Showing posts with label Mystery. Show all posts
Schrödinger's Call Review – Is The Line Alive Or Dead?
Genre – Mystery, Drama Play Time – 10 hours Developer – Acrobatic Chirimenjako Steam VNDB
Hotline To The Dead
As
a method of commination, a phone call walks a strange line between
the awkwardness with its audio lacking the important
non-verbal cues of human interactions and the deeply personal
connection of having someone speak directly into your ears. This
unique experience lies at the core of Schrödinger's Call’s
narrative presentation which leans heavily into this space of
intimacy and misunderstanding to craft its dramatic and emotional
highs. The game follows Mary as she works as the last confidant for
recently deceased spirits where she takes their calls and tries to
help them make peace with their lives. All of these people do not entirely remember the trauma which keeps them here so a strong
investigative element runs through the title as the player must
deduce the truth and help Mary solve their cases. Each of the cast
Mary talks to over the phone bring their own quirky personality and
unique animal form to the table in order to make them easy to keep
track of and a joy to talk with. This sense of striking identity
extends to the visuals which use of a predominately black and white
sketched aesthetic backed up by sudden bold use of singular colours
to allow a moment or person to stand out. However, this is a game
plagued with odd game design such as an overuse of repetition and an
abundance of choices which merely loop the player around and waste
their time. Are these development decisions enough to undermine this
deeply personal tale of lies, loss and love? Let’s pick up the
phone and find out.
A Cat In The Box – Narrative And Themes
From
the moment Mary first picks up the phone there is a permanent through
line of personal mysteries about each caller as well as about Mary
herself. Having every person not completely remember their life
creates enough space for speculation about what trauma holds them here
and gives the player something to slowly pick apart over the course
of the game. Each chapter is made up of one main caller which Mary
has to help pass on and a selection of secondary callers who all knew
the main caller in life or they are somehow linked to them. This
interweaving web of relationships helps prevent the calls from
becoming repetitive since the player will be bouncing around between
these vastly different and colourful characters. Putting all the clues about their past together at the finale
of a chapter and freeing them is an incredibly satisfying experience
with a good catharsis and emotional climax to it.
 |
| The game begins and ends with this phone |
Similarly Mary’s
own past is slowly teased over her various encounters with the
callers and provides a nice plot thread to link the entire title. The
picture of Mary becomes more muddy over time as the fault lines in
her personality reveal themselves and overturn any initial
impressions of her character. So when the big reveals do come they
are still shocking but make complete sense when looking back at the
subtle hints left over the entire play time. Once all the callers
have had their turn and the spotlight turns to Mary, the game does
not pulls its punches and crafts a compelling final act where her
suffering get put on full display for the player to engage with first
hand. It is an impactful way to end the game and will sit in the
player’s mind as the credits roll and they put down the phone for
the last time. On a broader point, Schrödinger's Call makes a lot of
narrative use out of its use of the phone as the main means of
communication. There is a great deal of attention played to the
misunderstandings and nuances which occur only over the phone and
even make one of these a core plot line to great dramatic effect. The
phone also serves the role of being a symbol of connection, or the
seeking thereof, and how such relationships can be
fraught with problems and cut off when we least expect it. Yet it is
precisely these connection through the calls Mary makes which
ultimately save not only those callers but also Mary herself when she
comes to understand the value of those bonds. All of this is cleverly
conveyed through the ups and downs of the narrative and its gentle
warmth can be felt when it is most needed.
