Introducing our latest murder mystery case file - The Vampire of Albert Dock.
On one fatal night in 1892, three brothers were brutally murdered. Two puncture wounds to each of their necks, their clothes shredded; many believe the kills to be the work of a vampire.
Why did we choose the Victorian era?
We’ve always wanted to write a game set in the Victorian era for many reasons:
The Victorian era was the starting point of modern forensics. The infamous case of Jack the Ripper saw the origins of many forensic techniques. He was the first criminal to be profiled in an attempt to determine his identity. His final victim, Mary Kelly, was photographed by police after her death, making it one of the earliest crime scene photographs in Britain.
Fingerprint analysis emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century and started to be applied to criminal investigations. The Victorians also used ballistic analysis to identity firearms, though once guns were mass-produced they had to use microscopes rather than the naked eye. By the late-19th century, coroners used temperature and rigor mortis to approximate time of death in post-mortems.
It was also the beginning of modern policing. In the early 1800s, policing had not changed since the Middle Ages. However, the first official police force, the London Metropolitan Police, was established in 1829 after Sir Robert Peel pushed to reduce the amount of crime by introducing prison reforms and a professional police force.
On top of that, if you think modern newspapers are sensationalised, Victorian headlines were downright scandalous. There were no regulations like there are today. Headlines like 'The horror in Whitechapel grows, “Jack the Ripper” butchers two more women' and '”Jack the Ripper” claims 5th victim, woman brutally hacked to death' were splashed across newspaper front pages in 1888. Generally, crime rate was still fairly low across Britain, but people believed they were living in more violent times because they would read about it in the newspaper. To keep themselves safe, they continued to buy the daily paper and read about crime in the city. It was a profitable industry, and the press would stop at nothing to sell newspapers. It’s even believed by some that the Dear Boss letters in the Jack the Ripper case were penned by a journalist.
For so long, reading was a pastime for society’s wealthiest and well-educated. However, in the second-half of the 19th century, there was a significant rise in Britain’s literacy levels. ‘Between 1851 and 1900, male literacy rates rose from 69.3% to 97.2%, and from 54.8% to 96.8% for women.’
Reading for leisure was now popular and therefore extremely profitable, leading to the rise of the Penny Dreadful. These mass-produced serial stories cost a penny each, were affordable for the working classes and consisted of sensational, dark and gothic tales. Sweeney Todd: the demon barber of Fleet Street and Varney the Vampire started as Penny Dreadful characters.
We were also inspired by famous fin-de-siècle Gothic works, such as The Picture of Dorian Gray, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde and, of course, Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Why Liverpool?
We’ve already mentioned Jack the Ripper, whose actions dominate our perception of crime in Victorian Britain. Even today, films, TV and literature set in Victorian Britain usually takes place in the country’s capital. The dark streets of Whitechapel have become synonymous with the era, but there was more to Victorian Britain than just London. We wanted to explore a different city, so we decided on Liverpool.
From 1837, when Queen Victorian came to the throne, to 1901 when she died, Liverpool’s population had increased from 160,000 to almost 700,000. There was a vast difference between the city’s poor and rich. An entire family would share one room in cramped slum housing, which were crowded and packed in tightly to build as many slums as they could. The Everton area was most known for slum housing. The docks employed thousands of working-class people, and also served as a connection to the rest of the world. Liverpool dominated global trading and Albert Dock was at the heart of that operation. For the poor, Albert Dock was another place to work. For the wealthy, it was another way for them to amass a great fortune.
Those privileged enough could enjoy the finest of Liverpool’s attractions. St George’s Hall was a concert hall for Liverpool’s upper-classes and still exists today as an example of the city’s stunning Victorian architecture.
Why Vampires?
For that one, you’ll have to play the game to find out!
The Vampire of Albert Dock is available now.
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