The Last Door

The Last Door was crowdfunded on Kickstarter in December 2012, and the first episode was released in March 2013, with three more to follow.[5] Each new episode could be unlocked by a donation of any size, creating a successful ongoing financial model that allowed them to complete the series.[5]

The game was inspired by works from Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. The soundtrack of all episodes was composed and arranged by Carlos Viola. The Game Kitchen lets the community hold an important place in the development of each episode, with select players playing through beta versions and helping the team by finding bugs, contributing in-game text, and suggesting improvements.

The game was developed episodically from 2013 until 2016. In late 2015 it was announced that the series would end with the finale of Season 2 because the game was not generating enough income for The Game Kitchen, and the developers wanted to move onto another, hopefully more successful endeavour in order to save the business. The series finale was released in January 2016, marking the end of The Last Door saga. The developers have said that the finale is not necessarily the end of The Last Door, as they may choose to reopen the project at a later time, when it is more realistic for the company.

In June 2015 The Game Kitchen released the assets of season one under the CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons license.[6]

Jeremiah Devitt in a Victorian-era boarding school in Episode 2, with inventory panel visible

As a point-and-click adventure, the player controls the character, moves him through various locations, picks up and uses items to move the story forward, and solves puzzles. Red herrings are rare, with each item generally having a single use. Episodes start out with a number of locked areas, which can be unlocked by finding keys and using other items to expand the explorable world. In episodes 1, 2, and 3 of the Season 2 a larger, map based world was introduced, giving players the ability to open a map to travel to different regions or areas of the overall map, and then being able to explore the area selected on foot. This feature is absent in the final instalment of Season Two, "Beyond the Curtain."

In terms of interface, The Last Door is a fairly typical third-person point-and-click adventure. A smart cursor shows hotspots that can be looked at, picked up or interacted with. It also shows exits from the current screen; double-clicking one instantly moves you to the next. The inventory is shown at the bottom of the screen where you can combine items occasionally, and there is a magnifying glass that gives descriptions of each item you’ve acquired. There are lots of doors in the game, as the title suggests, and doors stay open to signify unlocked areas.

— Katie Smith, The Last Door Review, Adventure Gamers

Although the abstract graphics naturally make identifying specific details difficult prior to Devitt’s guidance—such as the fact that a painting is a portrait of Beechworth—locating the interactive objects in each small room is never too challenging, and never feels like a hunt and peck quest. The puzzles, and their required implementation of those objects, are similarly straightforward, with the most complicated solutions requiring no more than three items.

— Jillian Werner, The Last Door: Chapter 1 – The Letter Review, Gamezebo

The game has been well received by critics and fans of the genre, and has been variously described as "Simple but effective", "a great, chilling narrative experience",[11] and that "apart from ever-building dread, there are a few great popcorn-tossing moments mixed throughout".[12]

Its puzzles were described as "generally rewarding and solvable", and that "its graphical style works to help make the game feel strange or otherworldly". The plot was "able to give some chills",[10] but was considered a cliffhanger ending by some reviewers.[12]

Season 1

Jeremiah Devitt receives a mysterious letter from his old friend Anthony Beechworth and immediately rushes to his friend's aid, only to find out that the latter had committed suicide shortly after sending the letter. Anthony warns Devitt that a terrible supernatural force now plagues him and all of their friends, and Devitt must investigate at once before it's too late. Devitt returns to an old boarding school where he and Anthony originally met, and slowly remembers his days helping Anthony running a small secret organization that attempted to explore a supernatural territory known as the Veil in an effort to seek "truth". To do this, they had developed a special serum that would allow the user's mind to enter a higher state of consciousness, which from there they can cross the Veil. While investigating, Devitt gets attacked and buried alive, but is later rescued by local nuns. While recovering from the ordeal, he recalls another member of their organization, Alexander Du Pré, and promptly goes to him for answers. Alexandre reveals that he had been very invested in exploring the Veil even after they all went about their separate ways. Alexander then requests that Devitt joins him in crossing the Veil together. Devitt agrees, and then disappears.

Season 2

Doctor John Wakefield, Devitt's former psychiatrist and the player character for this season, is troubled by Devitt's sudden disappearance. He travels with his colleague, Herr Doctor Johann Kaufmann, an enigmatic German gentleman who assisted Wakefield in researching Devitt's condition, in an effort to find Devitt. Kaufmann appears to have a high degree of understanding of the dark forces that affect Devitt, but he keeps most of this knowledge to himself. Together they set out to find out what happened to Devitt. They reach a mental hospital in London, where they find out that Alexander Du Pré had been running a large organization known as The Playwright, whose sole purpose was to explore the Veil. They then venture to the home of Adam Wright, an expert on the occult. Here, Wright dies under mysterious circumstances and Kaufmann comes down with an illness and dies. Wakefield, stricken with grief by the death of his friend, resolves to continue his quest. He visits a sleepy fishing village on a secluded Irish island after learning about the island's mysterious past. Intrigued, he investigates the island's history further, eventually stumbling into a portal of sorts that leads to the Veil, the barren wasteland that separates our world from another, ancient world. Here, he encounters Devitt and learns that he, and not Anthony, was the true leader of the cult. However, he learns, Devitt was stricken with amnesia after an experiment gone wrong. Anthony only recently elected to bring him back to the group by setting him on his quest because he and Alexandre felt that they were close to crossing the Last Door. Wakefield finds out from Alexandre that Devitt has already crossed the Threshold to the other world and that he intends to use the "First Language" in order to harness the power of creation. However, he intends to destroy the work of the Playwright so that no one can ever open the Door again. The curtain that marks the threshold separating our world from the ancient one then slowly begins to close, and Alexandre implores Wakefield to choose to either stop Devitt, or let him go through with the plan.

Alternate Endings

From here, the game has at least two alternate endings. Wakefield can either travel through the curtain, or he can let the curtain close. Each triggers a unique ending to the game. If the player goes through the curtain, Wakefield sacrifices himself and takes Devitt's place. He stays behind to close The Last Door and is killed. Devitt then finds himself in a London street, where he returns home and burns evidence. If the player lets the curtain close, then Devitt is killed as he closes the Last Door. After closing it, Wakefield is transported to a London street and he finds his way home, before burning all remnants of his journey through the Veil. In both endings, the surviving characters makes a pact to "see that no one knows," reflecting the Playwright's motto, videte ne quis sciat. Additionally, both endings also feature those members of the Playwright who were in the Veil (including Alexandre) becoming trapped in the Veil, essentially rendering them nonexistent.

Season 1

Season 2

• Official website