Game

Grauen no Torikago: Kapitel 1 - Keiyaku

1999 · Dreamcast · Adventure

About this game

Grauen no Torikago: Kapitel 1 - Keiyaku is the first chapter of a horror movie sold exclusively through the Dreamcast Direct online service. The film is divided into 365 episodes, each lasting one minute. It was impossible to watch all the episodes at once as they opened gradually. From 1 October 1999 to 1 October 2000, it was necessary to connect Dreamcast to the internet daily and download special save files on the VMU that opened new episodes. The servers went offline shortly after the final episode unlocked. Now it is necessary to use a special VMU save or directly extract the videos of the GDI disc image to watch the film. The sequels of Grauen no Torikago were only available to consumers who had finished previous chapters, making later entries exceedingly rare. As of July 2024, a restoration patch has been made by Derek Pascarella that allows you to watch the videos without the vmu save.

The main character of Grauen no Torikago is a 16-year-old schoolgirl named Nao Tsunoda. Recently, she decided to start living separately from her parents - and moved to Tokyo’s Grauenheim apartment complex. But one day, Nao’s life turns into a nightmare when she suddenly discovers the headless corpse of her neighbor (Erica Shimizu) on the roof of the house. And having entered a neighbor's apartment, Nao sees an even more eerie scene: music from the opera Faust plays in the room, and Erica’s severed head hangs from the ceiling and makes strange howling sounds! The killer snapped the girl's head and connected it through a hose to the gas pipe so that the head “sang” to the music from the CD player ... But why did the killer do it? Just out of a desire to mock the corpse, or is there a secret meaning in its actions? Soon the chain of brutal murder continues - and it becomes clear that a psychopath is hunting the inhabitants of Grauenheim. Moreover, it not only kills people, but also disfigures their corpses so that they carry a certain symbolism in themselves. Will our heroine be able to unravel this symbolism and reveal the identity of the killer, or is she destined to become another victim of a maniac?