Back in 2023 (dear lord, time flies fast), Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo was a surprising release by Square Enix. By that company’s standard, it was a humble and straightforward visual novel, but clearly the execs had seen the success of Danganronpa, AI: The Somnium Files, Famicom Detective Club and others and wanted a piece of the pie. The…
Jen Williams has seen the future, and like many of us, she’s worried about it. The studio lead at Cherrymochi, the Japan-based indie outfit behind the cult hit Tokyo Dark, spent the early 2000s working with Hewlett-Packard on GPS-triggered gaming experiments in Bristol. Back then, everyone was certain they were…
After introducing Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse at last week’s Nintendo Direct Partner…
Idea Factory International has announced a late May release date for Birushana:…
Delays in the game industry are a dime a dozen, and the indie rookie detective game Paper Perjury is no different. It was planned for an October 2024 release, which was bumped to a November launch date and then to a December launch window. Hopefully, the announced December date will…
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The Infinity Series are well-known visual novels by Kotaro Uchikoshi that sit firmly in the science fiction, suspense, and adventure game genres. It began in the early 2000s, branching out to three mainline games, one spin-off, and one reboot. Today, Spike Chunsoft announced that remastered versions of the series’ first…
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It’s such a tough gig to be an indie VN developer. It’s a niche genre at the best of times, and the resources that you have to dedicate to it are going to be limited. It’s a question of what you throw money into to try to make your project…
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I admit, I might have a slight obsession with Urban Myth Dissolution Center, which launches in February 2025. It sounds wonderful: the publisher describes it as a single-player psycho-detective mystery adventure that has a unique blend of psychological intrigue and supernatural investigation. It is split into episodes/chapters, and the latest…
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SINce Memories: Off the Starry Sky is a spin-off of an incredibly long-running series: Memories Off, which has been running since 1999, is now close to twenty titles deep, and has, over the years, had some legends of the visual novel medium work on it, including Mr. Zero Escape himself,…
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Writing horror is a tough gig. It’s challenging for writers to create and maintain fear and tension. Horror needs to be character-driven and it needs to make the audience care about the horrible things that are happening to those characters. Meanwhile, it’s difficult for visual artists because even the slightest…
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Dance is a difficult subject to tackle, for many reasons. These challenges are, fundamentally, why it’s not a topic that video game developers typically touch (or filmmakers, or novelists, or painters, or most other art forms). The Ukrainian developer behind Light de Deux has given a ballet-themed visual novel a…
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Otomate can always be trusted to find some way to repurpose the established otome formula for a visual novel that at least feels a little different, even if functionally it’s not. 9 R.I.P. lands at the perfect time for Halloween, and even though it’s Otomate playing it safe with the…
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Valentine’s Day 2025 is shaping up to be a wonderful week for video game players: so far, Date Everything! and The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II both launch that day. But one day prior, a game that may not be on your radar (yet) will be released. Urban…
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Toronto-based indie studio BancyCo has created a new IP, Neo Harbor Rescue Squad. The paramedic action drama title is a long jump from the developer’s first game, adventure horror hit Home. Don’t expect any scares here — unless you find even a hint of injury frightening. Neo Harbor Rescue Squad…
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