Where Are All The People?

Where Are All The People? is a 2-dimensional video game published by The Cursed Simulation Corporation on the evening of October 30th, 1998.

Background
Where Are All The People? was made in part for TCSC's "Halloween Extravaganza Ball," an event that never actually materialized. Many expectant gamers and artists showed up at the corporate offices the evening before Halloween but were disappointed to find the offices locked and its lights turned off, as if the employees had simply gone home for the day. This failed event had a majorly negative effect on the corporation's reputation, especially since thousands of previous customers and some important elected officials were invited to the event. However, attendees to the event would soon discover that upon arriving back at their homes, they would find their computers turned on and running a copy of Where Are All The People?

Most people reported that their copy of Where Are All The People? started with a plain, blue title screen with the eponymous words written across the screen. Several though reported the game beginning with a pure crimson screen lacking any text except for a large letter "A" in an even deeper shape of red, center screen. Those who reported the crimson screen were coincidentally subjected to "strange and haunting events" in their real life, detailed below.

Game Description and Notable Features
The game is primarily composed of 2-dimensional "side-scroller" screens presented in an increasingly disjointed manner, primarily taking place during the fictional events of a plague outbreak in Oxford, England in 1880. It is known to possess one of the most coherent plots of any game published by TCSC, although that isn't saying much, as the game still has a remarkable amount of surrealism, occultism, and visual and auditory oddities. The real-life events surrounding the release and consumer-base have led to the game having one of the largest cult followings of any TCSC game. Especially considering elements of the plot within the game seem to have bled over into reality, similarly affecting players.

The game is also noted for its beautiful, hand-drawn, "pixel art" graphics, often featuring elaborate Victorian Gothic scenes and a surprising amount of loving detail put into the clothing of the characters and the various items found throughout the game.

It is also unique for its file size. Apparently, the game creators used an advanced form of algorithmic encryption which has yet to be reverse engineered. The game was only about 20MB in its entirety, but estimates of traditional data amounts for a similar game range from 5 to 20GB; a 25,000% to 100,000% increase in file compression.

In typical TCSC style, the game features an expansive and oftentimes overwhelming amount of characters, items, and storylines. Most characters have intricately detailed backstories although very few feature prominently in the main plotline.

The game has been noted to have a dreary or depressing atmosphere, often inspiring feelings of dread or horror in the player as the storyline progresses.

Act I
The game is divided into a staggering 27 Acts, each several hours long depending on how in-depth the player is willing to explore and interact with the environment and the side-characters. Before the game is started, the player can choose from a variety of historical characters, although their choice of character rarely affects the actual gameplay or other characters' responses to the player's character. There are twenty possible choices for characters. It should also be noted that many of them are anachronistic, although the player's choice of character is the only anachronism thus discovered within the game.

The player's choices are:
 * 1) Theodore Roosevelt
 * 2) Madame Curie
 * 3) Truman Capote
 * 4) Ben Kingsley
 * 5) Tony Blair
 * 6) Queen Victoria Herself
 * 7) A Werewolf
 * 8) Gandhi
 * 9) Emily Dickinson
 * 10) Abraham Lincoln
 * 11) Robert Mitchum
 * 12) Judy Garland
 * 13) Buzz Aldrin
 * 14) Roald Dahl
 * 15) Captain Robert Falcon Scott
 * 16) Franz Mesmer
 * 17) Margaret Brown
 * 18) John Dee
 * 19) Al Capone
 * 20) A Vagrant

Regardless of the player's choice of character, the character will always be garbed in appropriate 19th century clothing.

The game begins with Act I in the upstairs parlor of a Lady Rose Eddington, on a stormy night in April of 1880. She is conducting what she calls "The Grand Séance." Her parlor is absolutely filled with upper-class people. The great throng of people is spilling out into the adjacent ballroom. There is a large circular table in the center of the parlor where the player and several other notable figures are conducting the first séance of the evening. The player is able to get up and interact with other people in the parlor before the events begin, but the sheer amount of characters milling about makes any sort of movement difficult. There are at least fifty characters in the parlor alone and three hundred in the ballroom, although only the characters in the parlor are named and interact-able.

