fateful night, the rich and powerful landowner J.P. Vermander notices that his profits were 1% less than last month, and questions his assistant Hannah of the cause. Upon being told that he didn't qualify for a tax deduction because the required amount he needs to donate to charity increased, the incensed man does the only reasonable action and enacts a dark ritual to terrorize the hospital his donations went to, blaming them for his losses.

This forces the hospital's employees, Doctor Eda and Nurse Morton, to do everything they can to keep themselves and their patients, Lang Boyd (and his visiting wife Jasmine), Tammy Giles and "Jane Doe" safe until sunrise. Aiding them in their plight is Hannah, who wishes to keep her boss's rash behaviour from claiming any lives by warning the two about what to watch out for.

Gameplay is set in a series of (In-Universe) hour long chunks. Each hour, Hannah will warn your current Player Character what to watch out for, and the player has until the end of the hour to make sure everything is in order to keep the demon at bay. With each attack thwarted, new sources of power for the demon will be added, requiring every nook and cranny of the hospital to be searched.

The game is available for free on itch.io.

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The game contains examples of:

• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Played for Drama. Tammy Giles was given, as Eda puts it, "old fashioned medicine" to numb the pain of getting one of her teeth removed, which results in her wandering around the hospital throughout the night. This could result in her becoming an easy target for the demon if the doctors don't keep her in her room.
• Anger Born of Worry: Jasmine Boyd spends most of her time in the hospital berating her husband for getting himself injured due to being too cheap to hire handymen to fix their roof. However, you can tell her anger is mostly due to the major shock Lang gave her and she still loves him.
• Anti-Frustration Features: If you manage to get all of an hour's tasks done early, you can stare at the waiting room's clock to skip to the demon's arrival.
• Big Bad: J.P. Vermander is the one sending the demon to the hospital and the source of all troubles.
• Big Beautiful Woman: Pretty much every female character in the game is on the bigger side, but still has an appealing design if you're not too bothered by giant boobs.
• Closed Circle: The demon's influence prevents everyone in the hospital from leaving until sunrise.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Lang Boyd might look like a prime example of a big bad wolf with his crooked teeth and glowing red eyes, but he's really just a loving husband and father with no evil bone in his body. If the demon comes to take him and his wife Jane, he even tries to protect her despite suffering from a broken back.
• Darkness Equals Death: After all the rules have been explained, all the lights in the hospital go out and the line to Hannah goes dead, meaning now Dr. Eda and Nurse Morton are completely on their own.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The main conflict. Profits drop by 1%? Summon a demon to kill everyone at the hospital your donations went to, despite them having nothing to do with the change in tax law!
• Electromagnetic Ghosts: Demon, in this case. The demon makes the lights flicker and plays static on the TVs in order to gain power. It is vital to interrupt both processes before the hour ends.
• Evil Only Has to Win Once: As the ending narration for almost every ending ´points out, even if Vermander's plan is foiled that night, all he has to do is try again until he inevitably succeeds.
• Foreshadowing: During the introductory cutscene, Eda shows Morton a patient list that includes notes for when they'll need medicine that night. If you don't notice this or skip talking to patients throughout the night, they'll leave their rooms when the demon comes, resulting in their deaths.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Hannah, Vermander's secretary, is a blonde and unlike her boss a good person. Even though she helps Vermander with the ritual, she also calls the hospital right afterwards to warn them and, when they can't evacuate on time, tell them the demon's rules so they can fend him off.
• Haunted Technology: Downplayed. The demon will use the phones in the hospitals for orientation, which results in them ringing and strange whispers being heard on the other end sometimes. Eda and Morton have to either say nothing if the line is quiet or recite a mantra to repel the demon's presence if whispering can be heard.
• Heel–Face Turn: Vermander undergoes one in the Golden Ending after Hannah saves his life and he recovers in the hospital. He even uses the remains of his fortune to help the hospital out.
• The Heavy: While Vermander is the game's Big Bad, it's the demon he summoned who acts as the direct and more dangerous threat of the story.
• Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: Inverted. The demon is the one affected by this, as it's not allowed to open doors as long as the doctors follow its rules.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Dr. Eda can be blunt to the point of rudeness, but she genuinely cares for her patients and is grateful for Nurse Morton's help, even promising to throw him and his daughter a welcome party if they survive the night.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Hannah's advice can dip into this at points, such as telling the doctors to "use the Space (capital letter included) inside [their] mind" for one method of repelling the demon.
• Multiple Endings: There are quite a few variations depending on who specifically is alive or dead, but there are four main scenarios, three bad endings (the first two also falling under Non-Standard Game Over) and one Golden Ending.
  • All That Mattered: If both employees are taken by the demon, then the hospital is closed down, causing the town to suffer. The cause of the disappearances are a total mystery, and Hannah, the only person who could reveal the truth, is too afraid to speak because of what her boss could do to her. But in the end, J.P. Vermander gets to keep his extra 1%, and that's all that mattered.
  • Manifestation: If the demon is allowed to gain power thrice, then it fully manifests, allowing its influence to expand to the entire town and results in the darkest night in the town's history. But in the end, J.P. Vermander gets to keep his extra 1%, and that's all that mattered.
  • Arrested: This ending is achieved if at least one employee survives until the sunrise, but at least one person was taken by the demon. The demon is forced to retreat as the sun rises, with an investigation is launched into the disappearance(s) they caused. However, Vermander's influence over the police force results in the surviving hospital employees being framed and arrested, forcing the hospital to close down, causing the town to suffer. Hannah disappears soon after, the only clue left behind being one of the demon's red candles. But in the end, J.P. Vermander gets to keep his extra 1%, and that's all that mattered.
    • This ending has a significant variation if "Jane Doe" was the only victim. No one comes forward to report her disappearance, and despite the best efforts of the employees, there was no luck finding her. Despite the tragic cost, Vermander's plan is stopped for the moment, but there's nothing to keep him from trying again, and he only needs to win once.
  • Vermander's Curse: This ending is achieved by having everyone survive until sunrise. The demon failed to spill any blood that night, so the Vermander Pact is null and void. Now free, the demon takes their revenge on Vermander, but by some miracle, the man barely clings to life. Thanks to the kindness of Hannah, who came across her boss's body and took him to the hospital, as well as Nurse Morton and Doctor Eda, who treated their would-be murderer with the same respect they did for their other patients, Vermander had a change of heart, doing whatever it took to make amends, even selling his estate in the face of the crippling debt he now faced as a result of the Pact being broken. Hannah and Vermander would end up getting taken in by the doctors, with Hannah now acting as the hospital's accountant, and Vermander simply being given a place to stay while he builds himself back up, on his own merits this time.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The Arrested ending implies that Vermander found out about Hannah trying to help the hospital and send the demon after her as punishment.
• Resourceful Rodent: Nurse Morton, who is an anthropomorphic rat and helps Dr. Eda fend off the demon.
• Royal Brat: J.P. Vermander himself, who only has his immense wealth thanks to his family's demonic pact. It's to the point that when he loses his fortune in the Golden Ending, he ends up having to work as a food delivery driver because he had no other skills.
• Save the Villain: In the Golden Ending, Hannah and the doctors save Vermander's life after his demon brings him to the brink of death.
• Screw the Rules, They Broke Them First!: The pact has conditions for both Vermander and his demon; the demon never breaks its conditions, but if Vermander cannot fulfill his own — in this case, if no blood is spilled because the targets given were wise to it — then the pact is broken, thus the demon will be free and quickly demanifested back to hell... but it has more than enough time to drop by his former master's place to repay him for generations of forced servitude.
• Shout-Out: One of the demon's ways to gain power is to open windows. Hannah remarks that he seems strangely fixated on them.
• Weaksauce Weakness: The demon can't enter a room if the door is locked. A rather disappointing weakness for an ancient creature of darkness, not that Dr. Eda and Nurse Morton are complaining.

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