Demo turns up for Detective Instinct: Farewell, My Beloved 

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Visual novel-styled mystery coming to Windows PC on Steam later this year

There's not just one but two different mysteries to solve in Armonica's upcoming visual novel-styled adventure Detective Instinct: Farewell, My Beloved. The first is what happened to a missing young woman. The second is, why does no one seem to acknowledge she ever existed except for you? 

You play (and name) an American literature student studying in England, who is currently on a European trip with fellow student and "tutor" Emma and your teacher, Professor Martin. Following an unusual event in which a quirky local detective named Daltrey allows you and Emma to help investigate the murder of man who was pushed to his death from the fifth floor of your hotel, you all end up on the same cross-country train bound for London the next day. Along the way, Emma meets a troubled young woman who later mysteriously disappears without a trace. Even more mysterious is that no one but Emma seems to remember her at all, with different recollections of the same events in which Emma is sure she was there. Believing Emma to be trustworthy, you must begin to interrogate the "colorful cast of characters" on board in order to discover what happened to the missing young lady and perhaps uncover a "sinister conspiracy" in the process. 

Detective Instinct plays out largely like a traditional Japanese visual novel, with large 2D pixel art character portraits overlaid more realistic "old-school prerendered 3D backgrounds" during conversation. Traditional illustrations sprinkled in tease a larger, more menacing overarching plot, but the dialogue itself is often conveyed with a light, humorous touch. Inspired by "hard-boiled crime fiction, classic cinema, and other classic adventure games," most of the gameplay is menu-driven as you make selections to drive the story forward, but occasionally you'll have the opportunity to highlight areas of the environment for closer investigation like a standard point-and-click. There is no voice acting, as is typical of such narrative-driven games, but the case will be accompanied throughout by a "lavish original soundtrack in various musical styles, from jazz to orchestral." 

The full version of Detective Instinct: Farewell, My Beloved is due out sometime later this year, but you can already investigate the strange opening murder scene first-hand through the playable demo available now on Steam for Windows PC.