Vile Halicarnassus [Mystery]

[detective]

​★ VILE HALICARNASSUS ★



"The night was so dark, you might have been better off blindfolded."





​★ THE STORY ★

Felix and Jay: the city's two best detectives.

Not without a few secrets of their own and a hell of a lot of coffee, the two do what sleuths do best: solve mysteries no one else will touch with a thirty foot electrical pole.

The years have been good to them. At least, as good as good can get when you're dancing with crazed crime lords and devious dames every other week.

That's up until a letter arrives to their doorstep, and a serial killer from their past makes a sudden reappearance in their lives...

★ DOWNLOAD ★

Download Vile Halicarnassus here!

★ DEVELOPER NOTES ★

This was made for a personal 48-hour game jam. It's a mystery visual novel with a little bit of puzzle-solving mixed in.

Best of all: it's free! But if you enjoyed it, buying me a cup of cheap coffee is always very appreciated.

Enjoy, and have fun sleuthing!

[netravelr]

I really love the style on this! Sadly I won't be able to play this until after Saturday, but I really want to check it out. Congrats on the release!

[RosyInk27]

I adore this art style! Does it run on mac?

[detective]

Thanks for the feedback! And yes, it does run on Mac.

[Ina]

N/A

[fruitionpaper]

Finished the game, it's a really lovely work especially for one made in only just 48 hours! Dang! This game is more polished than a lot of NaNoRenO entries!

First things first, the good:

- Lovely art, great backgrounds with atmospheric effects, music fits in very well
- The prose is really well done! The characters have strong personalities and while my #1 complaint in VNs would be over flowery purple prose, your writing is full of character and wit.
- The design and structure of the game looks sleek and well crafted.

And here are my complaints, note that I understand this was made in a way shorter time span than most games:

- While Felix and the killer look well designed, Jay himself looks kinda... sloppy compared to those two. I know Jay is supposed to be a hardened, messy detective, but I was just bothered by his design.
- Meaningless choices with no consequences. First time I played VH, I made all the correct choices and got the good ending. Out of curiosity, I played the game again for a bad ending... which doesn't exist. But my personal opinion is that if the choices I make doesn't matter to the plot, the visual novel ought to be a kinetic novel.
- Such a tiny screen! I stretched out the window and the pictures aren't too badly pixelated, but Vile Halicarnassus could be a little bigger.

Really, thats just my personal opinion, and again, you only had 48 hrs so it's all forgiven. Besides that, fantastic game!

[detective]

@fruitionpaper

Thanks for all the feedback.

I can definitely agree that there is a lack of meaningful choices. In the end, I wound up not being able to figure out a decent way to incorporate them with story/alternate outcomes. But in general, cause/effect with gameplay choices is something I struggle with a bit so I'm trying to have "meaningful choices" be a thing for future projects and maybe after more practice, that kinda thing can be better incorporated in shorter projects like this. One can hope.

I'm glad you liked the writing though! Writing the dialogue was probably my favorite part of this project and if there's anything anyone enjoyed from this, it's good to hear it's the writing.

Thanks again for the comment, not to mention playing the game itself!

[MapleWizen]

Cool VN! I loved the slick presentation, artwork, atmosphere, and nifty color palette. It's nice to see pixel fonts and artwork; I rarely ever see it in modern VNs. Kinda experimental, in my opinion.

The characters and dialogue were snappy. The only thing that bothered me a little was that the villain was kind of cliche and the lack of an alternative bad ending, as one of the other people in this thread pointed out. Overall a great job, though.

[buttdumpling]

I'm SUPER GAY FOR THIS. like, RIDICULOUSLY GAY ABOUT IT.
Also I really like the style, the colors are absolutely wild! The art and the writing work perfectly in sync to make it really moody & like a film noir.
I'm definitely going to reccommend this to my friends!

The only issue I had was that the preferences screen was wonky, so I took a screencap. It looked the same whether the game was in fullscreen or windowed mode, and I run windows 7 64 bit if that helps.

[AntiquedFae]

Downloaded, because this looks beyond words amazing. *o* Such an awesome aesthetic and vibe. I almost want it to take place in some incredibly grim form of the '80s.

[sasquatchii]

This is the first BxB game that I played, and I really enjoyed it! The art style, music, writing, sound, & graphic design are all fantastic

Really awesome work, especially considering you only had 48 hours to do it! Now I want to go play all of your other games because VH was great!