Welcome to the claustrophobic hallways of Do Not Reciprocate, a disturbing psychological thriller and clinical narrative horror game about medical misconduct and perilous incarceration.
You play as Niko, a chronically unwell young person who gets checked into an isolated facility for what should be a typical healing process. But antiseptic tranquility soon turns to terrible dread when three attending doctors develop an unnerving, invasive focus on his vulnerability. The 17,000-word branching narrative incorporates an original soundtrack of spooky hospital ambient and erratic heartbeat monitors, expressive character portraits, and seven visceral CG graphics that capture the razor-thin boundary between clinical care and compulsive threat.
High-stakes conversation prompts and each doctor's trust meter need to be handled with care to survive the ward. You will be tested and tested again. You will have to decide whether you will undergo dubious therapies, or if you will suppress symptoms, or whether you will passively reject invasive medical demands until hypnotic indoctrination and illegal drugs destroy your sense of reality. Every conversational option you make affects the mood of your caretakers and pushes the narrative to six different endings. Each attending physician has a sweet, endearing attachment conclusion and a frightening, obsessive bad ending.
Intuitive, easy-to-use controls provide effortless navigation through each tense consultation:
Watch trust meters to see how much people conform and how much they defy. Overextending a doctor can lead to a rapid fall into unhealthy obsession.
Look at the medical fog. Watch for the slight changes in Niko’s viewpoint so you can identify real caring from psychological manipulation.
Go back to important consultations to unlock all three loving endings and three obsessive bad endings for each doctor.
Listen for aural signals. Fluctuating cardiac pulses are frequently indicators of mounting anxiety and near-moral-turning moments.
Content Warning: Do Not Reciprocate contains disturbing themes of psychological horror, including medical malpractice, incarceration, non-consensual drugging, and extreme power imbalances. Players beware.
Can you cut through the dizzying medical fog and take back your autonomy before sealed doors seal your destiny forever? Play Do Not Reciprocate today and see what route you carve through the ward!
