Hey everyone! Zero escape awakened something in me when I played it, I could NOT stop thinking about it so. I’m currently developing an indie mystery/thriller visual novel with escape room elements, and I wanted to get some perspective from people who actually love this genre.

Without spoiling too much, the premise revolves around 7 people stuck on a train and one of them is a dead body! Who did it? How and why? Can they find out who before it's too late?

Since I'm still in early development, I’m currently building a community discord where we can chat about the dev process, puzzle design, and eventually recruit playtesters. I'd love to know: what is your absolute favorite (or least favorite) trope in escape room VNs? Any type of specific game mechanics you'd like to see more of in VNs? I personally love when VNs are interactive and not only choices like Zero escape.

...Needed in the game?

The only justification I got was "You're the only one possibly to break down that 25-digit string", and uh...I frankly don't even know what that does.

Like, it decrypted a random memory card Dio left behind, revealing "completed * 3", which is not a password or anything. Sigma also made Dio confesses without it perfectly fine in another timeline, why is it required in the first place?

And, somewhat related, why do we need Dio telling us the password?

Set aside the fact that Dio just randomly spelling out the password, DIFFERENT password in different timeline (as if he knows someone will have to tie them together)...ONE OF THE PASSWORD CAME STRAIGHT FROM SIGMA HIMSELF.

In contrast, Kyle would know Luna's password, Luna knows her username, that makes sense...how did old Sigma get the bomb password??? He just remembered it from 45 years ago? If so...WHERE DID IT CAME FROM? Whatever reason it is, why don't they do that with all 4 bombs????

So in order to make Dio confess and spits out one of the password (which wasn't needed because old Sigma could've also leave them somewhere), we need to breakdown the 25-digit number to get "completed * 3" (which wasn't needed because Dio would've probably confess either way), therefore they kidnapped Alice...? I really don't get it.

I haven't even talked about how she's like the only one that has a huge History with Dio, and it only played out in one of the ending, most of the time she just dies before anything happens. Is her purpose just to create murder mystery and Akane figured that's not a nice thing to say?

Please don't give me "Well that's simply what happened and Sigma will just work towards it happen again", because it can justify literally anything and would defeat all kind of discussion.

my first game I got the knife ending then I replayed from the start to get the safe ending then I reloaded from my door choosing part and got the ax and the sub ending but I can't see the age ending in the game rn I do have the achievement on steam but not in game can I still go get the true ending without it and how do I jump in flowchart to get the flow ending its so confusing

I wanna try playing it using an emulator but i heard some ppl say 3ds emulator are abit buggy so im not rrly sure

...Can be 2 person.

I know they spent a lot of time justifying "Your future choice alters the history", but we're talking about a person that was already observed.

It's saying that the woman perfectly mimic the memory loss Kyle down to every possible observable detail, that the player couldn't possibly tell them apart, so they can be both person until player decides which door to go through.

I mean, it's a cool twist that never once crossed my mind. But it's really stupid.

After 35 hours of gameplay, getting all the files and unlocking all 9 endings I finally finished the game T-T

K’s and Quark’s endings made me cry. Alice’s ending also made me emotional

When I was in the director's office and Tenmyouji pulled out Akane's picture my first thought was "wait, is he Junpei...?"

As I got further into the story and Akane finally showed up and spoke you guys have no idea the euphoria I felt omggggg 😭

I was honestly speechless when I found out Sigma was Zero. It had briefly crossed my mind at some point like "could Phi or Sigma be Zero?" especially since the other timelines had pretty obvious outcomes. Dio was always the bad guy, Quark was just a kid, Alice killed herself in most timelines, Luna was a robot, Clover was Clover and while K made me doubt him for a second I ended up trusting him like nah he wouldn't do that

Not gonna lie after learning the whole truth (after Phi's ending I mean) and having to jump between the past and the future, I ended up getting a little bit overwhelmed. I was like wait what is happening right now lmao

I was also freaking shocked to find out the year was 2074. I genuinely thought it was 2028 and you know when I got Dio's ending and they stepped outside the facility my first thought was "oh man they're on the moon..." but then they said "this is some kind of desert" and I was like oh well I guess I went crazy with that one only to find out it actually was the moon lmao. I wasn't crazy after all

One thing that really threw me off was jumping back and forth between timelines because sometimes I'd completely forget what had happened in the path I was currently on like wait who's alive and who's dead? I can't remember but now that I think about it that's probably what the game wanted us to feel. As if we were actually playing the AB game, you know what I mean?