If
there is one thing Schrödinger's Call seems to have an obsession
with it is repetition. The game constantly repeats itself even when
the events or information it is repeating have only just happened
mere moments ago. By far the biggest offenders are Mary’s write ups
after each call where the player is taken through the call they just
experienced. Nothing in the game is complicated enough to justify
this kind of aggressive hand holding since all of the main points of
a call are highlighted during the call so the player cannot possibly
miss them. It is as if the game does not trust the player’s memory
and its own ability to hold their attention. At least a quarter of
the play time is dedicated to such repetition making it a constant
and invasive force many will find difficult to ignore. Had these
recaps only occurred once every so often then they might have served
a useful purpose to refresh the memory, but instead they are the
largest stain on the overall experience.
 |
| Gasp! Just like the famous thought experiment! |
A separate and less
noticeable problem can be seen in the way the game hand waves away
certain elements which seem like they should be important but end up
slipping to the sides in favour of the emotional finale. The moon
crashing to earth is perhaps the biggest of these and you would think it would be a big and constant presence but instead it has a
surprisingly minor presence and often forgotten. This is to the point
at which the game itself seems confused at times as to whether the
moon falling really happened or not with it bouncing around on its
position on the truth during the ending. Another weirdly discarded
feature pops up when looking at the cat, Hamlet, who acts as Mary’s
companion throughout most of the story. Despite this prominence and
the mystery surrounding him, he is somewhat discarded towards the end
and there is never any real resolution to who or what he is and where
he goes or what his purpose might be. Neither of these concepts matter
much to the emotional weight of the final act so it is understandable
they go pushed aside, but some proper clarification would have been
nice to neatly wrap everything up.
The Animal Kingdom – Characters
Being
glued to the phone naturally leads to a conversation heavy style of
narrative so it is important for the characters to be interesting to
converse with and on this point Schrödinger's Call is impeccable.
Each of the main callers has their own distinct relationship with
Mary and bounce off her in entertaining new ways in order to keep
them feeling fresh. From Lucy, the guilt ridden mother, to Violet,
the gentle and confidant rich girl, they all present themselves
through their memorable mannerisms then, as the player comes to know more
about them, their flaws and imperfections give them a delicate
humanity. Their associated secondary callers have intertwining views and lives despite the fact they never talk to one another
during the game and rely on Mary to be a go between which helps
further push the importance of her centralising role. As they all
slowly remember their shared history, the powerful emotions this
brings out constitute much of the titles ups and downs for them to
push through and this journey is what makes them so memorable. The
chapter structure also ensures they never outstay their welcome with
their resolutions coming at just the right time when they have said
all they need to and the player is ready to move on.
 |
| Choosing to have each caller be a different animal person was a smart choice |
Every caller
somehow has an emotional similarity to Mary and it is by interacting
with them that a more complete picture of how she thinks becomes
clear. This is an excellent method of making every character
important since they each hold a piece of the puzzle about Mary and
her lost memories. It also helps reinforce the idea of Mary as an
empathetic person who is suitable to be the last confidant while
setting this trait up be questioned and its fragility to be brought
to the front. Mary’s broader characterisation is wonderfully put
together from her ability to act as a problem solver for the callers
to her eventual confrontation with her own past. Throughout she
remains a central pillar of the player’s interest and the texture
of her personality is teased out slowly to keep them on the edge of
their seat. Investing emotional in Mary is easy which is extremely
important when the final sections of the game rely so heavily on the
player’s connection with her.
Hold The Phone – Visuals, Audio And Technical
When
loading up the game for the first time its visual language
immediately marks it out from its peers with its use of darker
colours and strong lines. The majority of time black and white will
be presented to the player as they act as the baseline for this space
between life and death. It speaks to the delicate balance maintain
here and Mary’s role in pushing people out of the intermediary
place. This pairing of contrasting lines and white voids makes the flat
and dark colours which each of the callers brings to the table stand
out against Mary’s own bland room. Each lacks the lustre they may have once had
to mirror the poor state the callers find themselves in yet the
colours still hold a weight to them and subtly communicates the
emotions and personality they had in their prime. The soundtrack is
similarly dulled with a heavy use of deep and resounding sounds even
in pieces aiming towards a lighter tone for their associated
character. It does a good job of capturing the mood of each caller to
the point of the player being able to recognise which person is
calling from their track alone. Furthering the auditory identity of
the cast are their series of distorted voice snippets which all carry
the fuzziness of a phone line and their own unique cadences.
