The Cardinal Park Case - Chapters 1-3
A downloadable Visual Novel for Windows and macOS
Although you're used to the chaos that comes with detective work, this case definitely takes the cake for, "The weirdest case I've ever worked on."
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After one of your friends is brutally murdered, you task yourself with finding the perpetrator of such a heinous crime. Unfortunately, dealing with the fallout of her death and finding the perpetrator proves to be rather difficult for you, even though you SHOULD be a hardened detective by now.
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Features:
-Comedy followed by tragedy, and vice-versa
-Dark, slightly more inappropriate humor
-Pretty (and goofy) artwork
-Pretty music
-A very messed up story hidden under layers of laughs
-A cold, bleak city, filled with snarky, cynical people
-Plot twists(necessary to the genre, of course)
-An overly determined, neurotic protagonist
-A snarky narrator
-A stereotypical "escape the house" sequence
-Dumb puzzles
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Current Content:
-3 chapters, each around 20-30 minutes long
-Enough information to figure out what the heck is going on
-2 dead ends
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Future Content:
-2 additional chapters, where everything in the first 3 chapters will fully pay off
-The fall out of the perpetrator's reveal
-Several dead ends, at least 2 real endings
-A final, epilogue chapter
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Note: Just like my other visual novel, there's some fairly strong language, but in addition, there's blood, death, and slightly more explicit content here. Viewer discretion is advised. Also, if dark, slightly edgy humor isn't your thing, please don't play this, as a good chunk of the comedy is like that.
PS: This game isn't technically finished. Only the first 3 chapters are available right now. In addition, stuff in these first 3 chapters are subject to change. Also, apologies for no browser version, this game's way too big!
Last PS: If you like this game, please remember to rate it!
Made in 3 weeks for the 5th RPGMaker Horror Jam hosted by Beregon and Daybloom Project!!
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- The Cardinal Park Case - Devlog #217 days ago
- The Cardinal Park Case - Devlog #125 days ago
Comments
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Just commenting to say I love this game!
Thank you, I’m glad you found it to be enjoyable! <3
Thanks for replying!
Hello there. This game was a very nice change of pase
Spoilers.
There arent that many games made in RPG Maker that take me more than 1 day to complete. I think I just like looking at every nook and cranny. Liked to story. Nothing bad to say about it really and doesnt really happen alot for me. (Even my friend I was in a disc call with told me I sounded much more excited while playing it). Thats true. Nothing makes me happier then a good told story. The walking looked a bit wanky though and ofcourse the wall and snowman that i already told you about.
Final thoughts.
Mostly great job I would say. I would probably look over the game for some bugs you might missed but besides that I got nothing else to say.
Hope this helps. Keep it up
Thank you for the kind words! I’m glad that you liked the story, unhinged chaos and all!
Hello, I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed the game and I was wondering if you would allow me to translate it into Brazilian Portuguese. I see a lot of potential for it to gain an audience that is interested in games of this style.
Thank you for playing! Funny story, I actually saw a Brazilian youtuber play this game quite recently (Mr. Midnight)!
I’m flattered that you want to translate this game, of course you can!
I did Chapters 1-3 in a single night. I have some questions and feel some things could have been done a little differently but really liked this regardless.
Thank you for playing! While I’m developing the next chapter, I’m going to try and take a lot of the feedback into account!
I totally loved playing this! i can't wait for the 4th chapter :)!
I’m glad you liked it!! <3
A great game with a very interesting story and characters design ,I hope to know the rest of the story very soon.
Thank you for playing!!!! I hope to release chapter 4 soon, then you’ll get more of the puzzle pieces!
I only played the first chapter. I'ma play the others separately but I am having a good time with this so far
I’m glad to hear it! If you liked the first chapter, I think you’re gonna love Chapter 2!
Thank you for playing!!!!
Thank you for the kind words and for playing!!! That was a pretty fast upload!
Hello and good evening! I immediately downloaded your game the moment I saw a notification on itch lol, there's so much in this game that it's amazing to see it was made in only 3 weeks, I didn't expect to see more of your art and stories this soon and it has been fun playing through the game!
Spoilers:
I was wondering if there's any phone number that you can use with the landline phone in the mother's bedroom? Or is it gonna be used in later chapters?
Even though there are 2 more chapters to expect, I think the player can quite guess that the mother has something to do with the murder case of the poor barista girl (and the case of Mrs. Barrette even), and considering the mother's behaviors towards Oliver, I may make a dumb conclusion here but she is obsessed with taking care of his son, right? God I hope that won't escalate into something more suggestive (or will it? But either way that's not a problem or anything).
And why are half of the characters in this game so thirsty bruh 😭 That Edward dude literally wants to get it on with a corpse, the 2 sisters blush when Oliver just simply takes out his trenchcoat and that one goon wants to dress Oliver up like a goth girl and sell him 😭 (but ngl Oliver has potential). I just expected everyone in the game to be mean and maybe crazy but they caught me off-guard every time lol, though I feel very bad for Mrs. Greenwood, she deserves better imo.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to playing the next chapters! I hope more people will play your game soon, especially Clock, hopefully he won't miss it this time lmao.
Thank you for playing!!!! There’s quite a few things that’ll become relevant in later chapters. Also, I’m glad that the thirsty stuff caught you off guard :) You’re right about the Mother’s obsession, btw.
Again, thank you for playing!!!!
A few other things I forgot to mention, the atmosphere and soundtracks in this game are very good btw, love the indoor footstep noises, the Moonbills cafe vibes, definitely an improvement from Aquatic Grave (though Spider Lilies still stuck in my head sometimes, and duh the youtube video doesn't have it slowed like in that game). And tbf the *gore* kinda surprised me also (reader discretion ain't messing around).
Also think I found a bug in chapter 3, I went home instead of finding a way to go in the alley, then I chose to go to Greenwood's house and was stuck in a black screen, I had no other choice but to reload a save, as I dug through the game's files (excuse me for that), I found out that there's a picture of Greenwood's house, is that supposed to be an accessible area or unused stuff? (I also found a cutscene art of Oliver looking up named untitled159 and I don't think I have seen it anywhere when playing).
One last question, as the game still has 2 more chapters in development, not all of the soundtracks are used right? Cuz I listened to the OST on youtube and heard a few songs that I hear nowhere in the game (like Smothered), or maybe it's just my goldfish memory forgor it already.
Looking back, this game is so fun and packed with details to talk about, but Imma stop for now to progress more stuffs in the game later I guess.
Yeah, there’s quite a few unused things here. Smothered is actually the title screen music.
I’ve gotta fixe that bug, thanks for telling me!
Alright, that bug should be fixed now!
That part works fine now, thanks for the fix!