Their names thus far discovered are:


 * 1) Barrister Isaac Alastair Rockwell, III
 * 2) Lady Phoebe Lila McQuillen
 * 3) Octavius Julian Smith, Esquire
 * 4) Countess Lenora Samantha Colchester
 * 5) Lord Xavier Rutherford Hawk
 * 6) Miss Chastity Mena Rockwell
 * 7) Professor Nicholas Stanton Leatherby
 * 8) Baroness Lucretia Rebecca Jones
 * 9) Doctor Judson Edwin Palmer, III
 * 10) Lady Viola Meredith Whittock
 * 11) Jarrett William Ashby, the Bloody Gunman
 * 12) Lady Rowena Iris White
 * 13) Count Enoch Tobias Wolverhampton
 * 14) Countess Matilda Bronwyn Wolverhampton
 * 15) Captain Thomas Byron Featherstone, III
 * 16) Countess Rosalind Raven Hollingsworth
 * 17) Mr. Raleigh Byron Colchester, Industrialist
 * 18) Miss Octavia Veronica Wells
 * 19) Mr. Everett Arthur Ashmore
 * 20) Countess Mena Elise Leatherby
 * 21) Captain Josiah Tobias Gunn, Esquire
 * 22) Miss Nora Helen Porter, Poet
 * 23) Thaddeus Vincent Lee, II
 * 24) Miss Ada Lucinda Highmore
 * 25) Admiral Cyril Dante Blackwater
 * 26) Baroness Nora Millicent Wolfe
 * 27) Constable Darius Julian Wallace
 * 28) Baroness Amelia Eleanor Ravensdale
 * 29) Mr. Simon Isaac Rockwell, Esquire
 * 30) Miss Lillian Matilda Baldwin
 * 31) Doctor Simon Hiram Ellis, Esquire
 * 32) Miss Drusilla Olivia Dosett
 * 33) Emory Mortimer Fox
 * 34) Lady Samantha E. Featherstone, the Red Swan
 * 35) Professor Jonathan Ulysses Carmichael
 * 36) Lady Mina Helen Bishop
 * 37) Barrister Jonas Asher McQuillen
 * 38) Countess Helen Octavia Winchester
 * 39) Lord Joshua Oscar Smith, Esquire
 * 40) Lady Lucretia Claudia Ashby
 * 41) Mr. Ezra Mordecai Cullen
 * 42) Baroness Rosemary Juliet Rockwell
 * 43) Good Ol' Frank
 * 44) Miss Marie Amelia Darlington
 * 45) Professor Darius Zachariah Dawber
 * 46) Lady Chastity Iris Emerson
 * 47) Benedict Edwin Locke, Esquire
 * 48) Lady Olive Phoebe Crane
 * 49) Captain Zachariah Joshua Wolfe
 * 50) Miss Victoria Ophelia von Figg, Botanist

Each of these characters has something unique to say about The Grand Séance, ranging from enthusiasm to outright fear or disgust. There are also several "skeptics," who will try to fight you, fisticuffs-style if you repeatedly speak to them and espouse the virtues of Spiritualism. These skeptics include Barrister Jonas A. McQuillen, Mr. Ezra M. Cullen, and Countess Lenora S. Colchester. It is advisable not to speak to Good Ol' Frank at all because there is a 33.2% chance that he will draw a revolver and shoot the player, resulting in an immediate endgame, featuring a disturbing photograph of Good Ol' Frank's face sporting a rictus grin. There is also a 10% chance that he will fire his revolver into the air upon speaking to him, resulting in The Grand Séance being cancelled and the participants fleeing from the area. This also results in an endgame, but with no accompanying picture. It is suspected that Good Ol' Frank is a reference to Frank Podmore, a noted and conflicted skeptic/believer of the time.

