Got this when it was free on Epic, but put it off because the cutscenes were too long for my tastes. Finally went back and started chipping away at it, and now I’ve 100%ed the game at last.
This is a hybrid Visual Novel+Picross/Nonograms game. It’s themed around being a detective and solving a murder, but all the evidence-gathering is just a cursor you slide around until it starts beeping, at which point you click to get sent to a picross puzzle. The rest of the detective work is either done by the characters for you, or you get a choice of three options, being looped back to the choice if you pick the wrong one. On one hand, you really need to be into the story to enjoy the game due to how big a part the Visual Novel segments are, but at the same time, if you’re hoping for more substantial detective-style gameplay, you’ll be disappointed.
The picross puzzles are all standard. No special or unique gimmicks here; it’s mostly just your average 10x10 or 15x15 boards, with the most it deviates being something like having a 5x10 board or 15x10. Near the end, you’ll get a few 20x15 boards (most of which are optional), but that’s as far as it goes.
The story itself is okay. Normally, I wouldn’t bring up story since gameplay is the most important part of games, but 1) it really is a huge part of this game in particular, maybe even more so than the nonograms, and 2) it really bothered me how heavy-handed the game can be with its foreshadowing, to the point it kinda makes the characters look stupid sometimes. For example, in the first chapter, you find out that one of the suspects planted a tape recorder that captured the audio of the murder, and it’s pretty obvious that this guy wasn’t the killer, but the game keeps looping you back to that dialogue choice until you finally accuse him and–surprise surprise–it wasn’t him. Then, in chapter four, one of the suspects asks “Am I a suspect?” because he wants to leave, and I was just like “Yes you are; it was YOUR memento we found near the body, and the other two suspects don’t exactly have the physique needed to beat someone up,” but then the characters are all like “Nah, you can go” without the game even giving you so much as a fake choice like last time. Guess who the killer was.
Overall, it’s okay, but you need to be someone who really gets into the story to fully enjoy this game (but not get into it so much that you notice the plot contrivances). If it sounds appealing and you missed the Epic giveaway, get it on sale.
Oh man, when I first booted it I assumed I would hate it for the strong emphasis on VN cutscenes …. but I also 100%’ed before I even knew what had happened hahaha I thought the story was just a good distraction between some nonos. It wasn’t stellar, it wasn’t good writing, it was full of clichés, but this is not a game that takes itself very seriously and I thought it overall worked fine.
Also not sure if you liked it, but I thought the soundtrack was a banger. I usually have it on the background while working or playing mindless games :)