These elements combine to create an audio-visual landscape which help
elevate Schrödinger's Call and make it easier to overlook its
issues.
 |
| Clean, informative and filled with personality |
On
the mechanics side of the equation things are a bit more uneven in
terms of quality. Having the player input the phone number of the
person they want to call by rotating the dial gives the phone a
wonderful sense of tactility. It helps centralise the phone as a
device of connection through this physicality with the phone also
needing to be manually picked up to answering incoming calls just to
keep it in the player’s mind. In a similar vein, the notebook has the player flipping between its writing covered pages to find the
clues needed to answer the mysteries and set the caller free. Later
on it becomes an important narrative point when starts to become the
playground for Mary’s increasingly decaying mental state. Despite
the game forcing the player to spend too much time looking due to the
constant recapping of events, it remains an endearing feature due to
its role in the story and Mary’s illustrative drawings.
Unfortunately things get worse when looking at one of the biggest
points of player interaction, choices. The offender here is the way
choices are looking for only one response and looping the player back
around to the start of the text if they choose incorrectly. This is
understandable in the quiz sections where the whole point is for
there to be a right and wrong answer, less so when they are used for
the general conversation choices without any kind of clear correct
option. The second group form the majority of the choices in the game
and so the player regularly finds themselves being looped around
since they have no context to know what the game wants from them with
such a small amount of information. What makes this worse is the way
the choices initially create this idea of non-linearity which
encourages the player to explore the narrative space only for them to
be slapped across the face for attempting to do so.
Conclusion
Finding
connections with others can be a difficult and delicate yet rewarding
endeavour and it is this core message which Schrödinger's Call
wonderfully captures with every call. The mystery of each caller’s
life and regrets makes for a compelling series of interactions which
build towards the greater finale around Mary. Each character has a
vibrant life to them which allows their calls to be constantly
engaging while slow picking away at the tragedy they hold in their
hearts. A strong audio-visual style supports this growing narrative
and uses colour to create contrast and dulled beauty in order to sell
every revelation. The phone and the notebook mechanics add a tactile
feeling to the small space Mary inhabits and lends these solitary
points of connection a weight they would not otherwise possess.
Issues of execution do exist throughout the experience from
repetitive hand holding to vague plot points to frustrating choices,
but none of these are enough to break the brilliant vision of the
work yet they do add some distracting cracks.
Verdict –
Deftly dials up an imaginative story of the fragility and value found in human connections told through the distorted audio of a rotary phone.
Yet it never quite reaches its full potential due to some poor design
decisions related to repetition and time wasting choices.
Pros-
+
Each caller is their own mystery where picking away at their past
slowly unveils the tragedy keeping them from passing on.
+
Makes the most out of the phone with a series of plot twists and
misunderstandings perfect for the nebulous connection it provides.
+
The cast has a good variety to it and they rub up against Mary in
their own unique ways.
+
Mary is an excellent protagonist who starts out as a seemly well
adjusted girl and over the course of the game the player gets to see
her gradual collapse.
+
Well crafted visual and auditory identity weaved in amongst the
tactile mechanics of the phone and notebook.
Cons -
-
Repetition plagues the game with it constantly going over events
which have just happened as if it is afraid the player might miss
something.
-
Frustrating abundance of choices which loop the player around them if
they choose the wrong option and wasting their time.
-
Some plot points end up discarded and unclearly resolved.
Lupercalia of the Silent Accord Review – All The World’s A Stage
Genre - Drama, Supernatural Play Time - 30 hours Developer - Rupekari Patch Download VNDB
Theatre Will Make You Good
In
a city famed for its theatre, a group of students find themselves
drawn into the amateur Lampyris Troupe and their new play, Philia.
This is a story of loss, acceptance and love told through the cast’s
struggles to perform and the friction which forms between them. Its lavish use of theatre visuals and metaphor give the game a
distinctive feel and helps support the impact of each major
revelation or character moment. The cast is a colourful bunch who all
bounce off each other in a fun and believable manner while having
interesting scars that make for strong character arcs. Keeping each
one of them relevant throughout their screen time is one of the
titles biggest achievements as it helps foster a sense community to
the group and allowing their development to occupy a larger amount of
the narrative space. However, it is plagued by a litany of minor issues
from an overuse of flashbacks to romances which feel out of place and
this often distracts from the core themes and ideas the game clearly
wants to communicate. Are these niggles enough to make the audience
leave the theatre? Let’s step into the lead role and find out.
