Command your minions to solve mysteries and cover up scandals in a high-class boarding school, where the competition is cut-throat and image is everything. But be careful - one of your minions is a traitor.
Very Positive
270 Steam reviews
| LANGUAGE | AUDIO | SUBTITLES | INTERFACE |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | — | — | Y |
Oh yeah, good game. Fun to learn the mechanics of who to send where and why, but maybe takes a few runs/failures to get the hang of it. Interesting little stories for each of the characters and routes and some compelling decisions to be made.
The gameplay is not that bad but some mechanics can be chaotic and I discourage the use without a walkthrough. Otherwise is cool. 6.5/10
It needs some caution and strategy to reach good endings. Like the girls.
Excellent game.
Really engrossing atmosphere and some of the routes blew me away, the mechanics are interesting but made the replaying ultimately tedious, detracting a bit from the drive to explore some really great narrative. (Time played not accurate, probably spent a day idle)
this is one my favorite games of all time and you should play it, cannot reccomend it enough, please play black closet
While I did lose my log in info for a few years, this game really stayed in my mind the whole time I debated coming back to Steam. The mystery solving was always really fun for me and I remember speed running it from time to time as my own little challenge. I actually forgot the name of it and spent a little while trying to figure out the name of it by putting descriptions of it into search engines but couldn't figure it out?
I'm completely looking forward to reliving this game, because I really can only remember that I was so into playing it while I was giving myself some free time!
This game is so fun and unique
Quite an interesting story with good gameplay and a bit of surprises here and there. Not the best game on the market, but still worth some money and time.
It´s a fun and interesting game that I definitely recommend but know that the plot got progressively less interesting for me.
The writing is really solid, surprisingly so. I´m a writer myself and have generally very annoyingly high standards and this game fully sold me on the characters and the setting. It has some of the best "awkwardly getting to know someone" dialogue I have ever seen. It has the most interesting take on a "mysterious" type girl I have seen in a long time and from what little I was able to see from the other girls, they were all super solid, fun and interesting. I really liked the character I got to play as, even if I wasn´t able to name her. She was convincingly strong and ruthless. I really enjoyed the choices you get to make in the game as well as the gameplay. I don´t regret buying this game, it was a fun experience!
That being said, I´m just not finishing this game. My biggest critique is that [spoiler] after the harvest festival, the game decides that you´re done with talking to other people and makes you talk to one girl forever. It´s miserable because I really enjoyed the variety from before. The game also tries to sell you on a frankly quite poorly done mystery. I feel like the writer themself wasn´t very enthusiastic about writing this part and felt insecure about some of the plot holes. I would recommend the whole “write a story you´d want to read” thing for their next game because they´re clearly very talented but I feel like they just kind of went with the first idea and weren´t very enthusiastic about it.
I feel like the game made so many interesting points about this elite school that cares about its reputation and how that cultivates isolation and incompetence in terms of teaching kids about household chores and how it can discourage fun and individuality and breeds hostility and gossiping and judgement and how extreme the staff can be to protect the school and not the students- and yet all these rich people are still human being that try to be kind! But then the plot is that one stalker in a spooky mask threatens to harm only one girl and then they don´t even kill her.
I would have cared way more if a whole group showed up, all wearing masks, and if they threatened the student body in general, saying they would poison the lunches or something.
There were so many more interesting choices that could have been made here.
I´m annoying so here is a more interesting plot:
What if the community surrounding this rich school caused them problems? Maybe there is poverty in the community and there was a protest or something and it makes the school crack down even further on students being able to leave. Maybe people start going a little stir crazy.
And if you want a mystery, what if every two months a different girl became a traitor? What if the school slowly became more and more violent, seemingly for no reason? What if people kept disappearing and then reappearing with nobody acknowledging that they were ever gone, including the students themselves? Hell, what if the mask society was a group of angry, abused communist students that are threatening to put a bomb under the school? [/spoiler]
It just didn´t live up to the quality of the previous writing and that´s okay, like I said, I have really high standards and I´m also not a teenager. Maybe I´m not the target audience here.
---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☑ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Game Size }---
☑ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☐ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☑ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☑ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☑ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☑ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10
scratches my brain in just the right way
好玩，恋爱内容有点素，但挺好玩的，英语也比较简单
10/10 would bully goth girls again
Took a minute to get into, but once you figure out the mechanics its fun!
lesbian among us where you need to find who's sus while solving cases, even though there are a set number of case types, you still need to read to notes otherwise you'll accidentally interrogate someone innocent and ruin your school reputation, fun and challenging
The mechanics it sells itself on are ultimately shallow and easily predictable. The writing is mediocre at best. It's a shame, the concept was promising, but I just don't think it stuck the landing. If you want one of these that actually work, I recommend playing Gnosia instead.
