I’ve always found the concept of immortality to be horrific. How, as the years churn by, new memories and experiences drown the ones which lie at the foundations of your personality, eroding them until a new person inhabits your skin. You are not yourself anymore. Vampire mythology adds a physical stake to this curse – to be a vampire is to be a monster in body and appetite, but whether you become one in spirit is up to you. Do you try to preserve your humanity or indulge in the hedonism your new form makes so easy? Or become a creature trapped between the two? It’s these questions Cabernet, an upcoming narrative RPG, seeks to explore through its protagonist Liza – recently deceased.
While Cabernet may begin with Liza’s funeral, she doesn’t truly comprehend her new vampiric nature until witnessing a fellow creature of the night transform into a bat. From here on, the outlook she takes on her undead existence is in your hands, with many of the dialogue choices and actions Liza can take raising either her humanity or nihilism metre. The differentiation between the two is clear: speaking honestly and treating people kindly increases her humanity as you try to preserve the person Liza once was, while revelling in her new powers and treating humans as mere playthings sees Liza embracing the darkest aspects of being a vampire and, in return, raises her nihilism.
The impact of Liza’s choice – on both her and those around her – is clear even in the short demo. One vampire asks Liza whether her new status as a vampire has changed her view on the value of human life: is it more important, equal, or less than her own undead? Returning to this vampire later on, she explained the new understanding my answer gave her, no matter whether I had decided to be cruel or kind. I’m yet to discover if this decision has lasting implications, but one I do expect to have them comes when Liza hypnotises a human. Once again, she’s given a choice: encourage the man to drink less, start stealing or, what Cabernet makes clear is the worst option, drink more.
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