Broken Minds

LockedOn Developer

LockedOn Publisher

2018-05-28 Release

Indie SingleplayerTags

Game News Posts: 11

🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse

Positive (13 reviews)

https://www.lockedongames.com/broken-minds

Steam Store

Update Notes for Oct 29

Should fix glitch where Logic Train would not unlock even if you gave it the correct answers

[ 2023-10-29 18:00:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Update Notes for Aug 5

Finally added achievements to the game! You should be able to unlock them simply by loading a save near the ending screen if you've already gotten all the endings! Enjoy!

[ 2023-08-05 19:08:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Broken Spirits Gameplay Trailer

[previewyoutube=AWEYyN4lf4g;full][/previewyoutube] I'm very excited to show the first look at gameplay in Broken Spirits! This trailer runs buttery smooth because I'm using Unity's in-engine capture, which keeps the framerate constant no matter what. But it actually has a pretty good framerate when playing the game normally as well (no noticeable hiccups)! That might change once I add more rooms and stuff though. I had the Midori model mostly ready, and a few of the textures and props, but the rest of the content in this trailer was entirely created in just a week for the trailer itself. I don't know if that's representative of how long it takes for me to make three rooms. Some rooms had more props to make than others. The thing that will probably change the most from what you see in this trailer and the final game is the exterior. I slapped it together with assets from an even older prototype to finish this in time. But I plan to add much more detail to the roof, extra design elements, redoing the foliage, etc. The outside of the mansion will likely be an entirely separate level to ensure I can add more detail. There will probably be other changes as well once I bring a cultural consultant on board to help make the environments and story more accurate. That was something I wanted to do on Broken Minds, but lacked the resources for. Midori's model was initially created by vidavic. I tweaked some things about it afterwords, but it is 90% made by her. I used bits and pieces from this model in other models for example the models in Catalyst Wake are all mashed together with bits from this Midori model. It's also been super helpful as a reference for myself when modeling human characters. I can't thank her enough! You'll notice there's a new look for the logo! The calligraphy was drawn by shodowave. It's so cool to have custom work done for this logo, and they did a great job! The maneki-neko is my first in-game photogrammetry object. I scanned it myself. It's a great technique, but you shouldn't use it for everything. It works best for organic shapes. As was mentioned in the presentation, I estimate it will take two years to make this, but take that with a huge grain of salt. Going into Catalyst Wake, I thought each part would take a month. Turns out it takes two and a half months. There are six chapters in Broken Spirits, so two years would mean four months per chapter. That seems doable, but who knows? I never know for sure until I'm actually making it. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1600470/The_Evolving_World_Catalyst_Wake/ The good news is, because I was originally going to start making this in 2018 I've been planning it for many years now. I am very clear on the kind of game I'm making, what the parameters are, where I can scale things back if need be, etc. In any case, I'll be releasing chapters as I complete them, so you won't have to wait two years to play it.

[ 2021-07-09 01:04:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

"Sparkling Melon" Update Now Live!

Introducing Sparkling Melon, the latest update to Broken Minds! Sparkling Melon introduces a brand-new difficulty mode system. Now you can choose to play as a "Casual Sleuth" or a "Master Detective".
Casual Sleuth is for players who would rather focus on the story than get bogged down in confusing puzzles. Instead of Logic Trains, players simply select the right answer between several choices to proceed. Currently there is no penalty for getting it wrong, but that may change in a future update with a scoring system of some kind. For now though, it's pretty simple. Master Detective includes all the Logic Trains you know and love. If you want a challenge, this is the mode for you! Sparkling Melon also makes some updates to the sprites. Before, sprites kept their heads in a static position as their expressions changed. Now the sprites move their heads, like they do in Methods it makes them seem more alive. Some expressions have also been altered or cleaned up, and Hiroki's body has been redrawn. The thick borders around the characters are now more consistent. Other small changes:

Fixed confusing Puppet Theater minigame answer.
Fixed bug with detectives swapping normal and blinking expressions during deduction section.
Fixed bug where dream music would not stop playing if you moved through the dialogue quickly.
Added apostrophes to minigame text

As for Broken Spirits, I'm sorry that I wasn't able to fulfill my goal of monthly updates. As I recently announced on my website lockedongames.com, I am changing the way I work on projects to be one at a time instead of switching rapidly between them. Treating each game's development like a "marathon" forces me to work on them more frequently, and gets them done much faster. And focusing on one at a time prevents whiplash from reorienting myself to working on something different. By forcing myself to only focus on my recent project Methods for the past year or so, it enabled me to complete it in about ten months which I would not have thought possible for such a long project. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1271300/Methods_The_Detective_Competition/ But even though I was focusing on Methods, I did manage to sneak in some work on Broken Spirits here and there, because I'm very excited about it and couldn't help myself. I'm pleased to say that I've sorted out the issues I was having with the plot though there's still work to be done. I've trimmed the cast down a little as well (though all the characters I originally announced are still there).

As you can see from this screenshot, I've been experimenting with Reflection Probes, which aren't that big of a performance cost. I'm planning to completely overhaul the mansion to add more detail, make the space larger and more impressive, and optimize it better as well. Character models will also be redone. Anyway, Broken Spirits' development has unfortunately been bumped to 2021 at the earliest as a result of my new method of working on projects. But that just means it'll be even better when it finally arrives, and when development does start up again, I will be making frequent weekly updates on my progress though probably not here, since I don't want to clutter up Broken Minds' game page with stuff about the sequel too much. It will probably end up on my website, so make sure to subscribe to the blog there if you want to stay informed. Until next time! LockedOn.

[ 2020-06-02 17:11:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Reiwa Era

May 1st, 2019. It's now, like, the end of the Heisei Era. Nobody really liked him anyway. In the brand? New? Reiwa era? Things will be a lot different? In the Reiwa era, there won't be gross things like bread sweat or market-based economies. Everything will be 100% provided by me. You will all get glasses, but only non-prescription. They will be sunglasses. Sunglasses are my favorite shades. Congratulations to the new Emperor? I love how emperors still exist but like, in an ornamental way like how my lamp complements my rug, that's soooooo cool? Imagine if the emperor didn't match my rug? Yuck Keep on doing those awesome emperor things. reiwa~

[ 2019-05-02 03:26:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Broken Spirits: First Screenshots, Synopsis and Characters Revealed

These screenshots show Midori, the protagonist of Broken Spirits, exploring her wealthy family's enormous mansion.

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS

Returning home after a suspicious accident leaves her broken and burned, Midori Kariyama finds herself pulled into the chaos of her estranged family, who are being targeted by a serial killer.

MIDORI KARIYAMA My goal with Midori was to create a stark contrast with the protagonist of the first game, Noa. Midori is athletic, brash, loud, acts without thinking, and embraces being a loner. She has a swagger to her that attracts people's attention when she walks into a room, as well as her arresting scarred appearance. Her cat Naughty Frump always rides on her shoulder. She tends to wear military-style camo pants and jackets. She is actually kind of dumb, and isn't too good at piecing together logic.

KATSURA KARIYAMA Katsura is Midori's mother. She is the first female CEO of Japan, and is ridiculously wealthy. For her character and design, I wanted to make sure she didn't echo Noriko too much she's more cold than outright mean.

RYOU KARIYAMA Ryou is a (terrible) rapper who is hoping to take his "talent" overseas someday! He's Midori's cousin. His design is sort of the usual "gangster" anime stereotype, turned up to eleven with the gold face-studs and full body tattoo. He's actually pretty nice and sort of a yakuza poser.

GUNPEI KARIYAMA Midori's father. I always pictured Gunpei as this big, friendly guy. Of course, certain events in his life have made him a little more gloomy.