Dance Upon The Stage – Narrative and Themes
Committing
completely to a core metaphor through which all aspects of the
narrative are passed has a transformative effect on how a game
engages with its material. For Lupercalia this central element is the
theatre and it shapes everything from the city the characters live in
to the supernatural powers influencing their actions. Through this
lens the personal and human are delivered in the same common formula
as the greater narrative in order to make them easy to understand
while blurring the barrier between them to heighten their emotional
impact. Having the entire city be so focused around theatre helps
provide a legitimate reason for the game’s use of it since every
character is in some way connected to it and had their lives shaped
by it. As the troupe set about preparing for the performance of
Philia it is their trails and tribulations on this journey which
define their arcs and allows them to shine individually and as a
whole capable of putting on a compelling performance. Dealing with
the practical realities of how a theatre production works gives the
player a glimpse behind the scenes in a way that invites a feeling of
wonder at the skills involved to make it all come together. When the
supernatural elements creep in they treat the fabric of reality like
it was a stage with props and backdrops to be swapped out on a scene
change or having the people be unwilling actors to be pushed on and
off it. No matter how the narrative is framed it remains a distinctly
personal one where each character has to grapple with their past and
try to unpick the trauma eating away at them. This helps prevent the
metaphors from feel too abstract or overly focused on an existing
understanding of how theatre works and acts a reference point for the
player to invest themselves into this story. The inherently dramatic
nature of theatre is played up to make the emotions of the cast and
the events of the narrative appear grander and more impactful than
they might otherwise. Assisting this is the way the troupe all remain
important even when the focus is on one specific member which sells
the idea of them as a dynamic group while preventing secondary
characters from being forgotten. All these uses of the theatre contribute
to a visual novel with an extremely memorable overall identity unlike
any other of its peers in the way it and deftly weave them together
so naturally.
 |
| The stage is front and centre from the moment the game begins |
Before
covering the story’s issues, let us begin with the conclusion since
it is worth keeping in mind for this section. None of the problems
listed bellow fundamentally compromise what the game achieves with
its use of theatre to craft a compelling narrative, but they do add
up and any one of them might be straw that broke the camel’s back
for you so keep that in mind. By far the biggest among these issues
is the over use of flashbacks to a frankly hilarious degree. This
humour is not intentional as the game presents them in complete
seriousness, yet there are so many of them that more of the game is
spent in the past than the present to the point that it almost comes
across as parody. There are few scenes which do not include, or are
entirely, flashbacks and this is due to the focus on the cast
overcoming their traumas rather than on any present danger. Even the
overarching forces at play are firmly connected to the past so this
narrative choice is understandable but there is little doubt it
becomes tedious when it regularly grinds forward progression to a
halt. A more minor issue is the way the title likes to jump between
characters and sometimes fails to establish the jump in perspective
happened and the player will only realise it after they have been
playing the scene for a while. There is a pop up in one corner that
appears when swapping perspectives but it is small, easy to miss and
nowhere near the text box which is focus of the player’s attention.
It is just an unnecessary layer of confusion and brings the player
out of the experience. The romances often feel at odds with the
themes of overcoming trauma and forgiving other and yourself since
they are framed as a form of escapism. All romance routes are made
artificial through the way that they only occur due to the
supernatural meddling and the correct choices which lead to the true
ending all involve rejecting that easy out. Lupercalia feels like it
has been saddled with the exceptions of having a romance inherited
from it choice of genre and does not know what to do with it and so
is only including it out of obligation. This is not helped by the
fact the routes to not have any meaning content exclusive to them
outside of a vague and fast romance which does little to expand on
either party involved and feels hollow overall. The supernatural
aspects have a similar uneven use and presentation. They are merely a
background element in the first half of the game to the point of
characters having oddly dismissing attitudes towards the abnormal
things happening around them since it is not currently plot relevant.
