Acquittal: Induction Demo

Law is something people have created in order to make sure everyone is treated the same when they do something wrong, as well as to prevent wrongdoings in general. Naturally, it is far from perfect, given the fact that it’s impossible to predict every possible situation, but we have come very far in the last few centuries in terms of judging people for their mistakes.

Acquittal: Induction is an interactive visual novel in which you play the role of a lawyer trying to understand a criminal case and extract all the evidence needed in order to reach a clear verdict. From a gameplay point of view, this is achieved by making certain choices along the way and interacting with various objects or characters, so it’s not all that different from most visual novels out there.

The game is inspired by British courtroom dramas and famous books on the subject, most notably the Sherlock Holmes series written by Arthur Conan Doyle. Thus, the way you approach the investigation is very similar to Sherlock’s method, which means that you have to analyse the evidence and come to a conclusion using brainstorming and concatenation, although it’s far simpler than it sounds once you actually start playing.

Since a great deal of focus is on your ability to look at every piece of evidence and come to your own conclusions, there are multiple endings you can reach, depending on what your verdict is. You might not put some clues together at first, but you can try multiple playthroughs and get a clearer picture of the case if you really want to get to the bottom of the mystery and leave no room for interpretation.

There are no intricate puzzles or gameplay elements to deal with, which means that the interface is very basic as well. Your only task is to click on buttons or choose the appropriate answer every now and again, so the layout is very minimalistic most of the time. As far as the artwork is concerned, the designers have clearly put a lot of work in the background images and the characters, which should help a lot with the atmosphere.

In the end, Acquittal: Induction should be a very fun experience for the fans of the genre, especially since it’s a lot more demanding and interactive than your typical visual novel. Thus, we can only hope that the full game is going to be just as refined as this demo.