Homicipher

Homicipher prologue expanded and translated on Steam

Japanese horror adventure involving overcoming language barriers and falling in love gets updated demo

Struggling to understand someone who speaks another language is difficult at the best of times, but surely all the more so when your very life depends on your ability to interpret what they’re saying, as will be the case in Yatsunagi’s upcoming horror adventure, Homicipher.

When a young woman inadvertently wanders into a dark and dangerous “Other World,” she meets a variety of “strange men” that may wish her help or harm. The problem is that they all speak a mysterious unknown language that she doesn’t comprehend. In order to escape this place and any threat the men may pose, she’ll need to learn how to interpret their language without further verbal cues. Once she begins to do so, however, she may just find romantic feelings towards them stirring within her. Will the smitten protagonist decide to “run away or fall in love?” In this world, misinterpretation and making the correct choices can be a matter of life and death.

Homicipher is presented in a painterly art style, played from a slideshow-style, first-person perspective. In your travels, you’ll meet the mysterious gentlemen who become the objects of the protagonist’s affections, each with creepy-sounding names like the equally creepy-looking Mr. Crawling, Mr. Chopped Head, Mr. Gap and Mr. Hood. Each of them speaks in an unintelligible language, represented visually through symbols. In order to decipher what they’re saying, you must make associations based on their “expressions, gestures, the objects they are pointing at,” and any other elements that could offer insight into their intended meaning. Pay close attention, because “when danger strikes, you must make the correct decision to continue your journey searching for an escape.”

There is no target launch date for the full version of Homicipher just yet, but its indie Japanese developer has already released a playable prologue on Steam for Windows PC, recently expanded with additional content.