Once it is in full swing the rules of these powers are nebulous and
seem to be whatever the developers want at any given time
which makes them feel contrived and somewhat out of place. To top it all off the supernatural is
never given a proper explanation for its origin and the game try to
hand wave it away by quickly moving on to the dramatic finale and
hoping the player will not notice.
 |
| Well excuse me... |
Something
else which can be held against Lupercalia is implicit view that the
only type of theatre worth engaging with is tragedy. Not once is
comedy ever mentioned or considered even in passing. This is a fairly
common attitude throughout history with even the ancient Greeks
suffering from this prejudice, but in Lupercalia it stands out due to
how it is regularly willing to use humour yet does not want to
address this contradiction between its views and actions. For another
example of its strange aversion to comedy is its name dropping of
Shakespeare tragedies such as Hamlet but its complete failure to
acknowledge the other half of the man’s works like Much Ado About
Nothing. A real actor would never turn their nose up at good work and would love a chance to test different acting muscles so it comes across as
odd that characters obsessed with expanding their acting abilities
never consider comedy. Lupercalia is a victim of this historical
disdain for what has been seen as lesser form of the art of theare.
Always remember for every Aeschylus there is an Aristophanes and for
every Macbeth there is A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Theatre Kids – Characters
The
Lampyris Troupe are the heart and soul of the game and each of its
members has a distinct personality which are interacted with in
interesting ways. Rather than a harmonious group they are instead a
boiling pot of strong egos and this naturally leads to a lot of
friction between their competing visions for their roles within the
performance. This constant parade of minor conflicts allows the
characters to define themselves in a way that builds up organically
as the clashes reveal little bits about them. As such when the major
conflicts roll round the player has a good sense of how the cast are
going to react to them and the game is willing to both play into or
against what has been established in order to create well rounded
characters. Beyond their disagreements this is a troupe who care for
one another and this is shown through their small actions to accommodate and support
one another or to defend them from outsiders. Each character shines
brightly when they are centre stage and they are a delightful mixture
of flaming ambition and crippling trauma which makes them easy to root for while also being entertaining to watch. When they
are not the focus of attention they still contribute to other
character’s arcs and generally make their presence felt to push the
idea of this being the story of the troupe in its entirety rather
than just a few important people.
 |
| And so the troupe grows larger |
Stepping Into The Spotlight – Visuals, Audio and Technical
Continuing
the game’s fixation on the theatre are the visuals which play on the theatrical motifs and colours of the stage to present the narrative’s
themes and ideas. This comes across both in the ways the physical
structure of the theatre always finds its way into many scenes and
the costume of the performers who step into new clothes to embody
their roles. As the lines dividing the theatre and the outside world
blur through the characters conflicts and the supernatural elements
so to does the visual presence of the physical structure finds its
way increasingly into the wider story. Once the supernatural is in
full swing the theatre becomes a more abstract sight with the
architectural motifs reduced to their most symbol nature where the
patterns adorning the old buildings manifest an otherworldly power.
Beyond its use of the theatre, there is a strong understanding of how
colour and mood are linked to one another and this is subtly used to
direct the player’s emotions at every turn. Making these visual
aspects so upfront means the game can keep stimulating the player
with new and exciting iterations on these core elements while having
a gentle transition between them so as to not overwhelm the player
with so much they become desensitised to it.
 |
| The plays are a highlight of the game |
From
a visual and technical stand point there are two notable issues. The
first being the rather loose relationship the character art has with
anatomy. This is not the standard strangeness like the large breasts
common to certain anime styles but instead a broader inability to
maintain a consistent sense of the physical proportions in general
from eyes to limbs. Nothing is immune as the whole spectrum is
effected from CGs to portraits and it is distracting to have people
who look like shapeshifting aliens that do not quite understand the
appearance of a real human. How much this will bother the player is
going to influence whether they find this funny or a deal breaker.
The other issue stems from this being a fan translation and this is
the sometimes iffy nature of the grammar chosen by the translator.
