The Zodiac Trial
Themisian · 2021 · Visual Novel, Choose Your Own Adventure, Horror, Investigation, Experimental
PC
Very Positive95% · 142
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About The Zodiac Trial
Greetings, jurors. Welcome to the Zodiac Trial, the Zodiac Race. You're all here for one very simple reason. To face judgement. So then, will you all group up, try to work together, see if everybody can solve the puzzles and reach the truth as a group? Or will one of you let your true nature slip, resorting to selfish betrayal to make a way out. The choice is up to you.
Meet engaging new characters!
Play as Mouse, a law student who is in way over her head. Meet the 11 other jurors, all of whom can become a trusted ally or a vicious enemy. From the composed Ox, to the mysterious Snake, to the dimwitted Rooster, there's a whole cast of characters to befriend or betray.
Solve tons of puzzles!
The Zodiac Trial is filled with a bunch of brainteasers of all different shapes and sizes. From a casual riddle written out on some sheet of paper to a high stakes murder mystery in desperate need of solving, the game is sure to get you thinking.
13 unique routes!
Your fate is in your own hands in The Zodiac Trial! There are a total of 13 completely different scenarios to go through. Will you be faced with a puzzling set of locked-room murders, or will the jury descend into a full on turf war? Or perhaps a new Trinket will turn the game into a political bid for votes? Whatever the case, there's sure to be no easy way out!
52+ endings!
There are a ton of choices, and even more ways things could play out, over 52 endings! Depending on how you live, or in more likelihood, how you die, you'll unlock a custom made Death Card representing that ending! And who knows, if you come to truly understand the game, perhaps you could find a way to get everybody out alive. But even if you manage that, who's to say when the chaos will come to a true end?
Additional features included!
On top of the 30+ hours of Main Story Content, there's a whole host of additional features, such as a number of quality of life options. In addition, there's an additional unlockable mode for those who have conquered the main game designed to shine a light on certain truths, as well as a Narrator's Commentary that gives all sorts of insight throughout the game.
If you've decided to join the trial, I wish you good luck.
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
I’ll begin by addressing what will likely be a deciding factor for most people. If you’re looking for gameplay that’s a collection of escape rooms in the same vein as the Zero Escape series, or seek interactive crime scene investigations, gathering evidence and piecing it together to figure out the murderer akin to the Danganronpa series, then you’re best clicking away now. While both those series are visual novels in their own right, The Zodiac Trial is all visual novel. There are plenty of puzzles and crime scene investigation, but they’re all built around words, leaving you to figure things out in your own head and select the correct options in a series of choice boxes. So as long as you’re good with getting your entertainment exclusively through reading, then good news, you get to read on! There are three things I look for in a death game: 1 - a cast of big personality characters each with a secret to hide 2 - a game with defined rules aimed at bringing out those secrets 3 - a gaming arena that’s interesting to explore The Zodiac Trial delivers on the first two with merit, and while the setting likely suffers from budgetary constraints, it’s good enough in light of how…1 found this helpful
gud
A surprisingly deep and well-written visual novel, and my introduction to Themisian's bizzare world. Sorely lacking in production value but held up by a strong story and characters. As far as the writing goes, I have only a few complaints: namely, that locked room mysteries are stupid and I hate them, and that the ending is kind of dumb. Also, I'm pretty sure some of the math in the puzzles is wrong. Still, I had a lot of fun with this game and got deeply engrossed into its story. 7/10.
A solid mystery visual novel with about a dozen routes. The premise is that 12 people find themselves locked up together being forced to compete in a death game, "The Zodiac Race", with each participant representing an animal from the myth of the same name. It quickly becomes apparent that the participants were all connected to an old court case involving a murder several years ago. It also becomes clear that those competing in the race are not afraid to kill if they deem it necessary to win and escape. As you complete the routes, you uncover bits of the bigger picture. It's about 20ish hours if you're looking to 100% it and see all the endings. It's a little rough around the edges in some spots, but it was written by only a single person, and it was still a fun read.
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very interesting story, especially for a game with a single writer, and the zero escape inspiration is both clearly there but subtle enough that it feels like its own thing, and the ending was good too
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