Visual Novel / Therapy with Dr. Albert Krueger

Right to left: genius therapist and satisfied patient

Has work been feeling more tiring than usual?
Your mood, confusing and uneasy?
Losing the confidence to speak up when you want to?
Then it sounds like you need our newly patented
★DREAM THERAPY★!

Therapy with Dr. Albert Krueger (often shortened to TWDAK) is a short horror point-and-click Visual Novel made in Ren'Py by Dino999z. It can be downloaded here.

University student Taylor Lee finds themself in an unfamiliar room, subject to "dream therapy" against their will by the ever-smiling Dr. Albert Krueger. As the session progresses, it becomes apparent that Albert is far more dangerous than he appears.

Shares a universe with Vincent: The Secret of Myers by the same developer.

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This visual novel provides examples of:

• Addressing the Player: Taylor addresses the player after Ending 1, suggesting ways to play to get a different ending.
• Affably Evil: Albert remains charming and polite throughout the game, even when Taylor argues with him and defies his instructions. He only slips once when Taylor finds his sketch of Vincent, and sincerely apologises for his outburst afterwards.
• All Just a Dream: In the good ending, Taylor wakes up abruptly at the end of the session, realising that they were asleep in front of their computer the whole time. This also explains why Albert seems able to control the environment in such an odd, glitchy way, and why the game starts with Taylor already in the office with no idea how they got there.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Starting from the second playthrough, Albert will allow the player to save at the start of every therapy segment. Since endings 2 and 3 require perfect or all wrong answers, the Shell Game section in particular may need several tries to get right, making this feature practically indispensable.
• But Thou Must!: Picking the frowny faces on the satisfaction survey will circle the smiley faces anyway.
• Character Blog: The game's itch.io page is presented as a website for Albert's practice, including a glowing review section by satisfied patients. All give five stars except for Vincent's one-star review, which is struck through.
  "This man is an absolute psychopath. Anyone with a bit of common sense can see through his lies."
• Continuity Nod: Albert's college rival is none other than Vincent Edgeworth, the title character of TWDAK's sister game.
• Eye Scream: Albert uses a human eyeball for the Shell Game, much to Taylor's distress. His calm explanation that it was donated by a former patient doesn't help.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Albert can be seen gradually distorting during the second half of the shell game, but he's usually hidden behind the central cup, and by then the cups are moving so quickly that he's hard to spot.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: It's implied that Albert had a lonely childhood, being an only child with very busy working parents, and that he has trouble connecting with others as an adult. In the good ending, Taylor points out his longing for the old days with his college friends and encourages him to reconnect with them, and he clearly wants to be friends with Taylor too and invites them to catch up sometime in his letter.
• Inkblot Test: The final section of the therapy session is a Rorschach test. The images start out normal, but suddenly become blood-splattered nightmare faces with the regular multiple-choice answers (e.g. "elephant", "butterfly") changing into disturbing words (e.g. "slaughter", "suffering") when moused over.
• Interface Screw:
  • During the "gateway to your heart" Q&A section, Albert instructs Taylor to close their eyes throughout, causing the screen to go black aside from the text box.
  • Trying to skip dialogue will get you admonished by Albert, and the game progresses without the skip button entirely. Albert aside, it's justified as multiple playthroughs have additional dialogue players might not want to accidentally miss.
    "No, Taylor. It is incredibly rude to skip all our conversation."
  • The final action to get the good ending is flipping over the last inkblot test sheet, revealing a sketch of Vincent. This upsets Albert so much that he flies at the screen roaring with a distorted Nightmare Face, crashing the game entirely. Opening the game again loads directly into the continuation of the scene.
• Lampshade Hanging: In the second playthrough, Taylor asks Albert to give them the option to save, which Albert allows (though you can only reset the therapy segment you're currently on).
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In second and third playthroughs, Taylor retains some knowledge gained from the previous playthrough, but can't explain how they know it. They expand further on their usual questions and comments instead, so that if the ideal ending sequence (1 to 3 in order) is achieved, enough information about Albert will have been revealed that Ending 3 has the intended impact on the player.