Every so often the player will have to re-read a section of text out
of confusion where it is unclear what it is try to convey. While this
is rare enough to not be a deal breaker it is still worth adjusting
expectations when coming into this game.
Conclusion
As
the curtain falls Lupercalia of the Silent Accord’s commitment to
its core identity allows it to craft an experience which can stand
out among a sea of similar titles. Its story of theatre and stage
makes for a compelling centre piece for the struggles and drama
unfolding around it. The visuals continue the theatrical motif in a
bold fashion making for a feast for the eyes where reality and the
play blend together. Backing this up is a cast of large egos and
memorable motives alongside the friction they brings to the troupe as
a whole. However, the numerous minor problems with the execution of
its story coupled with the some stumbles in the quality of its
visuals and translation hamper it. Yet what it does is not something
the player can find anywhere else and make pushing through these
issues worth it to play such a powerful title.
Verdict –
Theatrical visuals and metaphors provide the foundation for a
deeply person tale of overcoming loss and finding hope in the things we
love. Even if it does stumble at times when telling it through some
odd choices.
Pros -
+
Its complete commitment to the imagery and metaphors of theatre
creates a memorable and gripping story which sticks with the player.
+
A cast with large egos and deep seated traumas makes for a perfect
mix of tension and camaraderie.
+
Has a visual identity which pops off the screen and makes for a
constantly stimulating display to match the drama of the text.
Cons -
-
Plagued a lot of minor narrative issues that distract from the core
experience.
- Character designs have a very loose relationship with real
anatomy and their physical proportions shift from pose to pose and CG
to CG.
Detective Fiction – Genre Deep Dive
On The Case
From
Sherlock Holmes to Columbo, Detective Fiction has a vice like grip on
the popular consciousness so it is no surprise to find visual novels
making use of such stories. The way visual novels play into the
strengths of video games and written mediums results in a unique
blend of roleplay while still having the strong personalities key to
a good detective. When the focus is around the detective within an
officially sanctioned organisation like the police the story tends to come with
more authority for the characters and the struggles at having to
navigate red tape. Stepping into the private sector and the detective
gains a more scrappy mentality where they have to work to unearth
clues in a less direct fashion compared to their official
counterparts. Then there are characters put into the role of
detective out of no choice of their own and this lack of experience
alongside them often being directly connected to mystery they are
solving gives them a wider emotional and narrative range at the cost
of much of the detective fantasy. Let’s put on our deerstalkers and
deduce how these traits of the genre influence its presentation and
what stories it tells.
Official Police Business
Working
in an officially recognised organisation like the police or some form
of special unit gives the detective a greater degree of authority to
wield while also demanding they be accountable to regulations.
Narratively this often manifests as some elements of the police
procedural style where the characters have access to a wide range of
other professionals in various field who can provide information they
would not otherwise be able to know. Another common feature is a
fixation on the crime scene from an analytical perspective where the
detective picks over every detail of the area beyond what is
necessary to solve the case in order to sell the idea of just how
capable they are and many resources they have at their disposal. In order to
create a sense of the authority available to the detective they are
able to get access to restricted locations and make people they are
interviewing feel as if they have to talk which both feed into this
idea of the borrowed power they are wielding. Red tape is a part of
any large organisation and at some point the detective is going to
have to be shown engaging with it. The exact extent of the paper
pushing and regulation which appears depends on the extent it leans
into being a fantasy with the grounded tales tending to have more
mundane work and the action focused ones being less interested in
breaking the story’s flow to accommodate it.
