Platform: PC (version reviewed), Nintendo Switch
Genre: Detective, Mystery Visual Novel

Neon Doctrine is a champion for the indie games hub and this new release is one of their new babies! Developed by Misty Mountain Studio, Death Trick: Double Blind is a new visual novel unlike any other.

A little heartwarming about the backstory of the game is that it was developed by two high school best friends, Jenny and Mari. The visual novel tells the story about the disappearance of the star magician of Morgan’s Travelling Circus set in the world of a mid-twentieth century America!  You’ll get to play between two perspectives, a magician and a detective, with the same goal of learning different perspectives to solve the case.

I’ve never been a visual novel gamer, but this one, actually got me hooked, and when I say hooked, I mean I played two playthroughs back to back. Mysterious, yet charming dialogues will leave you wanting to know more about all the characters and secrets that go on behind the circus scene.

WELCOME TO THE CIRCUS

Here’s what’s I find great, you get to play two characters, Jackie, a magician, who is friends with the missing magician Hattie, and a Detective called Detective Jones who has come to investigate what’s happened to Hattie. Jackie receives a weird note from Hattie early in the week telling her to head to the circus and replace her if anything goes wrong. The show must go on, right?

No surprise, but Hattie is found, well dead and Jackie is asked to “pretend” to be Hattie until the circus leaves at the end of the week, costume and all! She’s got a cute little mask to complete the look to hide her face.

Detective Jones, however, has an unpleasant welcome. He wakes up, without his clothes (he thankfully has his undergarments), and has apparently been robbed. Luckily enough, he finds his wallet thanks to a stranger but nothing has been stolen. Pretty weird, right? He heads over to the circus to learn the details of his case.

Being able to alternate between these two characters is great because it shows you different perspectives, all of them interesting and insightful, and allows you to gather different kinds of information from the same sources. You’ve got 10 hours, with each hour you will swap between Jackie and Detective Jones.

BEHIND THE CURTAINS

Every interaction, every playthrough felt different. The storyline is definitely compelling, making you want to get to know each character more. Speaking of characters, there are 8 fully animated characters in the game. I won’t spoil the identities of these characters, I’ll let you guys get to know them yourself, but each one has their own personality. They’re all very different, and you’ll think you know them but you’ve only just scratched the surface. Trust me; there’s so much to each character that’s worth digging for.

However, as I mentioned earlier, you do only have a set amount of time with each character. These characters are also found around the different locations in the circus, so what interaction you get can also depend on what time you go and visit them all! You’ll find out some very very interesting secrets among the circus folk, maybe even some romance? It’s a very fittingly dramatic plot, considering where it’s all happening, and the visuals do it justice. Your choices here also matter. And I mean, really matter. I finished a playthrough and didn’t have enough information to deduce who the killer was and died a little inside, so make the right choices!

HOW IT ALL WORKS

Now how the turn works behind every hour is pretty simple. The game explains it all in the beginning. The Detective and the Magician both have their own Action Points(AP). These are the amount of action points they can use per turn. Now asking questions based off what you have counts as an AP, asking about a person also costs an AP, and closely examining a location costs an AP. You can also travel to different locations during any turn, but that will also cost you an AP.

At first you start with 5, but luckily, you meet Tito the fortune teller who will help increase these AP. How? Well, by trading 100 XP for 1 AP! But how do you get XP? It’s pretty simple: complete your tasks at hand!

It was hard at first for me because I was like “5 AP??? HOW AM I GONNA GATHER INFORMATION WITH THAT?” But then I realized man I have to strategize and prioritize certain questions and which clues to pursue. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but it’s a fun turn-based way, I suppose.

You can always check on your collection regardless of which character you are on. However, each collection is different, since you’re asking different questions when you’re on the magician and detective. It’s a pretty neat feature considering I am forgetful and I sometimes get lost in what I want to ask. One thing that’s also a great feature is the Contradictions feature, in which you get to contradict certain statements given by the characters in the game. I certainly had a tough time with this since I’ve never had the brain for piecing things together.

Luckily, there is a “hint” that you can enable which will make the “!” symbol on the contradiction bar light up to sort of hint at you, “HEY SOMETHING IS WRONG HERE!”. Thank goodness for accessibility. And I love that. I love that they cater to us silly ones who can’t put things like these together on our own. It’s even pretty comical that when you get a contradiction wrong, each character has its own way to tell you that you have it wrong. One even yells at you “Objection!”.

SIMPLICITY AT ITS PEAK

The art is so visually appealing, it definitely captures the circus aspect beautifully. The classic vintage-ish art brings out the theme of the story. It’s simple and that’s what’s great about it. You’d think a circus environment would be chaoticly colourful, but this simplicity of colours works perfectly well. Every character has their style and it amplifies their personality. It’s superb!

There is no voice acting, however, there is your usual text blip sound accompanied by music. There wasn’t anything particularly special about the music. It was your usual circus-themed music. However, I can say that the music was well-suited for each scene. It really put you in the mood of what you feel during the dialogues and sucks you into the story, which is a plus!

WHODUNNIT?

That’s just it: “WHO?” I’ve played & “finished” the game about three times now, and everyone seems to have a motive. Death Trick: Double Blind is the kind of visual novel that keeps you going, and played I did. Each playthrough isn’t even that long; it’s about 4 hours roughly! You can also save whenever you want, and load up where you left off so you don’t need to go through all of it in one go. There are also many different unlockable character endings, all of which I have still been trying to unlock.

Death Trick: Double Blind really did keep me in suspense, and I was impatient to figure out who did it in this mystery storyline. But like I said, this is definitely what you want in a mystery visual novel; the sense of guessing and well-woven narrative that keeps you in suspense! You feel completely involved, and makes you feel like an ace detective even for a second.

In all honestly, I still can’t find anything jarringly negative to say about this visual novel because I genuinely enjoyed every lovingly written & designed part of it. For now though, I will keep getting those endings and finding out who did it!

PROS

• A narrative that will get you hooked.
• Tons of replayability.
• Very accessible to beginners.
• Striking visuals.

CONS

• Mediocre soundtrack.

FINAL SCORE: 90/100

Review code provided by publisher.