[Developer’s Story #2] Why Miracle Detective Became a Mystery Adventure Game

Happy New Year.

During the year-end and New Year holidays, I took a short break from game development, took care of some things I had put off, and spent the time relaxing at my own pace.

Recently, I’ve returned to development, and I’m currently focusing on updating the presentation and direction of the game. It will still take a little while before the full version is ready for release, but I hope you’ll continue to enjoy the demo in the meantime.

If you have any thoughts or feedback, I would be very happy if you shared them with me.

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Now, as I prepare to finally release a story that I have written, erased, and rewritten countless times, I had to decide how to present it to the world as a game.

When I made that decision, choosing the adventure game genre felt completely natural to me.

I’ve loved video games since elementary school. Over the years, I played many different genres— action games, RPGs, shooters, and more— but adventure games, in particular, captured my heart.

Games like Shin Onigashima and The Portopia Serial Murder Case offered a unique sense of interactivity, where the story progresses through the player’s own choices and actions. This felt very different from simply reading mystery novels or adventure stories, which was another hobby of mine.

Of course, I also loved sound novels such as Otogirisō, Kamaitachi no Yoru, and Machi. I was especially fascinated by the way 07th Expansion’s Higurashi When They Cry and Umineko When They Cry created excitement beyond the games themselves.

However, when focusing specifically on mystery, I found myself drawn more toward adventure games— where the player can actively engage in solving puzzles— rather than sound novels that mainly ask you to follow a predetermined set of choices.

Each time I played great adventure games like Ace Attorney or Danganronpa, I found myself thinking, “Someday, I want to make a game like this myself.”

And so, when the time finally came for me to create my own game, I chose the adventure genre without hesitation.

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In the next development story, I’d like to share my personal thoughts on using AI in game development. If that sounds interesting to you, I hope you’ll look forward to it.