 |
| Got to get all the details of the crime |
This divide between
the kinds of police detective fiction defines much of this side of
the genre in visual novels so let us look a pair of games which
exemplify each end of the spectrum. AI: Somnium Files is not a
realistic depiction of police detective work in any way with the
futuristic sci-fi tech and the special branch dedicated to use it. There
is a strong through line of drama where the Detective Fiction is a means of
presenting a complex narrative rather than an attempt to engage with
the realities of solving crime. Date Kaname never has to sit down and
do paper work and spends as much time goofing off as he does working
to the point you could be forgiven for forgetting he is in-fact in a
position of authority. Yet he does have to work within the bounds of
the police’s structure such as not being able to arrest or hold
people without evidence and this is used as a
dramatic device to build tension and tie his hands. It also acts as a
means of easily presenting him in a heroic light as he struggles to
do what is right while also balancing his role as a representative of
a group far bigger than him. Crime scene investigations is a core
aspect of AI: Somnium Files identity and over the course of the game
the player will investigate them in great detail as they try to piece
together the mystery. Here is where the appeal of the detective
fantasy is at its strongest in AI where the fragmentary clues
tantalisingly place the truth within reach, but only the detective
has ability to reach that conclusion. On the other hand CollarXMalice
is much more interested in the day to day operations of the police
despite it also have an outlandish premise. The protagonist spends a
lot of the common route performing the routine actions required of
the police from filling out paperwork to taking calls to patrolling
the streets. Through these actions the game’s world is
contextualised within a sense of normality the police are trying to
maintain despite the circumstances around them. Returning to this
normal is a key motivator for the protagonist and their mundane
actions showcase her vision of such a life which remains potent as
the antagonists attempt to take it away from her. Since she is not a
detective by position but instead circumstance, this causes the
mystery solving element of the detective to move away from the crime
scene itself and into the way each crime paints a picture of what the
antagonists are after as she works towards the truth about each
one. Being part of the police does give her access to specialists, in
a more grounded way than AI’s sci-fi magic, with the most notable
of these being Shiraishi Kageyuki of the crime lab who regularly
gives her useful information his department has gained. Everything
aims to sell the police in this setting as a believable version of
their real world equivalents and sell the lumbering nature of this
organisation which the detective belongs to.
Private Eye
A
private sector detective is free from the constraints and
responsibilities of the police but in exchange do not have access to the
professionals or the ability to pressure people for information
through their authority. This leads a lot of such detectives to be
characterised as scrappy underdogs who have to use their intelligence
and creativity to the evidence they need to solve the crime. It
pushes the super smart end of the detective fantasy where they are
utilising their cunning to pry truths out of people which they would
otherwise never speak. Having some connection to the
police is a relatively common means to get the detective the
knowledge he need, either because they were once part of the police
or through a friend on the force, yet there is careful balance here
since it could easily undercut the scrappy element of the fantasy and
so the source of the information often only reveals a limited amount
since they are bound by confidentiality. Interactions with the
criminal underworld or shady information brokers is another angle
this style of detective can bring as they tread the line between the
light and dark sides of the world in pursuit of the truth. This plays
into the more morally grey tendencies of a detective working for an
inherently selfish motive in money where their compass might lead
them to do things the player may not agree with.
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| Finding all those tiny clues |
As a genre this type
of detective is deal with in one of two ways, either it is treated
with the utmost seriousness and leans into the darker side of human
nature or it goes the opposite way and makes the lack of restrictions
of their activities the source of a light adventure with a free-form
structure. The Kara No Shoujo series is sits decidedly on the side of
the former with its horrific murders and generally dark tone.
Tokisaka Reiji is not initially hired to solve a murder but rather to
go undercover as a history teacher to investigate a series of
disappearances at the behest of the vice principle. This is an
important part of the narrative set up as it establishes the for hire
nature of the detective and as he pokes around to try and solve the
disappearances the player gets to see the cunning way he uses the
minimal resources he has at his disposal. His lack of detachment from
the people he interacts with and his willingness to get personally
involved in their lives marks him as a less professional and more
human version of the detective. Given the small cast of characters
this focus on them allows the game to place the horror of the murders
on a personal level where the player will witness the effects it has
on a wide spread of the cast. It also highlights how compromised the
detective is when he acts in accordance with his emotions rather than
the logic more befitting his status and this makes his struggles and
successes feel personal to him. A lighter take on the private
detective can be seen in Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands
Behind where the protagonist assumes the role after being taken in by
a more experienced detective. The young age of the protagonist allows
them to fit into the school setting where they are tasked with
investigating the disappearance of a young girl and it makes his
naivety and inexperience blend into a coming of age story which
steers clear of anything too dark for its broader target audience.
