I would love to use a better image for him, but we never see him upclose soooooo ... this will do, I guess!
And here I am, back to proposing villains from small indie horror games! It has been a while since the last time I did one of these, and if everything goes as I am planning this one and the next one should be about indie productions. I will admit I wasn't planning on proposing him now, I was thinking about starting a series of proposal from a franchise I have been a fan since childhood and that would cover at least a couple months, but given that I noticed someone made the page for this villain and then left it as a Stub I decided to complete it. So, since I already did all the research necessary to make the page, the most logical thing to do is doing this now considering it would be the best way to not waste too much time later on. I already know who I want to do as my tenth proposal, so my next few might be for other minor candidates that I was planning to do at a later date.
This will also be my last proposal for the year. Honestly, I wasn't planning this to be it, but I think it's fair that my last proposal of the year is on a indie horror game given that the first one I ever did here was of one as well. This will be a rather shorter proposal than usual given that there isn't much that goes against this candidate (this time for real, I swear!), so I will try to be as concise as possible. And as I always says, I highly suggest to either buy the game on Steam or watch some gameplay to avoid spoilers. I personally enjoyed the game, so I think it is worth to try it out yourself before reading this proposal.
In any case, let's not waste further time and just go for it.
What's the work?[]
Dollmare is a indie horror game released in 2024 and made by three indipendent developers: Alex Grade, gonzeek and Oxeren. The game is a isolated story, with at the moment no sequel, prequels or spin-offs attached to it.
The story revolves around a unnamed player who, desperate for money because of his financial struggles, accept a part-time job in a doll factory called Sweet Cheeks. The factory have a shady reputation, but the player needs money and as such starts working in the place regardless, where the only other human being inside of it is the founder of the factory, an individual simply referred to as "the Director". The man explains to the player how to do their job and keeps an eye on them, but as the days progress the player starts to notice something weird in the structure, like dolls acting strangely or more and more anomalies happening, but something continues to draw him to the factory each day. The only way for them to survive is continuing to do their job while also investigating the strange occurances to understand what is going on in the factory.
Who is the Director? What did he do?[]
The disposal filled with dolls parts, showing how many people were turned into dolls and then left to rot down there.
| “ | New guy, you're finally here! Welcome to the Sweet Cheeks factory! Our beautiful dolls are waiting just for you. Let's see if you can avoid the mistakes the previous guy has made. | „ |
| ~ The Director welcoming new employees. |
The Director is the founderer of the Sweet Cheeks factory, a place that produces high quality dolls in mass quantities. However, the factory is nothing more than a ruse that the Director uses to lure new employees so that he can use a mysterious gas of his own invention to turn them all into perfect and obedient dolls that he can control as much as he pleases. Through the years, he turned thousands of people into dolls, trapping hundreds beneath the factory and tearing to pieces several more, with their remains being visible in the disposal. Once an individual is turned into a doll, they are still conscious but are unable to act and speak on their own, forever trapped into mangled bodies that they cannot control.
However, much to his surprise, a new employee simply known as K. is able to act and speak on his own, but the Director manages to use a voodoo doll to control him despite that, deciding to use him to lure new victims to their fate. When the player first arrives in the factory, they are greeted by the Director from afar, who explains to them how to do their job which simply consists in checking that the dolls aren't damaged. Through the day, the Director checks their work, getting frustrated every time they commit a mistake and judging their performance at the end of each shift, but during their worktime the player can find several notes left behind by K., who writes about how this place is dangerous and how he is losing his sense of self the more he goes to the factory.
After four days, the player is contacted by the dollified K. who, taking advantage of the fact that the Director is distracted, tells them that he was a human too and the Director was the one that turned into his current state. He also tells the player that he plans to do the same to them too, and that running away wont matter since he already have a grasp on them. He say that the only way to save themselves is stopping the Director now, before telling them that he will contact them in the next few days. A couple of days later, the factory seems to be broken down, and K. jumps out of the disposal tube before dragging the player into it, which makes them reach below the factory where the thousands of people turned into dolls are trapped.
At this point, there are two possible endings. If the player hasn't found and thrown away the voodoo doll with which the Director controls K., the latter will apologize to the player, explaining to them that he is forced to do this, before leading them to a cell where the Director mockingly thanks them for their work before spraing them with his gas, turning them into a doll. After this, the player wakes up completely paralyzed and unable to speak, hearing the Director welcoming a new employee in the factory who will be his next unfortunate victim.