YOSHINORI URANE Yoshinori works as a stock broker. His #1 award-winning stock tip is to invest in the Urane family company. For his design, I wanted to make sure you could tell that he's on the Urane side of the family, so I copied Katsura's eye shape. Gray hairs are sort of creeping slowly over him.

MOKEI URANE Midori's cousin, from Katsura's side of the family. He aspires to work in film and television. As soon as I thought of Mokei as a director, I knew he should probably be in a very flashy outfit with a monochromatic color scheme. I chose yellow to reflect his energy in a friendly way. It's kind of a similar coat as the Ghost Trick character big hair and shoulder pads suggest a lack of substance. I added the buttons for a unique touch.

UME HAKASE Ume is the only character in the game from Broken Minds. Ume claims to be trying to steer the YPDA in a less criminal direction under her leadership, which is partially thanks to Takuma and Yuzuki not being part of the organization anymore. Ume was really hard to age up, because my original design of "29-year-old" Ume already had lines under her eyes. It was difficult to design her with longer hair, because it just didn't look like Ume unless her hair was short. But I knew that, being a whole decade older, she would probably have changed her hair style. Then I figured out the "razor line" and finally, something clicked and she looked like her snarky self again. The reason I chose to focus on Ume for Broken Spirits and not Takuma and Yuzuki is because I felt that Broken Minds had more of its focus on Takuma he's the one making all the deductions and most of the decisions. Yuzuki had the least focus of any of them, but she has more relevance in the third game. Ume's particular brand of detective work is at the forefront of Broken Spirits so it was a natural choice. The reason I left Takuma and Yuzuki out entirely is because I wanted to shake up the dynamic of the detectives' interactions. You'll notice that in Broken Minds, Ume often follows Takuma's lead. Ume looks up to Takuma, and often imitates his mannerisms a lot of her snarkyness and rude remarks come from wanting to impress Takuma. I thought it would be interesting to see Ume in charge of the YPDA without Takuma's influence, and without Yuzuki's extravagant spending and criminality to worry about what would Ume be like? Anyway, you will hopefully see more depth to her in this game. Note: The characters listed here are not the entire cast.

THE STYLE OF THE GAME

The aesthetic of Broken Minds leaned more towards Western architecture with slight Japanese elements, but I wanted to flip that dynamic for this game. For the UI, I'm drawing on influences from obscure Japanese horror games, cyberpunk, and websites from the early 2000s.

MORE GAMEPLAY

The game design philosophy from Broken Minds was sometimes deliberately confusing, and sometimes just plain confusing, and I think it was too concentrated in the second half of the game. The gameplay in Broken Spirits is being approached from an entirely different angle. It revolves around rewarding two things: exploration and deduction, and both of those things lead into each other: exploring allows you to make deductions, and deducing allows you to explore more. A simple example is exploring a room and finding a key, deducing the key unlocks a door in the room, and unlocking the door and exploring the next room.