A wonderfully fun game but it's a little too repetitive with its tasks.
It is also a roguelite. You are intended to fail to get a few things - like the numbers for stats you need. If you fail to get enough items/stat points to level up enough to complete The Plot you'll have to start over. Your first playthrough you'll probably mess up by trying to get to know people before you realize you have to spend time with one to two people - your love interest + the traitor(if you don't want to waste item gathering). Doing anything else is going to get you locked out of the romance path and possibly mess up your chances of catching the traitor.
História e interação entre os personagens são dolorosos de ler, jogabilidade muito mais dependente da sorte dos dados do que dedução
Very good game, I enjoyed it a lot
A better game than it should be. The gameplay is interesting, although the first couple of attempts will be spent getting used to how things work and dealing with story elements you couldn't really predict.
Also, teenage romance between young ladies, if that's an interest.
It is challenging to balance the tasks just right sometimes but otherwise fun.
Very engaging and very dark storyline. I definitely enjoyed it.
siiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
This is more of a neutral review than a negative one. The game does have its charms: it is well-written, and with a mostly satisfying gameplay loop. However it becomes much too repetitive too quickly. Cases repeat all too often, and it definitely begins to break the immersion. In Long Live the Queen, the story moved along constantly and always kept you on your toes, but with Black Closet you begin to feel like a hamster on a wheel after a certain point. The UI has also taken a hit- lots of annoying misclicks my first few hours in.
I liked socializing with my stooges, but once you are forced to choose one, you can no longer talk to the others. Unfortunately, the character I chose was removed from the game shortly after, which meant the visual novel portion of the game was all but gone. Of course, I could reload an earlier save, but then again, if my characters are leveled less than optimally, should I even bother?
Seeing as how I can no longer refund this, I'll probably give it another go at some point. I didn't hate Black Closet by any means, but some iffy design decisions and bad pacing make it seem like a lot of potential was sadly wasted. Hopefully the dev revisits this style of game in the future.
EDIT: OK, I couldn't help myself: I reloaded an earlier save and chose to ignore the red masks altogether. I can't help but think that I've just locked myself out of story content, but at least I can progress with my lesbian love story. Tentatively recommending this game, but it does have some serious issues.
Listen. This game is fun overall. I love me some puzzles, intrigue and betrayal. The characters and overall story itself is well done. But it is HARD.
lesbians <3
One of my all-time favourite visual novels. The writing is excellent, with distinct and interesting characters and both serious and funny moments, and the amount of variation possible even within some individual routes is impressive and adds replay value on its own. What really works for me is just the whole atmosphere of the game, with the background music, art style, and UI design all working in concert. I'm not normally a big fan of randomization-based replay value, but I think it works well here with the randomized cases to keep things somewhat fresh across playthroughs, and, although figuring out who the mole is can be fun, I'm glad that there's an option starting in the second playthrough to choose who it is if you want to have more control over how the story goes.
👍
Possibly the best investigation game I've ever played, and it's serve alongside a top-tier quality yuri VN. None of the paths have to be romantic if you're not into this, and as a matter of fact a third of the characters are straight and cannot be romanced. Which is fine, I like making life-long friends too.
I like this game, but it's too random for me. It's really annoying. I guess I need to turn down the difficulty or something.
Excellent replay value, story, characters. GUI/gameplay was the hurdle to get over before I understood how to play. I do not regret taking the time to learn this game.
很有意思 角色很鲜明大部分都很强势 不过画风极具特色不喜切勿购买
但是。但是。但是真的好难啊！！非常难达成多结局因为一旦发现BOSS战打不过可以说是要从半路从头开始的程度，在某种意义上是没有办法跳过必须付出时间破解的煎熬
而且有时候还会吓我一跳不过各位学生会的大美女还是治愈了我，总而言之大家要是想做学生会长的话一定要玩玩看，游戏里学的英语在现实中给学生判刑的时候非常有用
I found the characters boring
这是一个轻rouge like的百合视觉小说。几乎踩到了我所有的偏好点。
不过这里的rouge like还是比较死板的，每个事件基本都有固定的解决流程。主线的各种隐藏分支基本都有固定刷数据的方法。按照攻略玩的话rouge like部分会没有想象的那么有趣。
剧情上，不同攻略对象的剧情线还是有不同的，走多条线的话基本就能还原出女孩之间过往发生的种种。
Forgot that this has lesbian romance as well. Love the mysteries as well this really forces you to replay multiple times to see the multiple endings for each girl.
very fun game/ different traitor every time/ got to strategize to complete the missions.
