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I remember downloading a copy of this game in the early 2000s and trying to play it, but not getting much of anywhere. It was a 3D graphics game, but with the early method of using shaded spheres (ellipsoids?) for the graphics, kind of like Ballz. I didn't get very far in the game, but the idea is that you play either a male or a female in what looks like a medieval European village. I'm not certain if it's set in that time period or if it was just more of a primitive style of building with people from the modern era visiting. There are creatures - my impulse is to say they were goblins or demons - that you can fight or sneak by. I never did a very good job getting around them. I think you start out in either an inn or a church. The loss screen included your character being strung up by one leg by the creatures, I think with the implication that they would eat you.

It was probably either MS-DOS or early Windows. I think I played with the keyboard, but it might have used joystick or mouse controls. For some reason, I want to say it was named something ending in "-otica" like Exotica or Erotica, but I don't think it was about sex, so those don't sound right.

I might have downloaded it from the Home of the Underdogs site as that's where I got a lot of "Abandonware" games at the time.

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Ečstatica. The name suddenly came to me, and plugging it into Google found it.

Box cover of Ečstatica

Ečstatica is an action-adventure game for MS-DOS developed by British team Andrew Spencer Studios and released by Psygnosis in 1994. It was followed by a sequel, Ecstatica II, in 1997.

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The setting is in Northern Europe in 928 AD. A traveler (the player) comes upon a town named Tirich hoping to find food and shelter. However, the town appears to be invaded by demons. The traveler must help the townspeople and lift the curse from the town by freeing the young sorceress Ečstatica from her possession.

And it seems that the being hung up is a defeat screen, but not a fatal one.

Hero hung up by one leg Hero hung up by both legs

This review has a lot of other details on the plot and gameplay.

Longplay

The Home of the Underdogs entry

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    Memories :) playing a cd demo version from a pc magazine back in the day
    – Alith
    Commented Apr 24, 2020 at 15:34

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