No programming today.
As of this writing, Tokyo Game Show will be in… 4 days, give or take depending on your timezone.
We’re gonna have a big booth for that, and since we have some visual assets at hand we started rushing a little to have stuff to show at the event for Everyone’s Detective.
Nothing playable, mind you, more just announcing that this project exists. But considering how I still have a bit of trauma related to N1RV Ann-A, I hope that me going “hey, this is still in very early development, but please be excited about this thing we’re making” reads as a sign of assuredness (at least to those with good will, I know I can’t change the mind of others no matter what I do).
But this post isn’t a traumadump. The main thing was that as I worked on an official website, a Steam Page (more about those in the coming days), and all of that… I realized I never really explained how the game is meant to play.
So that’s what I wanna do today. This isn’t the short and sweet version I’ve condensed on those websites, this is just me sitting down and explaining to you all what we wanna do with this game.
First let me tell you about Phoenix Wright. Those games hooked me as soon as I was able to play them on my R4. However, whether because of my english skills still being rough or me being Dumb, I often found myself wandering around in the investigation phase.
If you’ve never played Phoenix Wright… first of all you should, second of all the gameplay is divided into two phases: Trial and Investigation.
Trial is the part that most people know from pop culture, the dramatic court scenes with people throwing onomatopoeias at each other. But the evidence you use there is gathered in an investigation section where you move around places, talk to people, and check your surroundings.
That might sound awfully familiar in the current context, so hold that thought.
As I mentioned a couple of paragraphs earlier, I often found myself not knowing what to do so I just walked back and forth, I’d get a new clue and I’d try to show it to a different NPC more to see if there was a reaction than because I thought it’d advance the plot.
Skipping ahead (in terms of when I played it) for a second, another one of the inspirations I’m drawing from, Famicom Detective Club (which is the direct inspiration of VA-11 Hall-A KIDS, incidentally), does something similar and I found myself in a similar situation of wanting to be able to do more and see more reactions.
Back to the DS timeline though, there WAS a game that actually allowed me to do more of that…
Any of you ever heard of Lux-Pain?
Described on its Japanese version as “Fantasy Juvenile Active Adventure”, you control Atsuki Saijo who has to infiltrate Kisaragi City and live a normal life while getting rid of everyone’s brain worms.
No, I’m not being fascetious. Atsuki has the eponymous Lux Pain which in his case allows him to eliminate Silent and Worms which are basically mental/spiritual viruses that can infect people and incite them to do things. Silents being the originals and Worms being infection from the Silents. So you have the whole city to roam around in a menu and a huge cast of classmates and other residents to interact with.
Lux-Pain is not a game I’d call “good” exactly, it’s not a game I’d recommend unless you’re a very specific brand of sicko. It’s the sort of game where you can tell they had so much they wanted to say and do and had to somehow sum it up into a single installment or cut off a lot of fluff in the process.
There’s plot lines that come out of nowhere and leave just as out of nowhere like there being a small Atsuki around being babied by the local tanned blonde gyaru that’s also a fortune teller. There’s dialog that feels like it’s part of some other plotline and no matter how much you try you won’t find to what it’s connected to.
There’s a whole chapter where you have a time limit to find a character before your scorched earth co-worker finds her and kills her and the game outright tells you “save the game here or get softlocked, bitch”, and the game isn’t just happy with a simple “she’s not here” prompt, there’s fucking stories and dialog exclusive to this chunk of the game.
NOT TO MENTION that dialog and voices don’t match meaning the text acts like it’s in America while the voices act like it’s all set in Japan.
By the way, there’s a guy that makes ringtones, you’ll find him on the map and he goes “Ayyyy new kid here have a new ringtone” and you can set your cellphone to it.
Lux-Pain has been living rent free in my head for over 15 years and it feels like I somehow return to it in some way over and over as the years go on.
It’s not the only one though, the DS was full of these experiences, lest we forget: Doki Doki Majou Shinpan released on it.
So with Everyone’s Detective I want to make something that calls back to that period but with the hindsight of it happening like three console generations ago and with the insight from fawning over it and other similar narrative experiences.
Something with a focused episodic end goal like Ace Attorney, with the freedom of movement of Lux-Pain, with plotlines that feel like they could’ve come from Nougami Neuro or Laughing Salesman.
I like games that let me do unnecessary things for flavor. I remember when I played FF8 I used to go back to Zell’s house with him in the party whenever I’d get like one or two of the in-game salary pays because I thought “he’s been away, his parents are probably worried, right?”. There wasn’t special dialog in that one but what if there was?
However ADHD goes both ways so I also like it when I can get to the point quickly. So the goal is not a game that meanders on its options, but one that allows and perhaps even REWARDS optional meandering.
Everything wrapped in a singular mode of play with no extraneous gimmicks. Like if Famicom Detective Club let you buy a magazine and tell everyone some factoid you learned in that magazine.
This is just inspirations and elements of the gameplay mind you. I’m deliberately keeping the story elements under wraps.
But yeah, when a bunch of things go online in the next few days and has me saying “exploration novel” over and over again, hopefully this’ll give context on what that’s all about.