The Lonely Assassins (video game)

Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins is a 2021 found-phone mystery video game developed by Kaigan Games and published by Maze Theory.

It was released for iOS and Android devices and PC through GOG.com, Steam, and the Epic Games Store on 19 March 2021. As of March 2021, the Nintendo Switch release was delayed,^[1] and launched alongside PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S versions on 12 August 2021.

The game revolves around the player, as themselves, having discovered Larry Nightingale's phone and investigating the contents of the phone and what happened to Larry with the help of Petronella Osgood.

Synopsis[[edit] | [edit source]]

Amidst a sinister series of events at a seemingly abandoned house in London, someone goes missing, and you find their phone. When it begins to self-destruct, ex-UNIT scientist Petronella Osgood enlists your help to uncover hidden clues and solve cryptic puzzles.

Will you unravel the truth behind the chilling disappearance before it’s too late? But remember: don't turn your back, don't look away and DON’T BLINK.

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

The game begins with the player picking up a smartphone with a pattern lock on the 28th of February, 2021. After three unsuccessful unlock attempts, the phone attempts to wipe its own memory, before being interrupted by an external hack - a remote override by Petronella Osgood. Osgood restarts the now-mostly-corrupted device and calls the player, asking for Larry Nightingale before realizing he's not there. She tells the player an "old friend" must have made sure the phone landed in their hands, tasks the player with finding Larry, and then introduces herself. From then on, she communicates with the player through text.

Osgood tells the player to look through Larry's phone using a scanning tool, tasking them with finding a picture of Larry. She uses it to hack the phone's facial recognition system, restoring some data. A conversation with Mo Rasheed reveals that Larry was helping to prepare for a birthday party, buying a keg of beer and a disco ball, before his wife Natasha Nightingale went missing, which seems to have led to his disappearance. (The conversation also contains a batch of seemingly garbage data Osgood deems as not connected to the rest of the device, like it was never supposed to be on the phone in the first place.) Sally Sparrow is also revealed to have left for the US for a photography exhibition. An email was also sent from Edward Flint, accusing Larry of telling "outlandish tales" about a property Flint has bought and calling them "childish scare tactics." Finally, in Larry's Internet browser history, a website called Into The Unknown contains stories of a seemingly "haunted" house, Wester Drumlins, a sighting of a "blue box" in 1955 Alabama, and a second occurrence of what seems to be garbage data blocking out an article on number stations. Osgood mentions that the two pieces of data are merely two parts of a whole, with more pieces remaining to be found. In the middle of this, the player receives a call, with the caller ID being Larry. The call is full of too much static for anything to be audible, and images of him flash on screen, though Osgood can't find any record of a call.

Osgood restores more data on the phone after the player sends her more data. The gallery now has a folder called "Till Death Do Us Part," featuring images of Larry and Natasha and another piece of fractured data. A few other text conversations are also restored - conversations with Isla Townsend and Sally about Natasha's disappearance (with Larry telling Sally "they" did it), a conversation with Natasha, and Larry's first conversation with Flint about his new property. A few other emails are also restored - the first being an update on a conspiracy theory message board called Sacred Circle by someone taking pictures of Wester Drumlins and finding strange, almost sentient corruption on their phone. They also mention strange dreams of their arms turning to stone, something watching them on their phone, and this thing moving in their pictures. Another email from a blog called The Craft mentions the TARDIS, believing it to be part of a Van Gogh exhibition, and finally, two emails from a website called FindMe that helps with missing persons cases - one with a link to the site and the other with a piece of fractured data almost reading "no one is left forgotten." Entering Natasha's info into the site reveals a message from a Scotland Yard detective who's run into "the deadest of dead ends" in the search for her. In the process of sharing their information with Osgood, they get a call from "Harks," with the voice of a woman saying "shark one seven four seven" over and over, like a number station.

Osgood proceeds to go investigate Larry's house in person, but not before restoring new data for the player to investigate. The gallery has a new folder of pictures from Wester Drumlins, but tapping it causes it to corrupt itself again, with an image of a Weeping Angel flashing on-screen. A new text conversation and email mentions Sally and Larry submitting the Wester Drumlins article to Into The Unknown under the pseudonym Cal Nye Wallers (an anagram of "Sally/Lawrence"). An email mentions formal complaints to the Britannia Housing Council about Wester Drumlins, and a text conversation with Flint revealing that he's the new owner of the property - he mentions doing renovations on the basement, and mentions Larry telling stories of living statues. Larry tells Oscar Huang, an employee of Sparrow and Nightingale, to watch over the shop while he's gone. Another number station call comes in from "Raw Tech," saying "watcher nine three two seven," and Osgood traces both numbers to landline numbers dating back to the 1950s after finding Lawrence's car keys in his living room. She also mentions a mirror taken off the wall in the master bedroom, and sends Ayesha Green to investigate Wester Drumlins.

