SHEL: The Cure

CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR NEW POSITION.

AS A NEUROCONTACT INTEGRATION ANALYST, YOU ARE THE NEWEST LINK IN THE CHAIN.

DO NOT LET FEELINGS OF UNEASE, DISCOMFORT, OR ATAVISTIC SYMPATHY OVERWHELM YOUR JUDGMENT.

WHEN IN DOUBT, REFER TO THE MANUAL.

SHEL: The Cure s a narrative puzzle/simulation game set in a dystopian space colony, where you inspect, diagnose and treat replicant workers for a shadowy corporation. 

As a newly minted Neurocontact Integration Analyst on the distant colony of Twilight Valley, you are presented with an arsenal of diagnostic devices to help you perform treatments on SHELs - Service Homunculi for Extraplanetary Labor. SHELs are a cost-effective solution to the problem of colonial labor: they are docile, expendable and just sapient enough to be good at their jobs. At least, that's the way your employer puts it. As an NCIA, your job is to prescribe treatments to keep them functioning at acceptable levels of productivity.

Perform your expected duties and earn yourself the right to unrestricted travel along CORPUS Group’s premier interstellar routes. Follow the clues left by your mysterious predecessor for a way to liberate the SHELs from the yoke of corporate servitude... and a glimpse of the occult secrets hidden between the pages.

What do SHELs dream of? What is the Genesis Object? How far will you go to find out?

Neurocontact Integration Analysis consists of three main steps:

1) Verbal Engagement

Ask leading questions to your SHEL patient to learn about their job, their previous instances and past prescriptions, and the reason they are here now. Remember - SHELs are unable to lie, except by omission. Be thorough in your questioning!

2) Diagnostic Examination

Obtain useful information that will help you issue the correct prescription with the help of these efficient and minimally* invasive diagnostic procedures:

• Proxy-brain scan!

• Diacoder (optical diagnostic decoder)!

• CELT (cerebrospinal extraction and liquid transubstantiation)!

• Liu-Fermian Séance!

3) Treatment Prescription

Calculate the SHEL's unique biological attributes using the clues you've obtained in the Diagnostic Examination section. Choose from a variety of pharmaceutical solutions to help your SHEL patient become the productive and compliant worker they were always* meant to be!

The Manual is an objective and unbiased* guide to Neurocontact Integration Analysis, provided by your employer, CORPUS Group.

Naturally, this Manual is narratively unreliable. Filled with corporate propaganda and obscuring occult rituals and ethically dubious procedures in sterile medical language, the Manual hides the true nature of SHELs in plain sight.

Some pages have been defaced by the previous NCIA specialist, who has left cryptic messages to his new replacement - you.