Despite the UI being not so friendly, it's one of the best games I've played. I find it extremely refreshing when a strategy games allows you to feel like you're dealing with people, not units. And this is a strategy game at its core, though it has RPG and VN elements that are great in their own right,
Pros: Extremely unique mechanics. This game was very well thought out, the side stories are engaging, and the over-all story is interesting. It can become a bit difficult, but reasonably so.
Cons: If you don't fail/need to restart, the game is pretty short.
Overall, it's a fun game, it has a lot of replay value, and it's something you can multitask with with a show or stream in the background.
I adore this game.
The characters are unique and interesting to interact with, there's different routes to explore even when romancing the same character, the game mechanics are snappy and to the point.
Everything about this game just flows, nothing feels clunky, it's incredibly satisfying to play.
Which doesn't mean that it's easy, even with case guides and the hours I have in this game, the hard mode still poses a decent challenge.
Ahhhh the trope of the suspiciously important school council always amuses me. Anyways, combo personnel management sim, detective game, and romance visual novel, this game is, like most things that Hanako Games puts out, very much so worth it.
epic but a bit repetitive
This is a very fun game that has a ton of replay value. Just make sure to nurture the relationships with as many of the girls as you can or it bites you in the ass later.
Mystery solving lesbians unite!!!
There is a lot to love about this game from the unique and deeply engaging mysteries to the delightful cast of characters and relationships. The narrative beautifully intertwines with the gameplay and everything has a consequence. It makes for a deeply satisfying experience as a resource management and mystery solving visual novel and is absolutely worth a play if you enjoy those types of games. My main points of critique would be that the gameplay can get repetitive, but that also comes from me playing it like a million times, so take that how you will!
this game has a unique playstyle, i dont remember playing anything like this. Give it a try if u like strategic games, u probably would not regret. fun for maybe 3 playthroughs.
If you can get past the 'girl-on-girl action' fetish (because what else goes on in an all-girls school, right?), there's actually a robust detective/strategy game in there.
The mysteries feel like mysteries.
You have to send the girls out to investigate rooms, interrogate witnesses or suspects, stake out areas, follow people or just throw some weight around to solve them.
They all have various stats that are used against opponent stats to see if they succeed or fail. There's RNG, but it's very controllable. You don't know the opponent's stats, whether room or person, until after you attempt something at least once. After that, you know just how tough they are and you can assign girls better suited for the task, if needed.
Meanwhile, there's the romantic subplot going on with you either seducing or being seduced by the girls. Which can influence how well they get the jobs done. Especially since one of them is working against you and you have to figure out which one. Then use your (ahem) 'charms' to confront them.
I tend to just ignore the subplot and play it mostly for the mysteries. And with different mysteries each playthrough, there's plenty of replayability. Although the subplot cutscenes and seduction visual novel elements can slow the gameplay down considerably.
You can also change the characters in the game, but it'll still refer to them as girls. So this may end up a bit awkward unless you make them all female.
Overall, a good mystery game with some strategy elements, wrapped up with a romantic visual novel subplot that's not too hard to ignore or bypass if it doesn't interest you.
gay and stressful😀
A surprisingly involved visual novel with a card game strategy mechanic.
I enjoy it immensely.
Really challenging. So many events like in Gotham City and my minions are sadly too stressful to deal with things. I'll definitely try again.
From the creator of Long Live the Queen comes an all-girls Catholic boarding school simulator. Compared to all of the other games in the Hanako library, it's probably the most systems-driven, which I love: it's by far the most replayable game, in part because the identity of the traitor is randomized, and in each playthrough, you'll have to ferret out who they are through clever deduction -- did your minion fail their task because of a bad dice roll, or did they botch things on purpose?
This mechanic, and many others, lead to an experience where the game's themes are woven into the gameplay mechanics: the game is partly about paranoia, and it achieves this not by having a character monologue at you about paranoia, but by giving you a gameplay mechanic that causes you to distrust your minions. The game has interesting things to say about how people in authority abuse power, but it never beats you over the head with its message; the game is simply content to give you absolute power over the student body (with more than a few "dirty tricks" that you can use when expediency is more important than the approval of the student body), and it leaves you to your own devices. You could question people politely, and doing so will prevent you from unfairly detaining innocents...but skipping to aggressive interrogation will save you time, and sometimes, you have too many cases to close and not enough resources. Something's got to give, and if that "something" isn't going to be your clearance rate, well...
Black Closet has a very clear "tabletop" theme, giving you the satisfying, tactile sound of D20's rolling on a wooden table each time you perform an action that requires a stat check. That randomization is inherently a part of the game, which turns it into a game that's not about achieving 100% success, but about playing the odds and doing the best you can with the resources that you're given. These elements may not appeal to everyone, but they scratch me exactly where I itch, and they feed perfectly into the game's themes of paranoia and uncertainty. (If you're the kind of person who gets excited by the idea of "pareto-optimization," then you too will probably like these mechanics for the same reason I did.) There's a demo available on the developer's website, which should give you a feel for the overall vibe of the game to see if it gels with you.
