Sleuth Saga: Under Starless Skies

Sleuth Saga: Under Starless Skies is a murder-mystery visual novel adventure game set in a detailed fictional world with a focus on wild political conspiracy and far-reaching intrigue, featuring vibrant hand-drawn artwork and an original soundtrack designed to evoke a blend of several key influences.

When a sudden, shocking murder draws jaded ex-detective Lukas Egret and peppy young photographer Faith Emery together, the two stumble across the beginnings of a breadcrumb trail which seems to imply that a dark shadow of conspiracy looms over their whole country.

The young and thriving nation of Libertia may view itself as a pillar of freedom, but it remains trapped by the dark realities of its settlers’ history, with consequences bubbling to the surface again and again as this new world desperately attempts to rewrite the truth.

Inspired in both tone and presentation by revisionist and post-classical Western films with an original soundtrack that reflects this, Sleuth Saga hopes to be a stylish marriage between these dark “Old West” themes and a player-solved murder-mystery game.

In the course of designing Sleuth Saga: Under Starless Skies, a vast and comprehensive world has taken shape, with extensive care taken to ensure a core foundation of pseudo-realist history - both the nation of Libertia and the wider world are mired in decades of international relations and major historical events that define the paths taken to reach the stories we want to tell, and this game is intended to serve as but a small slice of this elaborate universe.

Whilst investigating for important clues, always search every seemingly unrelated nook and cranny - after all, you never know what interesting tidbits of context you might stumble across, and Faith is quite the diligent note-maker! Using this “notes” system, players can find and learn interesting details about the world and characters through exploration, gaining a deeper appreciation for the stage on which this mystery unravels.

Solving a scheme as large as the one afoot in Sleuth Saga comes one step at a time, so expect familiar contradiction-finding and puzzle-solving gameplay inspired by staples of the genre like Ace Attorney, Danganronpa, and Professor Layton, but with new depth, reimagined and supported by additional elements:

• Investigate to find crucial clues and encounter witnesses.
• Question those you come across to gather accounts, then refute anything that doesn't fit the facts.
• Debate against more stubborn opponents, choosing both your argument and evidence carefully.
• Switch between characters to utilise the correct investigative approach and techniques.

Use these methods to produce your most critical report, unravelling the web to find the thread of truth that exposes the culprit!

Our first public demo can be played for free - the entirety of EPISODE 1: Reappearance of the Rogue Detective & Inheritance of the Persistent Reporter. This episode serves as an early glimpse at the first building blocks of the game’s world and story. It features a saving & loading system to allow you to progress at your own pace, and full controller support if you'd rather not use a keyboard and mouse. A controller diagram can be found in the options menu.

If you played through EPISODE 1 and would like to give us your feedback, you can do so through our Google Form. We'd really appreciate it, and your responses will inform the future development of Sleuth Saga!

We are excited for you to experience EPISODE 1, but please bear in mind this is a beta development build, meaning it may contain various issues or bugs. If you should come across any such issues whilst playing EPISODE 1, please report these to us using our dedicated issue reporting form.

We hope you enjoy, and thank you for playing!

NB: The ordinary version uses a modern hardware-based rendering API (Vulkan), and therefore may not work as expected on older systems or those without dedicated video hardware. If you have severe issues trying to get the game to run, try using the "compatibility" version, which relies on OpenGL instead and should perform exactly the same with some very minor graphical differences.

Also, this game does feature some flashing effects - they can be disabled in the options.