[Hoowda5643]

Hi,
I'm a proffesional video-game developer and I'm currently working on a up-coming adventure-game with similar style to Heavy Rain,
The screenplay is near finished now but there's one section which I've post-poned until now because it requires a understanding of chemistry which I don't have.

Basically in one chapter of the story the hero is on a prison island similar to Alcatraz, he needs to escape so he hears that the island used to be a military fort before it was a prison and that it's rumoured that in the ruined basement of the abandoned fort there's a secret tunnel to the mainland, but as the hero finally gets down here he discovers that there are other cons who has escaped down here to use it as their drug-lab, and thus your main enemy for this chapter is a evil drug-chemist (all you chemists are a bit evil).

Chemistry has a bit of overall relevance in the story since the former police-officer you play as was never able to join the CSI-team because of constantly failing at all the chemistry tests.
There's one situation down in this basement where you need to put one of the drugged-out test-subjects to sleep to get past him (the door to the secret tunnel is in his cell), but rather than just simply going to the lab and picking up a anaesthetic pill and throwing it in the test-suspects dog-bowl (he's addicted to drugs so he'll swallow any drug you put in there) I thought it would be interesting if the chemist is all out of anaesthetic drugs so you have to create one yourself!

first of all because I like it when games have educational puzzels rather than just abstract ones,
but also because I want the chemist to think that you simply gave the test-suspect one of his death-pills, so when the chemist then stops you with his gun as you are about to go out the tunnel he is really suprised when you say that you didn't kill him, you only putt him to temporary sleep, realizing that he's standing with his back to the person he has been torturing with experiments with for so long just before he is ripped to shredds.

So in other words what I need is:
1) a name/recipe for a real anaesthetic pill that is being used down here in this basement. (the test-subspect is violent like a zombie because of his drugs so you can't go close enough to give him a injection or gas so it should preferibly be a pill because those you can simply throw in his dog-bowl)
2) one which creating is of decent fun/simplicity in a adventure-game and of somewhat realism that he is able to get ahold of the ingredients in this prison/fort-basement.

The potential source of materials/tools are:
a) stuff that's been left there since the old fort, so the evil-chemist has probably looted enough stuff to build him a lab of sort. (tho puzzels are more fun the more you have to explore the whole basement to find needed ingredients)
b) stuff that has been smuggled in, during your path of finding to the underworld you discovered the person who are smuggling objects to the basement in exchange for exclusive right to sell their drugs.
c) natural stuff found on an island, for exampel I saw on wikipedia that chloroform can be made by seaweed and it would be somewhat plausible that you would find seaweed in the sewers as high waves from the oceans coudl have washed some into the sewers-system. (I like these natural ingredients since it makes it feel less abstract to those who don't know chemistry)

My current rough idea is:
In the scientists lab you find a empty bowl of anaesthetic chloroform pills but a recepie for them:
*Acetone: you already have since you picked up the smuggled goods.
*Bleach: you already have since you picked up the smuggled goods.
*Ice: found naturally somewhere in this frosted cold basement.
*Glassware & seperation-funnel: already in the chemists lab.

and you make it:
*Add bleach to glass.
*Add ice to glass.
*Add acetone to glass.
*Add ice to glass.
*Wait for settle (automatic).
*Use seperation funnel on glass. (to get the pure chloroform).
*Add into pill-cap (however it is that's done)

but:
a) Can chloroform be taken as pill? if not then the whole chloroform idea won't work. i.e. would a pill-cap with chlorine swallowed make you instantly subconcious?
b) There may be many other more interesting drug receips that I'm missing out on, so please if you know any please mention them (even if they seem slightly less entertaining) and I can determine if that would be better or not (as I can't write the whole story there may be other recipes that contains a certain ingrediense which you already have or know where they are that I just didn't have time to mention in this little post, so another recepie you may find to be only decent may work perfect when combined with other elements of this story)

[Cesium-137]

Chloroform is a liquid and could not be taken as a pill. I would guess it would eat through any gel-caps you tried to put it in too. If "your character" made some huge amount somehow, it could potentially be used to fill a room with the vapors, putting any occupants out for a while. The only problems are you would need a large volume of reagents, and realistically the evil chemist (assuming hes been working in the field a while) would smell fumes, get a major headache and probably retreat for fresh air. I suppose when he leaves for fresh air your character could clock him over the head with a flask or something from behind. Im a little bit uncomfortable going into detail about the best chemical method for harming or incapacitating someone (a chemist for that matter :p), for obvious reasons. However, I think its common enough knowledge to mention mixing ammonia and bleach to make chlorine gas, which would kill the evil character. Ethyl ether used to be used for an anaesthetic, but again, its a volatile liquid. Perhaps have your character rig up some distraction (fire, explosion, other lab related stuff) and just give the chemist the ol classic chloroform/ether rag to the face from behind? As for a simple way to make anaesthetics from reagents found in a basement... if there was a method, I'm sure the world would know about it after it hit the streets. Hope this helps.

