Death and Faeology Demo Shows Plenty of Promise [Initial Impressions]
Death and Faeology is a dark academia visual novel that takes place in New York in the roaring 1920s. Players take on the role of a renowned Faeologist (with a customizable name and no specified gender) to solve a slew of mysterious murders affecting the upper class. As a murder mystery and dark academia fan, I was delighted to find this demo through the Fall In Love Visual Novel Festival on Steam. Of note, there's about an hour of content, though it takes a little bit longer to get all the endings. While it was short, I definitely feel like that was enough to get an idea of what this game has to offer.
The writing in Death and Faeology is professional and polished. The world building is careful and thoughtful, and the characters are fleshed out and compelling. While the world of Fae was built upon existing lore, I enjoyed this game's use and interpretation of the mythos.
Of the four distinct and engaging personalities I came across, I was immediately taken with Theo. This gruff detective does not believe in fae, but seeks the main character’s help despite this to solve a high profile case. The romantic tension he brings was absolutely delightful, and much to my excitement he happens to actually be one of two romanceable characters in the demo. Characters are romanced via dialogue options, with which I got affection points. The amount of points acquired with each character helped determine which ending I obtained.
Don't get me wrong though, as much as I love a good romance, the murder mystery is what’s at the forefront. I’m happy to say the mystery is as well-written as the characters, and was backed up by some solid gameplay. Some games may carry out the investigation purely through dialogue choices, but Death and Faeology allowed me to go hands-on with the case.
There are a couple parts of the demo where I examined evidence via the use of a few tools. One of those is the magnifying glass, which essentially was the look option. With it I could reach case files and check objects. I also had a special dark light tool which allowed me to see hidden fae magic. Without spoiling anything, there is something in the demo that uses this mechanic that isn’t too hard to figure out but feels remarkably clever.
Clues found during investigation can then be used in an interrogation. Grilling characters is a pretty straight forward affair. I showed characters evidence and they responded to what they saw. There was no deceit from the characters to expose and no additional dialogue from presenting objects twice. While underwhelming from a gameplay perspective, the quality of the writing still made this part compelling.
Overall, I think Death and Faeology shows a lot of potential and promise. There aren't a whole lot of detective games this fleshed out and well-written, and I’m quite interested to see what direction Mushroomallow goes with this project.