Witnessing the growth of a detective on the job is a part of the
genre this game plays heavily into as the player gets to witness the
protagonist grow and find the skills he needs to solve the mystery
and discover the spark of genius which defines him as a detective.
Following this growth is one of the main ways the narrative gets the
player invested in seeing the story to its end and gives another
emotional avenue to the mystery beyond the desire to see it solved.
It also leads to a story about building a future and is hopeful for
the people involved in contrast to the spiral downwards which defines
Kara No Shoujo.
Amateur Hour
The
final type of detective fiction is one where the detective is an
unwitting everyman who lacks any spark of deductive genius. They are
drawn into investigating the mystery when circumstances compel them
rather than as part of their profession. By the end of the story they may have picked up
the skills of the detective but they do not start out with any of
them and struggle against what is asked of them and even at the end
their abilities are something they want to never have to use again.
These detectives possess likeable and familiar traits of people the
player might meet in their day to day life giving them by far the
most grounded starting point for the genre and it tries to keep them
within this core identity so they never lose their connection to the
world they came from. Due to their origins they have no way of
accessing the information necessary to solve the mystery like other
styles of detective and instead the game adopts a contrivance, such a
some form of magic or a contained environment, in order to provide
the clues and resources need to solve the mystery. This need for a
strong justification for the detective’s engagement and ability to
solve the mystery does lead to this end of the genre tending to be
far more wacky in premise with it stretching the limits of the genre.
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| Naegi is an extremely over the top version of the everyman |
Danganronpa is perhaps the poster-child of how distinctive this side
of the detective genre can be in visual novels. Its detectives are
always confused participants in the death game which demands they
solve various murders with the minimal skills at their disposal.
Their deer in the headlights reactions to what is happening around
them firmly places them as an everyman who has to stand up to the
task in order to survive no matter how unsuitable they might be for
the job. Focusing on confining the cast inside a limited location to
incite the death game also serves the double purpose of ensuring the
clues the detective needs can be found despite their limited skills. Meanwhile their captor, Monokuma, serve as the specialist who can provide
the detective with information they could otherwise not know even if
they might present it in a misleading fashion. While not as comically
over the top as Danganronpa, Umineko’s use of magic in its setting
gives it a legitimate reason to be able to supply Battler with all
the details of the case from his vantage point outside of time and
space. Battler himself is the definition of an unwilling detective
when he is thrust into the role when people start being killed around
him and he raw reactions to events and way he struggles to adapt make
him start out being an everyman. Eventually he does take to his new
role as detective which is in the game’s best interest given how
much it plays of the idea of the detective and the cliché’s of Detective Fiction, but even then it is careful to keep his motives of
saving his family and friends front and centre to utilise this
contrast between actions and motive to fuel his character growth. He
is not the only detective on the case with Beatrice acting as a
detective who seeks to prove magic as the cause of the mystery as
opposed to Battler’s realistic perpetrators. The pair’s vastly
different views on events are a core part of Umineko’s appeal since
it understand the qualities of a good detective and has each of them
take on a form of this fiction to better comment and engage with its
troupes and conventions.
Conclusion
Detective
Fiction comes in all shapes and sizes within visual novels as they
try to adapt its malleable genre mysteries and strong personalities
to the stories they want to tell. Police detective narratives stress
the structures the detective is working within both in terms of the
authority it gives them and its restrictions to sell the power and
struggles it brings. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the
everyman detective is dragged into the mystery against their will and
has few resources to aid them in order to make the success of solving
the case all the sweeter. Between them is the private detective who’s
connections to the police and the underworld give them the
information they need but results in a more morally grey narrative.
As you may have noticed from the examples from each part of the genre
there is a lot of overlap between these kinds of Detective Fiction
since this approach allows these games to take the aspects they need
to tell their mysteries. Such a varied and adaptable genre is perfect
for those looking for a way to create a mystery visual novel with a
focus on a single or few deductive individuals.
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