Once the player sits back down at the main table in the center of the room, Lady Rose Eddington begins the ceremony. Random characters will sit down at the table as the gas lamps in the room begin to dim. Lady Rose lights several candles and passes them around to the people at the table. There will always be five random characters from the room, the player, Lady Rose, and a werewolf sitting at the table. If the player chose "A Werewolf" as their starting character, the chair where the werewolf sits will be empty. The werewolf wears a 19th century three-piece suit, but has a wolf head and body. Lady Rose begins the ceremony by drawing a geometric pattern between the candles, linking them with lines and a large circle. She uses a piece of chalk that is a different color every time the game is played. If that random color happens to be red, a red ghost will be immediately summoned and kill everyone at the table. There is a 5% chance of this happening. This results in an immediate endgame featuring a game over screen with the image of a red ghost, shackled by ghostly, golden chains. If the red ghost is summoned, there is also a 3% chance that Good 'Ol Frank will shoot the ghost with his revolver and save the day. If this happens, the game will continue on as normal.

If Lady Rose uses any other color of chalk (and there are a lot of different possibilities), strange tapping noises will soon be heard. A murmur will move through the crowd as several people claim that they feel the temperature dropping. Very soon after the tapping noises, someone in the crowd will scream and exclaim, "It touched me!" The storm outside will begin to pick up and lightning can be seen. Great crashes of thunder resonate through the mansion. Everyone will become increasingly agitated until a great panic erupts as a dark ghost moves through the room. Several patrons will faint immediately, usually randomized. As the ghost moves out of the parlor and into the ballroom, it begins to frighten the great crowd there.

Once the crowd is in a proper state of fervor, Lady Rose calls attention to herself and exclaims that it was all a wild prank and that no one should have anything to fear. The gas lamps reignite and the champagne and food is brought out by a stream of servants. The storm outside continues to rage, however. The player is free to roam about the top floor of the mansion: the parlor, the ballroom, the library, and several of the bedrooms. Characters will randomly wander around the mansion, speak to each other, drink champagne, and eat fine foods. Good Ol' Frank and Lady Rose can be found in the library, both drinking cognac out of the same bottle and smoking pipes.

Once the clock strikes two o'clock, there will be a knock on the large double doors at one end of the ballroom. If the player does not answer the door, Lady Rose will. A rain-soaked man in an overcoat and a beaked plague mask will emerge from the night. The frivolities of the party-goers will cease and everyone will focus on the plague doctor. He is in a state of panic. In a feverish panic he will inform the crowd that the town of Oxford has fallen under a terrible disease that is spreading quickly through the populace and that the greater English countryside has enacted a quarantine on the city limits. He then crumples to the ground, although it is unclear whether he perishes from disease or exhaustion. The crowd once more erupts into a full-blown panic. The majority of the attendees rush out of the room into the night and are not seen again. If the player chooses to follow them, it will result in an immediate endgame, featuring a sinister animated picture of windblown trees under a cloudy moon. Several characters will stay within the mansion. Lady Rose, Good Ol' Frank, the Werewolf, and Admiral Cyril Blackwater will stay.

Act II
The plot begins to degenerate here, although threads of the initial storyline remain throughout. Lady Rose immediately suggests that the remaining group needs to escape the mansion, but not by following everyone out into the night. If the player remains for too long inside of the mansion, they will begin to show symptoms of a terrible disease, eventually resulting in an endgame with no picture. It is assumed that the player perishes of their symptoms. If the player speaks to Good Ol' Frank he will say, "I have just the solution!" and he will throw several colorful shapes onto the ground. There is a Green Pyramid, a Red Cube, a Blue Cylinder, a Purple Tetrahedron, and a Yellow Disk (with the same diameter as the Blue Cylinder). Interacting with the shapes will send the player to a series of strange areas, unrelated to the main storyline with no way of returning except by waiting more than fifteen minutes. Each object has eight possible areas, randomly assigned. If a player goes to an area, they will not be sent back to it again by using the same object.