SOCIAL TREES

Remember the "Social Link" gameplay I mentioned in my last post? In Broken Spirits, they're called Social Trees. The idea is that by exploring, you can find various objects relating to the characters. Combining these objects in the right ways lets you unlock conversations that deepen your relationship, "growing the tree". When you reach the end of these conversations, you'll gain access to a room. Explore and find objects > make a deduction about objects > unlock new area to explore. Having played both Persona 3 and the Danganronpa series, which both use similar gameplay, I hope to alleviate some of the frustrations of those systems while retaining the positives. For instance, with Danganronpa, there's very little incentive to use the Social Link system, from a gameplay point of view. What's the gameplay reward for spending many hours choosing the right gift and answering the right questions? Abilities in the Class Trial sections that I never used? It didn't feel worth it. I was discouraged, not only because I often got the multiple choice questions or gifts wrong and ended up making zero progress with characters, but because the character I was attempting to progress with would die! Persona 3's system is better in my opinion. I actually ended up completing many Social Links because doing so gave me a useful gameplay reward, plus what I had to do to advance was always very clear. However, like Danganronpa, you have to kind of "main" certain characters because it's very hard to max all of them in one play-through, unless you look up a guide. In Broken Spirits, you aren't constrained by time, but you are constrained by sections. Let me explain a bit. Broken Spirits borrows the concept of "Freetime" which is defined as the time between major story events (aka MURDERS!!), where you can just relax and do whatever. If you would like to skip right to a main story event (IT'S A MURDER, FOLKS!!), you are able to do so. But otherwise, you can spend Freetime exploring and growing Social Trees. Each Social Tree is split into three horizontal sections: Roots, Trunk, Branches. In one day of Freetime, it's possible to unlock the Roots of every character's Social Tree. You have to wait until the next day of Freetime to unlock the Trunk, and then the next to unlock the Branches. The three horizontal sections are split into three vertical sections: three parts to the Trunk, three parts to the Roots, three parts to the Branches. So in total there are nine conversations to have with each character. Hope that makes sense!

THE MUSIC

Once again I'm drawing on many different styles for the music, but this time more geared towards a "2000s" sound. My influences for the soundtrack are the Witch Hunter Robin, Persona 3, Beyond Good & Evil, and Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex OSTs. I'm also incorporating waaay more traditional Japanese elements like koto and shamisen, and I've written many tracks in the Japanese scale. The OST will be a mishmash of traditional Japanese music, orchestral, techno, house, neo-jazz and alt-rock. How the heck do all these things come together, you might ask? Well good news! I'm going to be releasing a preview of Broken Spirits' OST once every month from now until the game's release. Right now I've composed over 30 tracks, but most of them I want to keep a surprise, so that's why there's a slow roll out. Here's the first track I've released: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNex9QDbeuU I decided to release "Crimefightingers" first because I think it effectively illustrates a large sample of the different styles I'm meshing together in this soundtrack. Unlike Broken Minds, this time I have several leitmotifs that will pop up throughout, and tracks specifically for certain characters that play during their Social Tree interactions. I've also invested a little in hiring some real musicians to record melody lines for certain tracks it's thanks to your support of Broken Minds that I'm able to do things like that which improve the experience.

REVEALING TOO MUCH?

If you're worried about this post spoiling too much of the game, please don't be. This game will be very long, and there are very significant plot elements and characters that I'm leaving out. How long will it be? Well, I miscalculated how long it would take other people to play through Broken Minds. I can complete all of Broken Minds (every route, plus Hard Mode and Detective medals) in roughly four to five hours. However, I read quickly, plus I know the answers to the puzzles. It turns out it takes most people that long to finish only one route. Broken Spirits does not have multiple routes (though I have decided it will have two endings). I'm adding support for a maximum of two play-throughs with a New Game Plus mode. However, as it currently stands there are six chapters outlined. I don't know how long each of them will take to play, however it's reasonable to assume they'll take at least as long as the deduction section in Broken Minds, so about two hours. I'm going to estimate one play-through taking 12 to 15 hours WITHOUT Freetime, but I will update this estimate as I develop the game. I wanted to at least describe the Social Tree gameplay in order to get some feedback does this sound like a fun system to you, or a boring system? The time to tell me is now!

WHEN WILL I FINISH IT?

Well, seeing as Broken Minds took two years and this game is like 3-4x the length... just kidding. It's a bit more complicated than that there are a lot of factors influencing the amount of time it will take to finish this game.

SHORTENING THE DEVELOPMENT TIME

[olist]

Unlike Broken Minds, I'll have a complete outline for the plot and the mysteries. This tripped me up last time because I kept having to revise stuff or squish things I'd forgotten into other puzzles.

I don't have to invent the universe. Broken Minds involved a lot of taxing creative decisions that slowed down development. However, now I know what the YPDA is all about, the creative goals and rules of the series, and how to portray the world.

