Paper Perjury to unfold soon on Steam

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Demo available for Ace Attorney-styled detective mystery coming to Windows PC in November

If Phoenix Wright wasn't a defense attorney but rather a lowly police clerk, he might be a little like the star of Paper Perjury, a visual novel-style detective mystery due out in November. 

Actually, Justina Smith doesn't stay a lowly clerk for long. She does start that way, arriving for her first day on the job at the Azure City Police Department, but her hopes for a quiet career doing office work is quickly cast aside. After spotting a discrepancy in the police report of a robbery, she's reluctantly recruited by "eccentric detectives" Ernest Hunt and Sophie Swift to help with actual field work. As Justina, over the course of five distinct cases from "robbery, to embezzlement, and even... murder!" you'll need to search crime scenes for clues, interrogate suspects and reveal the lies in their testimonies, and "discover the secrets hidden among the paper trails." There's an overarching connection tying together each of these crimes, and it becomes your mission to "investigate Azure City's largest investment firm and expose the shady dealings they've tried their best to cover up."

Paper Perjury plays out much like a visual novel, with linear segments of menu-driven dialogue between overlaid character portraits propelling the story forward. As you travel across Azure City, from the police station to "wealthy manors to parking garages," you'll encounter a diverse cast of colourful characters, such as "a tea-loving lawyer, a cowboy barber, a magician, and even... a cat?" Fortunately there's more to do here than simply click through conversations. At crime scenes you must be thorough, because "even the smallest piece of evidence could turn out to be crucial," and you'll have to "use logic to discover what bits of evidence you collect are useful, and which ones you need to solve whatever puzzle you're up against." The details you uncover will be gathered in your case files, including evidence, character profiles and detective summaries. When it's time for interrogation, much like in the Ace Attorney games, you must listen (or read, as there's no voice acting) attentively to character statements, questioning them for further detail as necessary. Whenever you detect a discrepancy in their story, you can then catch them in a lie by presenting the contradicting evidence. 

The full version of Paper Perjury is due out November 13th for Windows, Mac and Linux, but the short first introductory case is already available to download now as a demo on Steam, exclusively for Windows.

Note: Since time of writing, the release date has been bumped back from October 4th. The article has been updated accordingly.