 * The Green Pyramid
 * 1) Sends the player to the inside of a corn silo where a slithering presence periodically emerges from the corn and stares at the player.
 * 2) Sends the player to a record store devoid of employees. Sometimes records will fall off of the shelves to the floor and shatter.
 * 3) Sends the player to a marble workshop where several artists are chipping away at large blocks of marble. It appears that one of the blocks is concealing a bronze sculpture that is slowly revealed as the artist works. The meaning of this is unknown, and once fifteen minutes have transpired the player is returned to the mansion and the full sculpture is never revealed. A hacker by the name of xCorinthianx333 revealed in the game files that the sculpture is an upside-down, bronze version of Michelangelo's David.
 * 4) Sends the player to a small village along the Saharan border in an indeterminate time period. Several villagers are building an altar to the God Anubis, and will not speak to the player. In the distance, a dark sandstorm is growing. Towards the end of the fifteen minutes spent there, the sandstorm is picking up and the villagers begin to cough from the dust. The Anubis altar's eyes begin to glow red.
 * 5) Sends the player to an empty grey room with a huge black sphere floating in the middle of it. The only light comes from a small hole in the ceiling. The sphere hums and resonates. If the player interacts with the sphere they will immediately return to the mansion, but for the remainder of the game, small black spheres will float around all of the characters' heads. This does not appear to affect gameplay.
 * 6) Sends the player to a corn field where faceless workers harvest stalks of corn with huge, rusty scythes. It is assumed that this corn field is related to the aforementioned corn silo. If the player speaks with the workers they will always respond with one of two phrases. Either, "When the wind blows, the blades turn," or, "We gather so that we may feast." Both phrases are equally sinister.
 * 7) Sends the player to a town square on a winter night. There are festive candles, wreathes, and Christmas trees decorating doors, windows, and fences. Snow falls gently from the sky, but no one can be seen. A distant dog howl can be heard periodically.
 * 8) Sends the player to a conference room in 1983 in the White Stork Hotel. Hundreds of suited figures watch in amazement as a motivational speaker does cartwheels up and the down the walls, and across the ceiling, blatantly defying gravity. Distant disco music can be heard. Periodically the suited figures will clap.


 * The Red Cube
 * 1) Sends the player to a white farmhouse in rural Arkansas, 1922. A dog sits on the porch lazily in the afternoon sun. An elderly lady sips lemonade near the dog. A young boy rides a bicycle in circles around a tree in the front yard. In the distance a growing storm can be seen, and lightning flashes deep on the horizon. If the player speaks to the elderly lady she will say, "Best get your raincoat boy-o. I feel the coming darkness in my bones." As the fifteen minutes nears an end, the boy gets off of his bicycle and stares into the distance at the storm. The tree leaves begin to blow.
 * 2) Sends the player to a Parisian café in midsummer. The player can order from the menu and will be presented with delicious food. At the end of the scene, an obese Parisian mime enters the café and screams loudly, "It's hot outside!" ("C'est chaud!") in French and then promptly faints. All of the café patrons laugh, stop suddenly and look at the camera in unison.
 * 3) Sends the player to an abandoned grocery store. A man with wooden peg legs tries desperately to capture the player and put him in a box marked, "LETTUCE." If the man captures the player, this results in an endgame featuring an animated image of a blue head of lettuce falling off of a cliff.
 * 4) Sends the player to a watchmaker's shop where a wizened old horologist works diligently on a diminutive timepiece. The sounds of myriad clocks fills the room. The horologist merely grunts if the player attempts to interact with him. If the player looks closely, small hands can be seen reaching up out of the floorboards of the shop.
 * 5) Sends the player to a school bus repair workshop where a frustrated man in greasy overalls swears loudly at his co-workers in a fifteen-minute-long tirade.
 * 6) Sends the player to a failing airport in Denmark, 1973. The large, modern windows give an expansive view of a desolate, snowy landscape. Anachronistically, Brian Eno's Ambient 1: Music for Airports plays quietly from above. There are almost no travelers within the airport, although several can be seen walking by periodically. A dejected janitor vacuums the same piece of carpet, standing in place, for the entirety of the scene. One airplane can be seen taxiing the runway, and then takes off, turning and revealing the name of the airline. It is "TCSC Premium Airlines."
 * 7) Sends the player to a calm lake in the Montana wilderness. Large bass fish can be seen occasionally jumping up out of the water. An eagle circles high above. The player can lay down and take a nap, or enter the forest, which will send them immediately back to the mansion, but everyone for the remainder of the game will have pine needles around their feet.
 * 8) Sends the player to a Jules Verne-esque space bullet orbiting several miles above the Lunar surface. Several crew members sleep peacefully in their bunks and will not wake if the player makes an attempt to speak to them. One crew member is awake, but has headphones on and clicks loudly on a typewriter/communications device. The surface of the moon can be seen through the tiny porthole windows, drifting lazily by. If the player looks closely, small red cities can be seen spreading out on the lunar surface in geometric patterns, connected by deep, crevasse like "highways."