However, if the player has managed to throw away the voodoo doll, K. will thank the player, at which point he will lead them to a secret area where the player redirects the gas by turning a hidden valve. Once the player gets trapped into the cell, the Director appears once again, telling them that no one escape the factory, and that he will now be an obidient doll that he will add to his collection. But when he activates his trap, much to his surprise, the gas is actually released in his own room, where he desperately says that it wasn't supposed to go like that. He is then turned into a doll by his own gas, forever trapped in the same fate worse than death that he trapped thousands before, all while the player and K. escape the factory together, ending this nightmare (or maybe dollmare wink wink) once and for all.
Mitigating Factors?[]
The player turned into a doll in the bad ending, showing both that the dolls are conscious of their state but unable to act and that the Director doesn't care at all about his employees, no matter how well they do their job.
| “ | You thought you could escape, didn't you? Like all the others before you. But no one ever leaves this factory. You're just another doll to add to my collection. Soon, you'll be like them. Silent. Obedient. Forever trapped in this perfect form. | „ |
| ~ The Director before trying to turn the player into a doll in the good ending, showing that the only reaon he does all of this is to add dolls to his collection. |
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. His past is unknown and he doesn't suffer from any tragedy or well intentioned reasons to do this at all. He doesn't care about anything or anyone, with him keeping K. around only because he can be useful since he controls him through the voodoo doll. He doesn't have any freudian excuse to do what he does, considering he states that he does it because he wants to add people to his twisted collection of dolls, with him being a control freak and nothing more since he is obsessed with people obeying him.
Him being somewhat affable during most of the game is not redeeming, since it was all a coverup to make sure that the player wouldn't suspect him, and him complimenting them if they do a good job is purely pragmatic, since he needs to keep them around and they obviously wouldn't stay if he kept insulting them. Lastly, he definitely doesn't suffer from Off-Screen Villainy since we directly see many of his victims turned into dolls during the final part of the game in the disposal, both in cages or in pieces scattered across the floor. Overall, I would say that I don't have much to say about him, he is a pretty straight forward character in his villainy and lacks any form of mitigating factor.
Heinous Standards?[]
Cells holding some of the people turned into dolls.
| “ | Hey, I ... I'm really sorry. I had no other choice ... He controls me through that doll in his room. I hope you understand. I just want to be human again ... | „ |
| ~ K. in the bad ending after being forced to lure the player into a trap. |
Well, he wins easy since he is the only villain in the game. The only others that might be considered such are the dolls and K., all of which are just victims of the Director and directly controlled by him, so he doesn't really have much competition. He also easily pass the general baseline, with him turning several people into dolls. The process is described by K. in his notes as incredibly horrifying given that he writes about how he is losing his sense of self, how he is going crazy with him seeing the factory in his nightmares and how he is even losing the sensibility of his fingers and is unable to recognize himself in the mirror anymore. It's a pretty disturbing process, which basically makes the victim go insane before turning them into a doll completely.
And the transformation into a doll isn't the end of the suffering for the poor victims. We see in the bad ending that the dolls are completely conscious and aware, but unable to move, speak or act on their own, forever trapped in plastic bodies while they understand what is happening but can't do anything about it. A really horrifying fate worse than death, and it's made even worse by the fact that most dolls are then trapped into cages beneath the factory, where if they are lucky they are ripped apart, otherwise they stay there forever as pieces of the Director's collection.
As for how many people went through this fate, the documents in the Director's office says that K. is the victim ##45, and the player is the ##46. I initially thought this meant that there were 45 people turned into dolls, which would already make it enough to pass the general heinous standards, but after going in the disposal we actually see hundreds to thousands of doll, either trapped in cages or ripped apart on the floor. It's at this point that I understood that the # were actually stand-ins for numbers (yeah, I am slow), which means that the Director trapped thousands of people in fates worse than death for no reason other than to add them to his collection of dolls. A very twisted individual without a doubt.
Verdict?[]
I would say that he is a easy yes. He trapped thousands of individuals in fate worse than death where they are aware of their surroundings but can't move, speak or act on their own, forever turned into dolls for his sick entertainment. Adding to this that he doesn't have any mitigating factor, and he is a pretty easy qualifier in my book, but as always I will let you all decide.