I really loved this game. It takes place in Tang Dynasty China, just before and at the start of the reign of Wu Zeitan, China's only woman emperor -- so the end of the 7th century CE. You play as Di Renjie, a young magistrate who's functionally a police investigator. The game follows Di as he works through four interconnected murder cases and navigates the intense politics of Tang China.
It's a fun piece of historical fiction and a well-designed point-and-click puzzle-adventure game. I found the pixel art to be clear and appealing, if not terribly deep, and the story was really well-constructed. It was just a good time, so if AGS-style games are your jam, you should go check it out!
One issue I was going to bring up in another review but cut there was: in a lot of detective games, serial killer stories aren't detective stories. Basically, when you think about types of narrative conflict, good detective stories are typically person vs person leading into person vs society. But serial killer stories are virtually always written as person vs nature, because the killer is dehumanized and decontextualized, stripped of any motive -- they're just crazy, just evil, just in it for the lulz. There's not really any difference between this type of story and a 'cthulu did it' story; in both, there's fundamentally no motive and no possibility to truly know the other. The only way to have a true conflict in a serial killer story would have to involve unpacking the fact that, in real life, serial killers overwhelmingly and aggressively target women -- especially poor, nonwhite, noncisgendered etc women. The story would have to meaningfully unpack that, place the serial killer back in its cultural context and actually explore motivations instead of just being a stranger in the alleyway. But these stories are just about macho men posturing at each other and as such have no room for this kind of critique.
When I was first drafting the 'Dead at Sea' post, I intended to end that explanation with, "If any serial killer games actually end up deconstructing serial killing as endgame misogyny I'll eat my socks." I am very, very glad I didn't write that, lol, because I would be cooking sock a la mode right now.
I want to talk about the ending--
[spoiler]
So the four cases all involve young women being killed brutally by someone who is clearly a serial killer. The women are strangled and then have their hearts cut out, resulting in horrific crime scenes. While at first nothing seems to connect the victims, you eventually realize that all of them were MIA until about two months prior to the events of the game.
I initially was assuming it was that typical thing that they were sex workers and were being killed for trying to return to their families or marrying as fallen women, but the game went in a far more interesting direction. It turns out the four women worked as personal assassins and bodyguards to Wu Zeitan, and the five women's explicit goal was to put Wu on the throne as the first woman emperor. They were extremely close and dedicated to their political goals. You'll initially led to believe that Wu may have ordered a hit on one of them, betraying them, but it actually turns out the woman was willing to kill herself for a mission because the cause was so important to her.
At the end, you find out the serial killer is a man from one of the women's hometowns who felt betrayed when she refused to marry him and instead dedicated herself to the cause, and was the one who sacrificed herself. He decides to kill the remaining women and the emperor as 'revenge' for 'brainwashing' her into their cause. It's a really great incel-critique plot, about how men punish women's ambition and refuse to grant them agency.
I also really liked Wu's point at the end that political assassinations were only a scandal for her and wouldn't have been for a man on the throne, and how she has to tread so much more carefully in order for her rule to be legitimate.
However, Di's ultimate decision to keep her secret but basically say 'please don't put me in this position again' felt... weak, to me? This may just be me and my preference for more scathing critique, but I felt like Wu going, "Everyone's standards are different for me," and then Di basically being like, "Not mine, but I'll keep your secret this one time," felt... I don't know, just thematically weak. Di has been our moral compass throughout the game, and him leaving the question of whether Wu was doing something unusual for an emperor hanging just left the ending feeling very flat to me. I wanted him to take a stand one way or another, to say either, "Yeah, you're right, you don't have free rein here, but you're making things even harder by putting me in this position, so let me help you strategize," or to just suddenly be a bit of a hypocrite and argue with her about men like him holding her to a higher standard, let him be flawed. Instead he doesn't really commit to anything and it was kind of an emotional letdown for me. But again, this may not be a totally fair critique, as I'm pretty uncharitable about this kind of stuff, lol.[/spoiler]
Regardless, I really enjoyed the whole experience here, and it was really nice to actually see a game use a serial killer plot to make these exact points.
Unfortunately it looks like the dev has had trouble securing funding for a followup game, which really sucks. Instead, they recently kickstarted a novel adaptation of this game and teased a novelization of the sequel, which they've already planned out. Unfortunately I missed the pledge window, but I'm definitely curious to see how this adapts and where they go next with the premise, so I'll keep an eye on it. And I'd really love to see a followup happen someday!