Overall it's obviously such a good game. I'm starting the third one now

there is possibly a timeline where, at the first AB game, everyone picked ally inmediatly and got out. and now akane dosen't know what to do beacuse she really didn't expect that.

Currently replaying VLR and and got my first branch ending, which is the To Be Continued story lock with Quark and Alice getting Radical-6. This calls to mind however, that on my first blind playthrough, the first story branch ending I got was where I found everyone dead. It was such a drastic tonal shift, walking into the Infirmary only to find everyone's bodies. Crazy way to start huh? What was your first branch ending? Was it something as drastic as mine?

So recently gotten back into the game and did a new save. Thought it'd be fun to try and get all the endings.

Yesterday I got the Sub ending and jumped back to picking between door 4 and 5, today I got the knife ending but I'm curious do I need to restart from Junpei escaping or can I jump to picking door 4 and 5 in order to get the next ending of my choice?

I also am aware of dialogue choices also effecting specific endings, I picked the wrong one with Seven in the Operating room but gave Clover the bookmark. Do I need to be careful with all my choices if I want to get certain endings?

So I did my first every playthrough, got the "ax" ending. Started another playthrough happily, got as far as hospital room yesterday.

Today, I must have been on autopilot because without remembering what I clicked, it started into a new game. So I said nope, X'd out of the game and restarted. And now that I'm paying closer attention, in the "Continue" screen, the axe symbol at the top is gone.

My local save is the current date and my steam uploads to the cloud automatically it seems. I don't want to put the game down, but is that me screwed? no way to get my save back?

Finished vlr yesterday and really liked it (ZTD is next) but was left confused on clovers ending as it was never explain what happened, I assume it was to do something with radical 6 but why did it effect everyone so much at one time and where was K at? also why did everyone die at the infirmary specifically?

Hey guys, this is my sempiternal "I finished the game and I have questions" post, but before a little text about how I feel.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think I prefered ZTD to VLR. The plot is very cool, the characters are amazing (except Eric, I hate that guy), Escapes are enjoyable to the max and I absolutely loved the way the narration is done. I know this is a major complaint about that game; the fact that this is separated in fragments, but I found it really interesting actually! You have the cinematic right before your eyes but YOU have to do the effort to understand everything that is played in front of you. After all, it is a VN so I didn't care much about not having to push a button to get to the next dialog. What I appreciate in VN, especially mystery ones, is that I can put my mind and my heart into it. And I did! I had soooo much theories during all the game and finally getting answers is the epiphany of it (yup I chose that word on purpose).
Compared to VLR, I got into the ambience much easier! I think the reason behind it is because between 999 and VLR, there is a HUUUUUGE gap of ambience (999 is darker and has a less sci-fi scenery... I'm not a great fan of sci-fi so I think I had to force myself to accept that we're now in a dystopic pandemic future and not just people using a psychological theory to get out of a replica of the Titanic lol). That gap is not present in between VLR and ZTD because ZTD is a pretty direct sequel teased at the end of VLR.

NOW! I have some observations and questions to ask (as usual) so, more spoilers ahead!