 * The Blue Cylinder
 * 1) Sends the player to a foggy moor. After about five minutes of waiting on an old iron bench that is slowly sinking in the swamp, a fisherman will arrive in a barnacle-covered row boat. He will introduce himself as either, "Old Whale-eye Joe," or "The Snapperman." If the player speaks to the fisherman after he has introduced himself as "Old Whale-eye Joe," the two will have a pleasant conversation about the strange, foggy weather and share a small bottle of brandy. If the player speaks to him after he introduces himself as, "The Snapperman," the fisherman will hand the player a small polaroid of a man with a snapping turtle for a head and then disappear into the fog.
 * 2) Sends the player to a street corner in Detroit in 1985. A man with a boombox dances wildly as a snowstorm can be seen gathering on the horizon. Several men drinking beer stand in a circle around the boombox breakdancer. Speaking to them results in several responses:
 * 3) * "Man, it's getting cold out here."
 * 4) * "Look at them storm clouds, bad omen."
 * 5) * "Best get your raincoat boy-o. I feel the coming darkness in my bones."
 * 6) * "This music is bumpin'."
 * 7) * "I saw that old alley cat 'round here, yesterday."
 * 8) * "You ever sit on your living room, on that old hardwood floor. Watchin' that sliver of winter sun creep across the angles, illuminating that ray of gentle dust? You know the feeling. I know you do. I see it your eyes. That feeling like you just stepped outside of time. Like your memories are more than you are. Like your nostalgia is a presence in the corner of the room. Like you wish that moment would last forever, and you wish it would end sooner than it will."
 * 9) * "I feel nauseous."
 * 10) * "My beer bottle's empty, man!"
 * 11) * "I hope that one guy don't show up here. He gives me the creeps. Dead eyes like a stuffed deer head."
 * 12) * "*Belches*"
 * 13) * "I live for the music, man."
 * 14) * "I need a warmer coat. I can feel that snow a'comin'."
 * 15) Sends the player to a musty insurance office in downtown New York City, 1962. A man in a faded grey suit nervously peruses a seemingly endless pile of documents. A fat, old cat sits in the windowsill, its tail swinging slowly. There appears to be no air conditioning and the man pulls at his collar every once and a while, sweat beading on his forehead. The player cannot interact with either the man or the cat. Distant sirens can be heard towards the end of the scene, coming closer and closer.
 * 16) Sends the player to a dilapidated shack in the middle of a burnt forest. The player can either enter the shack or drink out of a small puddle on the forest floor. If the player enters the shack they will be sent to the inside of an upside-down canoe on the bottom of the Lake of the Ozarks where they will quickly run out of oxygen. If they drink out of the puddle they will return to the mansion immediately.
 * 17) Sends the player to the inside of a giant Rubik's cube while it's being used. After a disorienting few minutes, one of the cube faces will fall off and the player can escape the cube. If they leave they will find themselves on the floor of a house, and they will be the size of a thimble. A huge housecat will chase the player. If the cat catches the player, it is an immediate endgame featuring the image of a content, full cat. If the player escapes by running into a heating vent, they will return to the mansion.