Flint then calls Larry's phone, now sporting a gray stone patch on his face, with the player unable to hang up as he warns them not to investigate the property, threatening legal action. In the meantime, Osgood discovers the source of the corrupted data - the Wester Drumlins folder in the gallery. The player pieces together the corrupt data, granting access to the folder. One image reveals a Weeping Angel, which breaks out of the gallery and starts trying to escape into the phone network. Osgood makes the connection to the Sacred Circle post, and when the player suggests deleting the Angel, she modifies the scan tool, allowing the player to delete the corrupted fragments. In the meantime, the phone begins turning to stone, but the process is reversed once the Angel is deleted.

More data is restored - a conversation with Natasha about Flint, a conversation with him in which he accuses Larry of trying to get the property for "ages," an email from the Metropolitan Archive featuring a video Larry was looking for, the file for said video corrupted by the Angel, and an image of a figure hanging from a hovering TARDIS. Osgood mentions the video being the last thing she needs to fully restore the phone, and the player calls Marguerite Quincy at the Archive, starting a text conversation with her and pretending to be him to receive the footage. She also sends the player a picture of Charles Dickens' book Bleak House with a picture of the TARDIS drawn on it. The video footage is a message from Natasha, displaced through time and space by the Angels to New York in 1926, and recording the message in Kansas two years later. She expresses her jealousy about "the Angel thing" Larry and Sally had, and mentions sneaking into Wester Drumlins, leading to her displacement through time. She asks the video camera operator what's wrong right before the video ends.

A few more things are restored - the Tenth Doctor's warning to Sally of the Weeping Angels, a conversation with Sally about Larry's then-recent wedding, and a conversation with Natasha about a photography exhibit Sally was running. Finally, there's a video recorded by Larry as he heads to Wester Drumlins to hopefully stop the Angels and get revenge for Natasha's disappearance. A call from "Lange" comes in, this time with the number station readout "angel five eight zero one," and Osgood traces the calls to an automated line set up immediately after the phone company was founded, set to call Lawrence's phone all on the same day. Osgood tries to work out who else might know about what's going on, and patches herself into Ayesha's feed - she's put up the cameras, and mentions a statue of Flint in the basement. Flint, now an Angel, displaces Ayesha through time before calling the player, saying that the Angels are using his consciousness to communicate, and that the Angels trapped in the basement have been freed, before threatening Larry and sending a picture of Flint's last moments (with a suspicious .EXE file extension).

Osgood steals Larry's car and drives to Wester Drumlins, having the player send the picture of Flint so she can get past the property's retinal scanners. She patches the player into a camera feed from one of Ayesha's cameras, showing her confronting the Angels, who mock and taunt her. Osgood tells the player she needs to get to Larry's car to get the disco ball he bought for the party, in order to trap the Angels with their own reflections. However, she can't get out without looking away, and so the player must rotate the cameras Ayesha installed to face the windows. Before they can, "RK Joe" calls, with the message "joker nine two two six." The player deduces that the number stations were all codes to activate the cameras, titled Shark, Watcher, Angel, and Joker - the calls all likely set up by Ayesha. Once all the cameras are rotated, another Angel in the phone begins to activate, from the photo of Flint that was sent to the player. He taunts them as they attempt to delete the file, but they succeed, and get patched into live footage of Osgood going to the basement, placing a disco ball in an Angel's hands and trapping them. Osgood congratulates the player, and contacts UNIT to have the Angels taken to the Black Archives.

The player then gets a call from the Thirteenth Doctor, who also congratulates the player. She lets the player know Flint is making a full recovery, and says that anything that holds the image of an Angel becomes, itself, an Angel. She finishes by relaying a message from Osgood, saying that "if you want to work with her again, all you've got to do is pick up the phone - literally!"

If the player sends Osgood all four sightings of the TARDIS, she goes more into detail about the Doctor. A post-credits scene is also unlocked, showing what happened after Larry's last video - he was saved by the Doctor and taken into the past, where he reunited with Natasha and continued to live his life with her in the past.

Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor - Jodie Whittaker
Dr. Petronella Osgood - Ingrid Oliver
Larry Nightingale - Finlay Robertson
Natasha Nightingale - Sabina Arthur
Mr. Flint - Ceri Mears
Ayesha Green - Emily Burnett
Marguerite Quincy - Anna Pagan
Mo - Nikesh Patel
Henry - Dan Powers
Tenth Doctor - David Tennant (Archive Recording)

Crew[[edit] | [edit source]]

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

There are various pictures on Larry's phone, including a pub called The Water Poet, rooms at Penta Hotels and a view of London from the Shard, including Tower Bridge and London City Hall.
Osgood mentions damaging a USB stick by dropping it into molten Zeiton.
Lawrence is a male, in his forties who owns a book and DVD shop and runs a movie club.
Sparrow & Nightingale is located on Queen Street, London.
- The web address for the store is sparrownightingale.web.
- The email address for the store is [email protected].
- It is registered in England under company number 00740064.
- It has an in-house cafe called the Nook, and runs both the Sparrow book club and Nightingale movie club.
Contacts on Larry's phone include All Saints Children's Hospital, Alexis Li, Aaliyah Kohli, Banto, Balrog (Real Name??), Dazza, Dad (Nat's), Hamish Pearce, Isla Townsend, Kathy Nightingale, Last Days of the Raj, Mohammed Rasheed, Malcolm Wainwright, Mum (Nat's), Macauley Sheridan, Murdoch Weissman, Natasha Nightingale, Oscar Huang, Petronella Osgood, Rani Chandra, Sally Sparrow, Unity Shelter Project and Wren O'Neil.
Larry has an e-mail in his inbox from Rani Chandra.
- Rani has written an article about "'devils of the sea' helping waylaid mariners" for Metropolitan magazine.
Larry orders party supplies from Henrik's.
An article makes reference to Mr and Mrs Satchwell, first mentioned in The Secret Lives of Monsters.
A copy of The London Chronicle from the Blitz includes the story "Mystery Woman Holds on For Dear Life!", referring to Rose Tyler in The Empty Child.
Osgood is noted by the Angels to have Artron Energy around her as a result of exposure to time travel machinery.
Although she is neither seen nor heard, The Doctor is currently travelling with Yasmin Khan.

Story notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

Screenshots of gameplay were released to help promote the game.

Natasha references the TV show Life on Mars "with John Simm". John Simm is the actor who also played the Saxon Master during David Tennant's run.
A key plot point is the renovation of Wester Drumlins. The real life filming location (18 Fields Park Ave, Newport) underwent renovation beginning in 2015, and its newly refurbished state can be seen in the game.
Getting all the collectibles in GAME: The Edge of Reality ^[+]Loading...["The Edge of Reality (video game)"] reveals that the player character of that game is the same person as the player character of The Lonely Assassins, with the events of The Lonely Assassins occurring after they exit the Reality Virus time loop.

Background[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Promotion[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Lonely Assassins pack was released on May 13th, 2021 for Doctor Who: Worlds Apart, which added Glitch Angel frames for cards.^[2]

Rumours[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Production errors[[edit] | [edit source]]

The article "Illusions of Security" depicts John Marwood witnessing the Doctor's TARDIS during a Vincent van Gogh exhibition in 2010, which shares similarities with the episode Vincent and the Doctor; however, the exhibition in this episode was at the Musée d'Orsay, not the Louvre as stated in the article.
On Sacred Circle, the original comment of user jjjackpot is signed "jjackpot", before becoming "jjjackpot".

Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

This section needs a cleanup.

Needs to be written from an out of universe perspective. Also, the grammar is poor.

Larry mentions that Rani Chandra once spoke with Anthony Williams, whose parents were both sent back in time separately while ending up in the same place and time. Anthony debuted in the mini-episode P.S., and Anthony's recollection of his parents aligns with the ending of The Angels Take Manhattan.
When searching for data about the Doctor, you find an image of the TARDIS parked outside Musée d'Orsay (TV: Vincent and the Doctor)
While in the phone call with the Doctor, she mentions taking Yaz to Bar Galactica. (AUDIO: The Ultimate Adventure, Beyond the Ultimate Adventure)
The article about Alabama's Blue Box makes references to 'a blue box' being spotted in the Punjab, (TV: Demons of the Punjab) in Nepal (TV: The Abominable Snowmen) and two blue boxes in Ypres during World War I. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)
Osgood postulates that the reason the Doctor's TARDIS is drawn on a first-edition copy of Bleak House is because the Doctor visited the Crimean War around 1853. (TV: War of the Sontarans)
The Angels ask Osgood if she is still jealous of her sister. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
Osgood jokes that TARDIS stands for Totally And Radically Driving In Space (TV: The Zygon Invasion) before relenting that it instead means life (TV: Oxygen)

Trivia[[edit] | [edit source]]

The game's developers, Kaigan Games, focus on found-phone mystery games. They've also released the game Sara is Missing, as well as its successor series, Simulacra.

Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]

External links[[edit] | [edit source]]

[1] ttps://twitter.com/Maze_Theory/status/1372270982245855236

[2] Coming soon! The Lonely Assassins #NFT packs & animated Glitch Angel frames will be available for purchase at #DoctorWho:Worlds Apart! #digitalcollectibles from 13th May - Doctor Who - Worlds Apart

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