• Left the Background Music On: The background music really is playing in Albert's office. During some breaks between segments, he'll decide to turn it up, making it audibly louder.
• Metaphorically True: Taylor is not happy that Albert's using an eyeball for the shell game, and Albert points out that it still qualifies.
  Taylor: WTF man??? That's NOT a ball.
  Albert: An eyeball is a ball. It is a sphere.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Albert is very shady, and he freely admits at the start of the session that his doctorate is really in marine biology.
• Multiple Endings:
  • Ending 1 (Bad End): The ending most players get on their first run. When the session ends, the screen distorts with static as Albert asks Taylor to sacrifice themself to "feed the hungry people of the G2 district". After a jump scare and the credits, a mutilated Taylor will speak directly to the player, advising them on what to do to get a different ending (usually Ending 2, unless that was achieved in the previous playthrough).
  • Ending 2 (Bad (True?) End): Achieved by getting all the answers right and obeying all of Albert's instructions. When the session ends, the screen distorts as horrific stick figures bleeding from their eyes fade in, and Albert invites Taylor to join his dream eater army. Taylor's face warps as the screen fills with blood, and while they appear in their dream eater form after the credits, they're no longer capable of speech.
  • Ending 3 (Good (True) End): Achieved by getting every answer wrong and rebelling against Albert at every opportunity. Albert ends the session early, and Taylor suddenly wakes up in front of their computer, noting that there's a new text file on their desktop. When the game returns to the title screen, the text file turns out to be a friendly letter from Albert.
• Mutually Unequal Relation: Albert calls Vincent his rival and arch-enemy rather than his friend, but it's clear that he misses him and remembers him fondly. In Vincent: The Secret of Myers, Vincent regarded Albert mainly as an annoyance and said he couldn't care less about Albert's post-graduation plans, so it's unknown exactly how he responds to Albert's phone call in the good ending.
• Ominous Visual Glitch: The screen glitches with static whenever Albert leaves the room or reappears at his desk, and his office gradually gains a little more furniture at certain points. The screen also glitches in the bad ends as Albert poses his final question to Taylor.
• Or Was It a Dream?: After Taylor wakes up in the good ending, they notice a new text file on their desktop that turns out to be a letter from Albert, saying he took their advice about calling Vincent and inviting Taylor to hang out again.
• Perpetual Smiler: Even when Taylor provokes him into a roaring jump scare that crashes the game, Albert never stops smiling.
• Psycho Psychologist: Albert's ulterior motives behind his dream therapy have nothing to do with his patients' wellbeing. What's more, he isn't even a real therapist.
• Save-Game Limits: There is no save option until the second playthrough, when Albert allows a single save point at the start of every therapy section. When the good ending is achieved, the game has to be reset to be replayed, removing the save option again.
• Sensory Abuse: When Albert gets angry after Taylor finds his sketch, the Jump Scare that follows is accompanied by a roaring, heavily distorted voice.
  GET OVER HERE
• Shout-Out: Albert's surname is a reference to Freddy Krueger, who also uses dreams to find his targets.
• Talking in Your Dreams: The good ending reveals that this is how Albert communicates with his "patients" and judges their worth in service to G2.
• Tears of Blood: The dream eaters have red streaks coming from their eyes that may well be this, although the pixellated art style makes it hard to confirm.
• Therapist in Therapy: In the good ending, Taylor has Albert confront his repressed attachment to his college life and encourages him to reach out to his old rival, whom he clearly misses.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: To protect his home district from an unnamed threat, Albert uses his dream therapy to look for "good kids" to join his dream eater army, discarding his "mediocre" patients as fodder for the masses. This explains why he kills Taylor in Ending 1 when they get only some answers wrong (mediocrity) and conscripts them in Ending 2 when they get everything right.
• You Didn't See That: The first therapy segment involves simple maths, the player choosing the right answer from four number cards. On the final round, one card is mysteriously bloodstained and Albert quickly switches it out for a clean one, refusing to acknowledge what just happened despite Taylor's distress. This is the first indication that Albert is actually dangerous, and it only gets worse from there.

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