One of my favorite games of all time, and certainly one of the most under-appreciated.
Another brilliant work from Hanako Games. My biggest issue is that I put off playing this because the name/logo and main image (alongside the logo that looks like it has a blood splatter, Elsa is looking very forensic pathologist-y to me) kept me thinking that this was one of my psychological horror games. Having played through the game, I'm still really unclear on why the name of the game is "Black Closet".
Black Closet it a stat boosting style "choices matter" game. Compared with Long Live the Queen, the play style is quite different, looking almost like a board game, where you have to make card combinations and put them into your executive tray each day (up to 5 actions). Additionally, it's much easier to track the point threshholds needed to achieve certain tasks.
Game play is never exactly the same, save for key events in the main story. The "cases" you get outside of main story look repetitive, but even two cases that start out reading very similarly at the start can have different outcomes (e.g., [spoiler]missing supply cases could end up in someone having stolen supplies, the supplies being delivered to the wrong classroom, or the supplies never having been ordered[/spoiler]). The trick to the cases is finding the ideal sequence of investigation to help tease out which outcome the case has, while minimizing your Karma/Reputation loss.
I enjoy the board game look/play feel of this game, and the ambient music definitely sets a mood.
I didn't realize this was a Hanako game the first time I saw it in recommended. Now I feel like a fool because this is amazing. It's very similar in theme to Long Live The Queen -- an anime student council president is basically the same as a queen, you see. There are intrigues and schemes, and threats you won't understand or even see coming. Prepare to be blindsided multiple times.
At the start it feels very simple and easy. But like Long Live The Queen, this is a game where you'll probably fail the first time because you didn't understand what was coming 40 weeks later.
It's a puzzle and a mystery, and very difficult. But you should face the challenge and see it through to the end.
Great fun, and by being less complicated than Hanako Games' similar Long Live the Queen, weirdly more fun; loss/gain is easier to figure out. Some more forewarning of what traits needed to be improved for the endgame would have been nice, but otherwise well done.
It's cute. Not quite as engaging and engrossing as Long Live the Queen, but there is something here.
Enjoyable characters - gameplay is surprisingly fun despite being quite repetitive. Each playthrough can feel very different from the last
This game is incredible. The gameplay is difficult when first starting, but still challenging even after multiple replays, and the story is very good too. There's a lot of replayability as well. It's the perfect combination of a fun strategy game and a compelling visual novel, and I'd recommend it to anybody who likes either genre.
This was a neat, albeit somewhat repetitive dice rolling game surrounding some school mysteries. Well thought out, this game will take you in pretty nicely, and the gameplay style is addictive, always pushing you to make one more roll. I ended up completing one playthrough in approx 8 hours. Well worth the cost of the game, and good on the devs for making this uniquely refreshing game. Quite enjoyable for a once over.
A good game for the 10 dollar range.
Solve problems and find the traitor at a girl's school before the autumn festival arrives. To help you with your task are the student body. Through questioning, searching, and stalking these assistants will save your job and the school's reputation. Or they should. Which one is the traitor? Is the traitor sabotaging your efforts to deal with the day to day problems that arise?
A simple game, really. Each girl is graded on socializing, intimidation, sneaking, and observation. Obviously the girl with high social skills should do the questioning. The one with the high sneak should do the stalking. Each day you assign the girls a task based on these skills. Then the game rolls dice to determine your success. The game literally rolls dice. It can be challenging to find the right action or the right girl. I failed the first time I played the game because of my poor assessment of the girls' skills.
It kills time. Is kind of fun for a bit. Not sure how replayable it will be, though. My second time through I was getting a repeat on a lot of the scenarios.
Conclusion: solve problems in the fake world to relax from stress in the real world. Get the game cheap, though. Short with limited replay.
a great game for people who want to pretend to be high school bullies despite having graduated high school. it's a ton of fun
There's a lot to love about this game. A whole lot. The art is fantastic, the writing is well done, the gameplay loop is pretty engaging while not being overly challenging, and each of the characters feels like their own person. Though, a minor complaint, the game kind of drags on and becomes rather same-y after a while. You're eager to get the next bit of story or see what happens next with the characters you've become attached to, but you know you'll be slogging through the same thing for 30 minutes to an hour to get there.
Now on to why I wouldn't recommend this game. It's way too unforgiving. I don't mean Dark Souls unforgiving. I mean Diablo 3 Hardcore Mode Malthael fight unforgiving. Except even worse, because at least in that fight you've been preparing for that kind of encounter. In this game, the final encounter is nothing like anything you've faced. They could have had you hook up a DDR pad for a dance battle and it would have made just as much sense.