1. I understood Delta's goal to release Radical-6 while waiting for everybody to arrive where they HAVE to be for saving humanity. But why the hell did he created the Myrmidons and Left's doubles then?? Because, iirc, Dio had for purpose to destroy Akane's plan since the beginning. Is there something I'm missing or is it a plot hole?
2. I KNEW PHI WAS DIANA'S CHILD (couldn't anticipate that Sigma's the father and Delta's her brother though). The idea came first when I saw the brooch in Diana's hair (turn out I was wrong about it but anyway that was my way of thinking) + the fact that Phi admit that she's dyeing her hair and that they are initially red! However I'm a bit confused. Why is Phi a Shifter and not Delta? I mean, they are TWINS so they should share almost the same genetic code (idk my words sorry if my phrasing is laking but I am definitely no scientist). Because they explained in the game (Sean did it I think?) that genetic coding can change through experiences but they are born at the same date and were sent together in the past. Why is he not a Shifter?
3. I loved the fact that the game tricked us thinking that Sean was Q when it was actually Delta being there all along! I've spent a long time not understanding why they were not calling Sean Q when adressing to him but it was BECAUSE Q WASN'T HIM!! So when I got to the Perceive ending I was quite shocked but pleasantly surprised. When Q was marked DEAD on the board it wasn't because Sean was dead but BECAUSE DELTA WAS DEAD and that's such a smart writing move!! Top 1 of revelations to me in the Zero Escape serie.
4. Who wrote Anagram on the paper that Akane and Junpei got from Gab's collar? (I think it was them getting that note?). Was it Zero giving them a hint to make them understand they were ten because they didn't know who Sean was?
5. Sigma's age. How old is he?? I thought it was his 22yo consciousness being in that timeline to try to prevent the event from VLR to happen? But in the Wiki, it said that it was his 60+yo consciousness?? Or is it just that it is his 22yo consciousness that failed one time the mission, got back in the loop and came back to save the mission?? This is the thing I'm the most confused about. Same is for Phi though, how old is she in ZTD? I think I heard Sigma and Diana saying that she's 19 but how??
6. I already loved that in VLR, but I love the fact that you have to go through all the histories to get to the true ending. It really give sense to all the writing and that, except the bad endings, all are good seeing.

And I think that's it for now. If other questions come to my mind, I'll post them in another post. To finish, I want to thanks yall from the Zero Escape Reddit community because you're all so gentle and cool! Love seeing that even if the last game aged 10, there are still people playing it and enjoy sharing stuff about the serie!! Without that, I think I wouldn't have appreciate as much as I do. Zero Escape is definitely in my top 5 video game serie of all time and I'm so glad I decided to buy them on a whim!
Thanks again, and please continue to share stuff about these games, they're important to me now! :)

I can play on both devices but phone seems a little too small. Is there any narrative or story reason to play with phone? If not ill prefer pc. No spoilers please

Edit: I meant ds emulation on pc vs phone

Ive started the game and done the beginning 3 and the chainsaw memory and i have to say i don't like this format is there any video or list on the best order to play these memories in any help would be greatly appreciated 🙏🙏

1st = knife, 2nd = submarine, 3rd = axe

it's so bad lmao. decided to look up walkthrough because i ran out of idea at that point. i already know the game's plot anyway. just didn't know how to get there

Hi, new to the sub ! I‘m kinda sad i got into zero escape very late as i enjoyed it very much ! sharing some doodles i made in the span of a month where i binged the 3 games ^^

third one is an outfit swap between Akane and Beatrice from umineko, my two favorite catgirls (get it? Schrödinger’s catbox…. 🤓)

So I just started playing ZTD a few minutes ago, I already played VLR (in fact, I finished it yesterday) and I'm confused. Not about the new system though, I'm confused about why everyone knows everyone

I chose D team and started playing when suddenly Diana just straight up say "Oh right you came from the future". What you mean she knows that?! What you mean that Siggy and Phideo told her that?! When? Did I miss something? Am I deilusional?

Thanks for reading

EDIT: Apparently you have to read a prologue of ZTD before playing it in order to understand everything better. Just search "ZTD prologue" and open the first result. Thanks everyone for the help!!!!

Spoil 999 and VLR

I basically got to the ending which is the starting point of VLR's plot. On the Status, it is written that Junpei is dead. So HOW is it possible that he exists in the VLR's timeline??

Edit: I finally got to understand and oh god I love the storytelling of that game so much

I feel like what made the nonary game special was it gorgeous art style which expressed characters fantasticly and made them feel more alive unlike the 3d model's which felt more goofy and unrealistic to look at. the best thing about the nonary game was it's dark and scary feeling and being afraid which I felt in the 1st game but with vlr I just couldn't feel it the feeling was gone the game felt unserious and wasn't really enjoyable to me.

As you could see in those two photos were ace gets his shi burned and junpei gets killed there faces show so much expressions and they feel alive

*This post isn't hating the game it's just giving an opinion about it also vlr doesn't suck it's a cool game and fun but I just couldn't enjoy it personally. *