Staffer Case: A Supernatural Mystery Adventure

I like this game a lot Very interesting world building The deduction process is satisfying The plot and the twists are great The only thing I don’t really like is the ending Anyways I really enjoyed playing this game 我很喜歡這個遊戲 設定很有趣 推理方面挺好玩（雖然還是有一些推理遊戲的通病啦（有多個線索類似但只有一個正確答案）） 劇情不錯，轉折有驚喜 唯一不太合我口味的是結局，不過不太影響遊戲體驗 整體來說我玩得很開心

I'm giving this game a thumbs up, but not a particularly strong one, as my experience was mostly positive, but man, there's a lot I really didn't gel with all that much. In the same vein as all the other games in the sub genre of detective fiction visual novels, your Danganronpas and Ace Attorneys and similar, this game is all about solving mysterious murders and finding the culprit after unravelling all these schemes. To its credit, it plays fair within these bounds and presents you with what you need to get a pretty clear picture very early, but, well, not fully. Being vague for spoiler reasons, the writers like their dramatic twists that flip everything on its head a little too much, and it feels like cases are working backwards from that point in a way that's significantly less enjoyable to read through than the actual crux of the issue. This is, as you'd imagine, a pain for any writer, and leads to a lot of scenes and investigations that feel quite dull as you're rarely on the same wavelength as the protagonist until near the end, and while that's usually fine, it starts getting annoying when instead of making the deduction, they bring in a witness who you have to use a lie…

A good detective game. The visual novel approach can get a bit tedious at times, with unnecessary dialogue stretching out the times between actual thinking. Also, some deductions are just perfunctory and insulting to make the player do, they still have a place, but i wish the realtime progression was snappier so that those moments don't seem like a chore. The twists in each case are good, with it really starting to ramp up from case 2. Story is great too.

Finished the last case. It left me in a reflective and somewhat pensive mood. I love detective fiction. It's the ultimate competence fantasy. The fantasy that if you are just logical and observant enough, you can solve any problem and save the day; that you can bring order and meaning to a cruel and uncaring world with a keen eye and a sharp mind. At the end of the day, the Great Detective gathers all the suspects in a parlor room and, with a wink and panache, reveals to everyone the clues and dizzying sequence of logic which led them to finding the culprit. Justice is served. Everyone claps. The reality, however, is that the real world is not like a detective novel. The real world is confusing and arbitrary. Entropy is the rule, not order. Indifference is the norm, not generosity. All that to say that the writing in Staffer Case avoids the tropes of classic detective fiction and tries to dig for a deeper meaning. It often caught me off guard because it knows its genre's tropes so well and deftly subverts them. The gameplay is a tad simplistic and the somewhat "chibi" art style took a little getting used to (though it eventually won me over), but the compelling writing made up fo…

can sometimes drag on a little, but it's an elegant premise with a good execution.

Sadly I found some bad things things: - When clicking the hint button during the documents analysis, it also higlights that doesn't have the clue needed; - The writing is quite repetitive when they're trying to progress with the cases, either using other words for the same conclusion or circling it several times, as the player is a dumb person; As far as disliked things: - The scrolling of the text hasn't got a speed similar to the time needed for the voices, only lower or instant pop-up; - I don't get most of the "regional saying" they say. I never visited England so I'm not sure if they actually make sense or if they're invented on the spot;