Like I said, there's a lot to love. I'm just left feeling like I was brought this delicious 5 star meal only to have it slapped out of my hands at the last second.
É...
I played this game before, years ago and somehow felt like I wanted to play it again
I think it's absolutely wonderful, intrigueing, challenging and overall just very fun to play
good job!
was definitely still worth the money :)
Excellent gameplay, and an unexpected but nice romance aspect. The characters are great. I wish there were more games that played like this, the gameplay keeps me coming back for more.
优点：
1.角色个人分支剧情很完整，；
2.随机事件，玩法很独特；
3.主线内容虽然挺短，但是还蛮有趣的；
缺点:
1.CG风格个人不太喜欢；
2.存档系统有点怪；
3.缺少数值提示，多结局不好整；
总结：
挺硬核一百合游戏…，意外的难，BE了好多次qoq
那个白毛还挺可爱的qoq
9 stolen rings out of 10. Not 10, because the last one was not stolen.
Floor 13 but w/ gay high school girls so naturally it's ftw
Might not be for everyone but I absolutely love it. Randomized mystery solving, visual novel choices, hardcore management, the aesthetic. Really unique gameplay as well.
My only complaint is that the tutorial doesn’t explain most of what you need to know. I highly advise finding the manual in the installation folder and reading it as well. Also the UI can be a bit cumbersome, hard to see what you have selected at times.
Other then that, this has a good shot at becoming my favorite indie game.
GOOD: Tense atmosphere, original and interesting setup.
BAD: Horribly clumsy UI, repetitive cases with insipid solving mechanism, unrewarding gameplay, carte blanche protagonist.
This game is a visual novel with slight RPG elements (character stats, dice rolls to determine investigation results) and elementary tactical elements (resource management). You play as Elsa, a student council head with three goals: keep the school's (and the student council's) reputation intact by solving weekly cases that threaten to cause commotion; win the loyalty and perhaps affection of your student council members; and find which one of them is actually a traitor (and who's behind it).
Game can only be saved at the beginning of each week. Unfortunately the weekly investigation phases -- where 90% of the game time is spent -- lose their appeal after a couple of hours. They are always based on deduction via trial and error, often requiring either several attempts or blind luck to solve in the given time. The basic investigation mechanism is always the same, select a character and test her skill against an opposing value. Often the cases drag on and on, overlapsing new cases. The same cases also get recycled several times during a single play-through with only minor variation to details, The rewards and grades for solved cases seem to be rather arbitrary.
Relationships are advanced via short sequences that allow interaction with the student council members. Early in the game you can interact with any two members on weekends, later you need to select only one member for the rest of the game and lose the ability to initiate contact with all the others. Sometimes a member will initiate a meeting with you during the week. Unfortunately this relationship aspect also comes a bit short. Other characters are varied and have interesting stories, but because I didn't know anything about my own character at the beginning of the game, and didn't have any real dialogue of my own during it (protagonist only gets to choose from brief options), I did not feel any connection with my character, there was no immersion. Further, this lack of own voice lead to very forced and unnatural dialogue from the other characters, as they had to fill me in on my own history. And unlike in normal visual novels, going through all character routes would be a herculean task.
I don't often complain of a game being too long, but that is the case here. I was completely fed up solving the carbon copy cases long before the first play-through ended after ~10 hours. However, it turned out that the end mission is impossible unless you build your team from the very beginning in a certain way. Completing the game would require another play-through, And of course seeing the other romance options would also require multiple play-throughs. However, unlike in typical visual novels, it is not possible to skip through the content one has already seen -- the investigations that already long outstayed their welcome during the first play-through need to be completed in full each and every time. I would rather count how many hairs there are in a goat herd.
I generally like Hanako games, and the premise of a mystery game set in an all-girls academy is interesting, but I don't really enjoy the gameplay. There's a lot to keep track of in the different cases, and you end up juggling multiple cases at a time, and I just wish the interface had more information about the approaches you've taken and your status in the cases, because I end up having to constantly flip through my case log to figure out what would just be repeating the same action over and over. It is also not uncommon for the solution to a case to be totally nonobvious. I wanted to like it, and I'd check out a sequel or similar game if there ever was one to see what kind of improvements were made, but I couldn't get into this.
Pray to RNGesus when you play this game, it's very luck based and never the exact same each playthrough, as well as having multiple romance options (and one platonic option with one of the straight characters. Pale ships FTW). You play as the student council leader, you deal with whatever cases show up, and figure out which one of your own "minions" (the other main characters) is about to betray you before they do it. I have been having trouble past that point where you figure out the traitor, so if anyone has any tips on how to get past the next obstacle let me know. Still a fun game if you're strategic and observant
I've been playing for almost 6 hours and hadn't finished the game yet (I had a game over but that was a pretty short gameplay), which is very frustrating because nothing and I mean NOTHING about this game justifies being so extremely long.
