PULSE
THE GAME THEY CREATED IS THE NIGHTMARE THEY LIVE
At IN-Corp HQ, in Johannesburg, the “Pulse” console game creatives are scrambling to get “Pulse II” ready for release. The skeleton development crew is made up of only the geeks and loners prepared to work over the Christmas/ New Year week.
In the intended “Pulse II” sequel, a geomagnetic solar flare hits the building causing the characters to be locked into paranoia and madness...
When an electromagnetic wave does hit the In-Corp building with the force of a lightning bolt, everything electric or electronic explodes or implodes. A world reduced to flame, toxic smoke and darkness.
The pulse fries anything electrical and digital, but also the Pulse team’s minds. Total lockdown and collective paranoia takes over. Everyone’s personal neural circuitry, each one of those unique bio-computers we call the human brain, just got itself zapped. Geeks turned into freaks and no one is riding to the rescue.
Just as in the game, the only way out, is through madness, mayhem and murder to escape. The way out can only be reached through levels, both physical and mental. The occupants need to do more than just escape from a dying, quickly decaying building in total lock-down. They face real paranoia and psychosis... Instant, collective and very, very dangerous.
Things once hidden, once largely ‘controlled’, are given free reign. Fears, phobias, loves and hates. The monsters of childhood nightmares are made manifest. In themselves... In others. Hallucinations, delusions and demons, all to be challenged, indeed mastered, if they’re to progress.
There’s JAZ. Sharp, if brittle. Unlucky in love. Already back from some suicidal-brink and fighting the urge to return.
She’s drawn, despite herself, to bi-polar, if well-meaning DOM SHERRIDAN. Wannabe hero, yet full of self-doubt even as he falls for her too.
There’s CASPAR. Hypochondriac and somatic. Feels himself pursued by the mould, by the spores. Who believes that the ageing, poorly maintained building is itself conspiring against him... And as they’re also chased by falling, poisonous and highly flammable flue-gases, who’s to say it isn’t. Being paranoid doesn’t mean you’re wrong!
Cue ERROL. Arrogant, emotionless, self-serving, psychopath. A man who can only see their dilemma in game terms.
The ultimate ‘First Person Shooter’ and who simply can’t wait to play the game.
Finally, there’s EDDIE, the group’s relentless stalker. He’s the obligatory Survival-Horror genre game-play requisite made flesh and bone. EDDIE, the security guy. EDDIE, the obsessive game-player-cum-critic. Disappointed with the writer’s clichéd approach to ‘Pulse’. Determined to impart his ideas for the sequel – and engages in nothing less than a brutal ‘level design tutorial’ of his own. And upon the perfect stage.
‘PULSE’ reveals the players for who and what they really are. Their strengths, their weaknesses, their determination to survive. Only three of them will finally escape to the streets. Finally separate delusions from the truth. E-bomb affecting a single building and its occupants? Or solar flare storm? Total world-wide apocalypse? They step outside. And into meltdown and madness that is indeed... Everywhere.
Production Info
Type
Runtime
Funding Status
Genres