[Fluorine]

Finally, a pharmacology thread!
Okay I'm just going to throw out ideas - you can run with them;

Chemicals:
- Chloral hydrate (solid): synthesis doesn't look advanced for a prison (chlorine, ethanol, water).
- GHB (solid): As far as I know has minimal taste and little to no notable smell.
- GBL (liquid): Prodrug of GHB, meaning turns into it after ingested.
- 2-methyl-2-butanol (liquid): Ethanol alternative
- Phenylcyclohexylpiperidine: Only NMDA-antagonist I can think of with "fair synthesis" but even then.
- Amantadine (solid?): Same scenario as magnesium except this is most likely at the same site as PCP, ketamine, etc. though synthesis isn't probable and it has low affinity at site.
- Phenprobamate: Muscle relaxant/sedative
- Emylcamate: Muscle relaxant

*Most barbiturates, 'qualones, benzodiazepines, opioids, NMDA/glutamate antagonists, and Z-drugs would be too complex 'garage synthesis'.*

Plant:
- Cannabinoids: Too many to selectively extract or synthesize. It could be pulled as extract causing sedation but this isn't the most original/creative idea. Upside, it's orally active.
- Kavalactones: Mild sedation, orally active.
- Opioids: Very possible if Papaver somniferum is grown/farmed somewhere on the island.
- Salvia divinorum: Common looking plant originating from Mexico. It contains salvinorin A which is a potent kappa opioid receptor (KOR) agonist. The chemical is active around <1mg, orally probably a bit more. Synthesis is out of the question but extraction is plausible. Effects are dissociating and very immobilizing. Duration vaporized (chemical) or smoked (plant) 5~10minutes, orally (chemical) could range around an hour or so depending on dosage.

Fungus:
- Amanita muscaria: Despite common beliefs these aren't deadly though they are not pleasant when fresh. They can cause gastrointestinal discomfort, nausea, vomiting, among other things. Ibotenic acid this is the major if not sole source of the physical discomfort - toxic but breaks down when dried. Muscimol works on GABA, not unlike many of the chemicals listed, so this can cause a range from sedation to dreamlike effects. Muscarine works on muscarinic receptor (named after the alkaloid) which will cause it's own hallucinations (unlike-psychedelics or dissociatives or GABAnergics). This is very common and very readily identified mushroom. A. pantherina can be used in place but I don't recommend it.

Elements:
- Magnesium (solid): NMDA/Glutamate antagonist. I'm not certain if this would work in the same way as ketamine, PCP, etc. - too tired to research it currently, but will tomorrow if you're interested.
- Xenon (gas): Very expensive, very unlikely.

Animal:
Phyllomedusa Bicolor (frog): Poison contains dermophin which is a mu-opioid receptor (MOR) agonist though from what I've seen of people on it I would imagine its also a kappa-opioid receptor (KOR) agonist. MOR agonism will cause euphoria, pleasure, sedation, similar to morphine and KOR will cause a dissociative feeling like salvinorin A. Wouldn't be implausible the frog made it's way from boats to the island. It's not the most pleasant compound and will cause quite a bit of nausea, hallucinations, but it's quite sedative. Ritualistically they burn a sharpened twig, create a wound, and rub it in. I can look up oral route, though I really doubt it'd remain active.

If you need more information on any specific one(s) I'd be glad to look dig deeper through some books/sources. Note these aren't all "anesthetics" though majority have sedative or hypnotic qualities, in the least sleep-promoting characteristics.

Edit: Grammar.

[Hoowda5643]

@Cesium:
Ah, thanks for verifying that chloroform pills wouldn't actually work in real-life.
As for your non-pill suggestions I'm afraid you've completely missunderstood the scenario (you're not putting the scientist asleep, just his zombie-like human test-subject who's guarding your way out, who will then get his revenge on the scientist when he wakes up from the anaethetic drug, you the player hero don't harm anyone directly), but that's to be expected since it's always difficult to explain scenarios in this manner.

@Flourine:
Excellent thanks dude that gives me plenty of material to work from, and opened up my mind outside of the box as well I can see in front of me the player hunting around for a cunning frog that he can hear in his speaker but is difficult to track down (I probably won't do that, but still an interesting thaught)
Also mushrooms were a good idea,
As for the rest I will look into those within the next couple of days.

What I'm leaning towards now is to probably use a fictional recipe after all (since then I can control the player experience of gathering ingrediences better and it's plausible that the scientist has come up with a brand new anaesthetic formula based on what he could find in the prison) but that rather than the ingrediences being abstract items or random chemicals I would like it if all the ingrediences were real plausible anaesthetics ingrediences so even a chemist playing the game would feel like they really are cooking up some kind of drug not making pizza dough, and for those ingrediences Flourine's list is a great list of possible choices    
i.e. the final recipe may be a mix of the mushroom, some chemicals, the frog etc even tho in real-life such a mix may not work or be over-kill.

Cheers.

[Fluorine]

Glad to help, pharmacology is where my heart is.