The general idea is very good, I love visual novels and I love choosing dialogues, having to find a traitor was interesting but:
1) the choises don't matter, like at all, you can have a "romantic answer" and a "very rude and distant answer" inside a dialogue cutscene and you can literally skip the entire section when you play a second time, it's ridiculous. Later on there's more choices like basically "I love you" or "we should break up and never see each other again" and I wonder if that's pointless too, makes no sense.
2) Hanging with the girls and all the traitor drama finish pretty early on the game. You find the traitor, maybe get a game over over a pretty random choice or continue, only talking with 1 girl from then on, not really deepening on her much, didn't feel a conection at all and all the rest of the girls basically disappear even if you had great relationships with them from the first part.
3) The only part that you "actually play" (solving the students random ♥♥♥♥♥) it's good, but not that good, it gets old, boring and just annoying after hearing the same problems with different names like 10 times each. And this is maybe just me but I got tired and just followed a walktrough, which doesn't bother me at all normally because I'm interested in the story, but this mini games have NOTHING to do with it, and the story was pretty flat itself so...
I don't understand why this game is so long??? really, it should last 3 hours tops one gameplay or something like that, there's NO WAY I'm having a second gameplay, geez I'm not even sure I'll even finish the one I'm currently playing.
It'd have been a good game if it wasn't so stupidly long for no reason at all because the game has nothing to offer after the traitor part is over.
It's a nice game about solving mysteries. Somehow it feels like Nancy Drew.
Hanako Games is always making a unique simulation game since i can't remember, and Black Closet is one of them.
Truth to be told I can't really get into the game until my second try.
I'm a visual novel fans, and I can't really dive into the story at the beginning.
But once i tried to understand more the basic of the story, i finally get the true experience.
It's not only about getting a good ending.
This is a story about putting a dominance over people.
This might not the usual lovely romance story, but if you take your time and get used to the strategical mechanic,
it might get more amusing.
I played a lot of Long Live The Queen and had a great time being a pretty princess trying not to get murdered. I was very hyped for a lesbian boarding school Police Procedural with subtle Cthulu Mythos undertones. But I feel like BC promises more than it can deliver.
Gameplay gets repetitive very quick, I didn't really connect with the romanceable characters, and the game ends rather abruptly without ever quite developing a...main plot?
If you told me that this was Act One of Black Closet, released as a teaser, I would completely believe that, and be hype for the rest of the game.
An interesting Hanako game.
The game didn't worked for me at first and the developper really helped me out. Big thumbs up for that.
I didn't liked the characters so much nor the story. The setting is original and interesting. The atmosphere and the drawings suits the thematics and gameplay really well.
It is the only visual novel out there mainly based on a guess who gameplay. You have to manage actions that will allow you to investigate and make logical deduction. That alone makes this game a gem.
And... up until now it remains one of the only visual novel featuring a gameplay sequence I just didn't expected in that kind of deduction and rational game. I would play the game again and recommend it to people just to see how they'll react once they reach that part lol.
Play it for the guess game and enjoy some character development all the while if possible.
Lots of intrigue. Lots of fun.
this game is really underrated. i wish more people knew about it! it's great and one of my favorite games of all time. it has everything i love in a game. i guess it does have a pretty niche appeal since it's such a specific combination of things, but it appeals to me SO MUCH.
Black Closet offers an interesting blend of problem solving, resource management and visual novel style gameplay which works to a surprising degree. The game presents a welcome challenge albeit one that might be offputting to new players.
Is this worth full price? Nah.
Is it worth $5? Heck yeah.
So the review that had me most interested in this game described it as "Lesbian Clue: Cylon Edition" and I can't say they were wrong. I have seen some negative reviews that include 'repetitiveness in tasks' that I can't entirely dismiss, in that there only seem to be some dozen to 20 case 'types' that you will get handed to you to investigate. However, the REASON for the cases will vary wildly from case to case. So you may get two instances of someone having problems with their grades, help one of them with a tutor, only to discover in the second case they're failing on purpose because they're mad at someone. Tutor won't fix this one, you have to figure out the 'proper response' as you sift through the clues in each case. I've yet to 'win' the game and only actually got to the 'final boss' (I think) fight once, but I'm still enjoying trying!
Lesbian Clue: Cylon Edition, but it's a management simulator
This game is overrated.
-- It gets repetitive very soon.
-- Some cases can't be resolved.
-- The love story feels quite boring unless you are a lesbian.
-- The only thing I like about this game is its art style.
I haven't finished the game yet but I don't see the point to continue playing.
