Arcane Investigations

Built an interesting world with neat characters.I hope they continue making more and building out the world more. A lot of potential. Short and sweet for a first outing

The game unfolds in a world much like our own, except here, magic is an accepted part of daily life. With magic comes structure and rules, and that’s where you step in. You play as a junior arcane investigator who, during a train ride, becomes entangled in a case involving a stolen gem. The gameplay follows the classic visual novel format, built on a genre-standard engine that long-time fans will instantly recognize. While the engine has been heavily customized to suit the game’s theme and design, features such as the ability to save at any time, fast-forward through dialogue, and roll back to previous lines remain. These familiar tools allow you to experiment with different dialogue options, though they don’t affect the outcome. There’s only one ending. Choices mostly influence the dialogue or visuals, such as whether your character stays in pajamas the entire game or dresses more formally. The central mystery involves a stolen gem. The gem belonged to a recently deceased man who had asked that it be handed over to the authorities. Suspicion immediately falls on his daughter, who is swiftly arrested. However, it quickly becomes clear to your character that she’s not the real culprit. Gameplay centers around conversations and investigation. The game guides you through interactions with other characters, making it easy to gather all the information you need. You can’t move forward until you’ve explored every available dialogue and clue. Each conversation option turns a different color once completed, so you’ll always know what’s been covered. All critical information, whether it’s a statement or a physical item, is automatically logged in your inventory. When something new is discovered, a notification appears, and the relevant inventory icon is highlighted with a yellow background. Investigating the crime scene is simple and confined to a handful of locations. As you explore, your cursor highlights points of interest. Even after collecting all clues from a location, you can still interact with it, but a counter at the bottom of the screen keeps track of how many key spots remain. Once all clues are found, the case proceeds to trial. Here, you’ll listen to testimonies made up of multiple statements. Your job is to spot any inconsistencies or lies and present the correct piece of evidence from your inventory to refute them. The system is forgiving because you can’t lose. If you present the wrong evidence, the characters simply comment on the error, and you’re free to try again. If you're stuck, your assistant is available to offer hints or even skip the current cross-examination entirely. There’s only one case in the game, so the story is relatively short and the ending is open for a sequel.

Yet another case of 'I wish we could give neutral reviews'. The writing is great, and it definitely hits that Ace Attorney feel. Unfortunately, this is far too short. I was hoping for a few cases - even a second case would have been nice - but we get one 'tutorial' case and then that is it. I would hope that they are going to write more cases in the future so we can get a meal rather than just a taste. As it stands, I can't recommend this as it feels more like a demo rather than a full game.

This game only took me ~1hr of runtime but was a fun, engaging story the whole way through! I had a lot of fun playing it and was excited to see what the next case would be like with the fun cast of memorable characters before the credits started to roll (;-;). Great buy and fun little game, would highly recommend!

A fun little visual novel detective game. It was one case and more a proof of concept, but I'm definitely looking forward to what the developer does next!

Very fun and very pretty game. Interesting and engaging characters, was very ready to see more of them and learn more about the world. The puzzles were not totally trivial.

I really liked this game! As a huge fan of Ace Attorney, it really scratched that AA itch. The story was pretty simple and not too complicated and figuring out the culprit was easy. I also love the art designs of these characters too. Very cute designs and poses so major props to the artist! The writing was hilarious and the short world building made me want to be in this world myself. I wanna be a magician too! All in all, I hope they make another chapter or continue the story cause I still need answers! Great job y'all!

[h3]Cute & Cozy Choo-Choo Caper[/h3] A fun, bite-sized mystery adventure, well worth the price of of a ticket. It's a short trip, but it it maintains a good pace and is enjoyable the entire time through. The mystery is just difficult enough to get you thinking without you banging your head against the wall. It wears its inspiration proudly on it lapel (much like an attorney badge.) Even when I thought I had solved some stuff early, I was still surprised by later revelations. The length means it doesn't have too much time to delve into all of the characters, but you're able to spend additional time with characters who interest you, which is a fun touch. There are also lots of little hints at a much larger world and magic system that will leave you interested in learning more about the setting. Highly recommend checking the game out or gifting it to any of your mystery-loving friends!

I loved this! Instantly obsessed with all the characters and story! The ability to get hints was really helpful and was present in such an interesting in universe way that didn't fully take you out of the story. I would love to see more

It's a nice, cozy story with decent Ace Attorney-esque gameplay, cute art, and good character and world-building. While certainly worth the price, its short play time has left me wanting more. I'd love to see some sequel content with more of the characters and world, and perhaps some more complex cases.