Venetica

Venetica is a multi-platform fantasy-themed Single-player role-playing video game. The game was developed by Deck13 Interactive and published by DTP Entertainment in 2009.

Story outline
The story of Venetica takes place in a fantasy world that is an alternate imagining of sixteenth century Italy, where magic is real.

In Venetica, Death is an actual physical being who acts as the Final Guide to the afterlife. Each generation, a new mortal successor is chosen to serve as Death. But, the most recent choice to succeed Death had nefarious plans of his own: Taking the knowledge he'd gained while being groomed for his role as Death, and combining it with his own mastery of the dark arts of Necromancy, he contrived a ritual that disrupted the balance between life and death. This Undead Archon made himself immortal, along with four useful allies. And they plot to expand their power and enslave the world. The current Death cannot intervene in the mortal world to thwart their vile plans, as they break down the barriers between the worlds of the living and the dead, casting all into darkness.

The only mortal capable of stopping the Undead Archon is a young woman, Scarlett, living a simple life in a peaceful mountain village. She knows nothing of these momentous events, nor does she know that she is actually the daughter of Death himself, a child who should never have been conceived, but now is the world's only hope. Through their blood bond, Death's own necromantic powers can be channeled into the mortal world, granting her necromantic powers of her own, and the ability to wield the only weapon that can harm the evil immortals. Though still young and untrained, Scarlett must cultivate and nurture her powers, with the help of the father she never knew, to save the world from the final spell Undead Archon.

The story begins a the small mining village in the Italian mountains. To fulfill her destiny, Scarlett must find an ancient weapon, the Moonblade, and make her way to Venice, where the Undead Archon and his allies rule with ever-increasing ruthlessness. Her enemies are powerful and are already seeking the threat they sense in her. Her allies are few. Scarlett's heroic quest will take her from far from home, to depths of Venice's catacombs up to the heights of its royal Palace, and even on a brief excursion to Africa, before she can accrue the means and opportunity to finally confront her nemesis.

Gameplay
The player controls the character Scarlett. Scarlett begins as a normal young peasant woman in a small town. The player controls her course through the game world, which includes the huge city of Venice. Scarlett can travel anywhere in the open sections of the game world, and as she grows, the size of that game world will expand to an ever larger area.

The player directs Scarlett's development as she improves her abilities. As she progresses through the story, the character of Scarlett can be customized by selecting which attributes and skills to improve, which weapons masters and what spells she studies.

For those players interested in the role-playing aspects of the game, Scarlett will also face a number of moral choices in completing her journey. Those choices determine her personality, under the guidance of the player. There are over 80 characters Scarlett can converse or interact with (her responses are multiple-choice.) Scarlett has a choice of three different Guilds she can join, each with a unique purpose. Scarlett may also choose many optional quests along her travels. The player may choose to make Scarlett noble or villainous, helpful or selfish, honest or dissembling, charitable or greedy, forgiving or vengeful; The game offers two different endings depending on the sum of those choices.

For the more competitive, Venetica allows play at three different skill levels: Easy to Hard. It also supports the familiar collection of Achievements (Xbox 360) or Trophies (PlayStation 3) for demonstrating mastery of the game.

Development
On August 26. publisher DTP Entertainment announced that the Windows version of Venetica went gold.