Truly so fun
Lesbian student council boarding school espionage mystery drama leadership./delegation management dating sim. It's marvelously executed. What more do you really need to know?
Possibly the single most immersive and involving management game I've ever played.
I am extremely pleased with this game. I liked the art, the characters, the plot, the cases and the mechanics.
More than anything, it is a satisfying game. It doesn't require a huge investment of time but it could lead many people to play and replay for hours at an end.
There was nothing I didn't like.
At the time of writting this I have more hours in this game than 13; a few of my hours were offline because of internet failure. However, I would say that finishing the game for the first time takes 8-10 hours... but then the game pushes you to try again and again to finish it.
I wish there were DLCs for this game but I will check other games for the developers just because of this game.
This game re-affirmed my trust to indie developers.
(sorry for the mistakes but english is not my first langage)
I've played several games made by Hanako but this one is definitively my favorites.
There is a real ambiance. Lots of choices are availible to add subtilities to the story. The gameplay is engaging and the characters are, for the most part, deep and interesting. You care for them.
You can build the protagonist's personality the way you want and it's very enjoyable.
The art is gorgeous (set 2 for the sprites, and set 1 for the CG).
The Good
-interesting story
-deep and not stereotypical characters
-very good writing
-good ambiance
-engaging gameplay
-no manicheism
-good replayability due to the different outcomes (lots of choices)
-the mole is randomly generated at the begenning of each game, whith her own goals and desires (replaybility)
-beautiful art
-VONNE <3
The bad:
I can't see anything bad in this game^^
Verdict: make yourself a favor, give it a try and enjoy yourselves ;)
I love this game and wholeheartedly recommend it. The gameplay is simple and mostly intuitive, but has enough variety and moving parts to keep you guessing and keep things fun.
This game has a bit of a rough learning curve, with already convoluted cases being complicated by the presence of a traitor working against you. That being said, once you start to get a feel for what interactions are helpful in what situations, the traitor adds another level of depth and intrigue to this fantastic game - did my trusted lieutenant Vonne really fail to spot anything in the boiler room, or is she actively working against me? Is the silent and mysterious Rowan being outplayed in a game of cat and mouse, or is she *trying* to get me caught? Just what is her motivation, anyway?
The writing, though, is where the game truly shines. It is, at times, witty and fun, tense and unnerving, gentle and sensual. The balance between solving the mysteries of the school and reaching out to your allies without ever truly knowing who you can trust is amazing. It perfectly evokes the feeling of being young and in love in a big, uncertain world.
In the end, how you handle those pressures really does matter. If you close yourself off or become hostile to try to force answers out of people, or even just to try to keep things running smoothly, you may find yourself in a situation where no one is willing to help you. If you let your paranoia get to you, you can even end up hurting those close to you.
I was stunned when, playing through Rowan's path a second time, I treated her a little bit differently and ended up going down an entirely different path with her. I expected maybe a different, less happy ending tacked on, but I ended up seeing an entirely different side of her, and pushed her to change in entirely different ways. This game has a ton of depth and responds to your choices more than you may think.
I truly enjoyed this game. I can't recommend it enough. It is definitely worth giving a try. If you can stick with it through the (admittedly rough) learning curve, you'll be rewarded with an unforgettable story of intrigue and romance. You won't regret it.
10/10
I'm a huge fan of this game, and have been meaning to review it forever. The art style is unique and charming, the mood and music are awesome, the game mechanics are deceptively simple and novel, the story is cool, the characters feel layered and distinct, and the dialog is very well-crafted and flexible.
I have actually bought this game for a few people over the years because I think there are so many different things to like: part visual novel, part tabletop, part mystery.
The gist of this game is you're the student council president at an all-girls private school. You're in charge or resolving conflicts and drama between students. Your ultimate goal is to protect the reputation of the school and improve your standings for college applications. Your student council team uses a mix of social and reconnaissance skills (which you can level up as you see fit) in order to get to the bottom of various scandals and crises. Each situation has multiple possible resolutions, some more dire than others - your job is to prioritize risk and play damage control. It's a pretty fun mix of role playing and simulation, which runs parallel to a more visual novel style game about bonding with your council members (yes, like that, but not like *that*.)
Honestly, one of the best parts of this game is how not only do you have tons of dialog options to really make your character speak for you, but the game generally doesn't punish you for being yourself. You can work in flavor answers instead of the "right" answer and still reach the same general plot conclusions. Also, if an answer backfires, you can scroll back in the scene as far as you want and choose other answers. I like this for a couple reasons - one, you shouldn't have to reload the game just because your answer didn't work like you thought it would. Two, there are so many little bits and pieces of good dialog spread throughout the game that having to replay 20 times to read it all would be excessive, and this lets you feel things out a little more in one playthrough (while still leaving room to replay and choose other answers if that is indeed how you prefer to play.)
Concerning the dialog and characters, I love the way they're written. Characters have predominant characteristics you'll quickly come to know them by, but they all have their own layers, and you can start to feel for how different dialog options will affect them. Some take jokes better than others, and you can tell crossing certain lines might provoke rather than convince. Getting to learn how to reason with, connect with, inspire or understand each character has its own flavor. There are a few curves thrown in, too, and room for experimentation and surprises (you can look at the locked achievements for hints about these!)
Some people will find this game repetitive, but for me, I was able to pick it back up right after beating it and start a new path up out of curiosity for what other directions the story could have gone. I guess one criticism about this is that most of the story dialog happens in the first half of the game. Things start to dry up more toward the end, where most of the chips have fallen and you've already gotten to know your team of characters. Also, if you manage to derail yourself from whatever relationship-based plot path you were on, the story scenes will kind of just disappear and you have to assume you botched things somehow. This isn't a huge problem, but it does stand out a little.
I love the various elements at play in the story and tone. You stand as a force of order and rationality, and indeed everything seems to be realistic and has a logical explanation to be found, yet the sinister undertones of the game, just like imagination and unseen machinations in real life, can tempt you to doubt yourself and your senses. There are fringes of the theatrical or the bizarre here and there without ever crossing the line into fantasy.
One mixed feeling I have is about the traitor mechanic. Without spoiling it, I'll just say t's a great idea, and the first time you play, it's an interesting concern to try and figure out. Once you understand how it works in practice, it is a bit more plain on subsequent plays - narratively it's still great, but there could have been a little bit more going on in the game mechanism aspect of it for replays.
I would love to see a similar game to this, whether a sequel or just a spiritual successor. Maybe for me this is just lightning in a bottle, but I can totally get into this haunting, calculating, erudite and intimate microgenre. Credit to the developers, for sure, because this artfully assembled game certainly feels like more than just the sum of its unique parts.
The writing is beautiful and the random elements make it difficult. However I love it
I finally beat the full story. I'd have to say. It's not really worth the money. It gets repetitive real fast and there are parts of the game that are so annoying they make you want to quit the game all together. Those parts are meant to be challenging skill walls, but considering that you have to start the whole freaking story all over again if you can't pass them, they make you want to quit the game right there and then when you fail. Also the whole point of games like this are for story telling brought about through strong character development. This game starts off well with weekend conversations that work to build your relationships with all the characters little by little, but they quickly abandon that part of the game within like the first like half hour and they don't really replace it with anything meaningful once its gone. You continue to hang out with the one person you had the most connection to, but that's it. The other characters are sidelined and you only interact with them in a few extremely choice limited shallow moments. There is a lot of reasons to reply the story over and over again, but once you actually beat it fully you will most likely be sick of the game by then and not want to play through it anymore.So yeah. I would save my money.
When I first bought Black Closet, I didn't really know what to expect. Hell, I even kind of laughed when I first realised that this was about a bunch of school girls. But I've been pleasantly surprised. The strategic elements of balancing your minions' time, prioritising mysteries, deciding how you want to deal with the Red Mask - it's all pretty fun. A lot of replayability can be found with the custom mode and going down different paths to collect CGs.
Also Vonne x Elsa is adorable and no one can tell me otherwise.
Amazing concept and I've sunk a lot of time into playing both the story mode and the customize-able mode. Managed to get to the final boss when all my friends bailed on helping me. The end-game mechanics are rather confusing as to what you need to do the first time you get to it, and the boss is definitely OP as hell, but overall, the story and the art and mechanics make this a pretty good game. I did get this on sale, which I think is what increases the value for me. Definitely plan to sink more time into it sometime. Also, 10/10 on the main character.
good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game good game
Esse jogo é muito legal. Ele conta com alguns caminhos diferentes a cada jogada, tornando a experiência divertida e o "replay value" alto.
Vale muito a pena.
This is a rather clever investigate-em-up that leads you to feel like you're actually investigating things. The random elements mean that although there's a best approach to most investigations, memorization will only take you so far. Much more important is to develop the skills of your team and get them performing well. Which is tricky, since one of the things you need to investigate is that there's a (randomly determined at start of playthrough) traitor on your team.
Excellent visual novel with a cool card game and a lot of distinctive paths to go down and mysteries to uncover. Love the art style as well, particularly the character and cutscene stuff.
推荐是真的愿意推荐的
整个游戏机制和任务设定我都很喜欢
可以说是一款不可多得的文字类游戏
作为一个常年抛开剧情的傻逼玩家来说，我还能静下心读下文本~~
至于百合 真的是仁者见仁了...
好想抄成其他题材的游戏啊......