Less complicated mini-games. Did you know that creating the eight Logic Trains in Broken Minds took about six to eight months? I was probably even more confused creating them than you were playing them! While coming up with, designing and coding the mini-games rarely took more than three or four days, implementing all the puzzles took a huge amount of time. Broken Spirits' mini-games are less complex, due to the fact that I don't have to account for two versions of each mystery.

I don't have to render and code exploration. For Broken Minds, each time I created a new environment I needed to render about forty to sixty different images. Each of those images had a lot of soft lighting, which increases render time. Each render probably took at least two hours. Each one also needed to be brought into Photoshop for post-processing, which was very tedious. And every time I added a new angle to an environment, I had to code it in and test it. Developing Broken Spirits in Unity, I don't have to re-render a background if I want to change something. I do have to re-bake the lighting in the scene, but that takes less time than rendering one of Broken Minds' backgrounds, and I don't have to do that every time I change something.

I don't have to draw CGs. I'm the first to admit that the CGs in Broken Minds look pretty bad. It's not my favorite thing to do I'd much rather just design characters. In Broken Spirits, there won't be CGs. Rather, there will be cinematic angles during conversations on the 3D character models. This takes literally seconds to implement, whereas drawing CGs takes hours. Because of this, I will be able to have wordless, visual-based sequences, which cuts down on how much I need to write.

Writing multiple parallel routes slowed everything down. Every time I wrote a sequence, I would have to write six different things for Noa to think about it. Now, on one hand, it was a fun writing exercise. But on the other, those were five extra lines that could've been contributing to linear instead of parallel story progression that the majority of players wouldn't even see. And it could also be very tedious to essentially rewrite what I'd already written. I was too exhausted by the end of it to do much revision.

Adventure Creator. Broken Minds was created using Ren'Py, which is incredibly easy to use and super fast. But Adventure Creator is even easier to use, and it uses blocks to code instead of a special brand of Python. As long as I use it for what it's intended for, a lot of the infrastructure is set up already for me, and I just need to make unique graphics, which is something I enjoy more than trying to figure out how to code. [/olist]

LENGTHENING THE DEVELOPMENT TIME

[olist]

Unity is slow. Running Unity uses up memory on my computer. I've seen disk space slowly drop while I have it open, and if I keep it open over night, that becomes a big problem. Plus, I often need to have it open alongside other memory-heavy programs like Cheetah3D, Photoshop and Animate CC. If I have a huge scene with a high polygon count, dragging script blocks around in Adventure Creator gets way slower. After some bad experiences with this, I decided to split the Kariyama Mansion environment into three sections, and now it's much faster.

Obviously, the story is longer. As I mentioned before, this game will be at least three times the length of Broken Minds, if not more. The outline is still not entirely finished I'm taking my time with it to make sure it's really solid. And I've been working on that outline for a year. So yeah.

More minigames. Even though the mini-games will be less complex, there will be more of them, simply because there are more mysteries. Developing them could take longer than the Logic Trains, or it could take the same amount of time. But it probably won't be shorter.

Freetime. Broken Minds didn't have Freetime, which will require that I create many different collectables, a shop interface, and of course the Social Trees. There are over twenty-one characters in the game that I plan to give Social Trees. YIKES !

Coding is harder. I know I just said that Adventure Creator is easier to use than Ren'Py. It's true, but only for things that Adventure Creator was already built to do. Some of the ideas I have could get very cumbersome to code.

Character models. As you see in the screenshot, as well as sprites each character gets a 3D model. These take around four to six hours to create and animate. So far I've made eleven that are sort of "in-progress" and will need to be tweaked later. Each model needs to have idle, walking, running, and talking animations just to start with, with more animations added to enhance dialogue.

The environments are larger. The sets in my games are extremely important to me, so I spend a lot of time on them. And some of the sets in Broken Spirits are 5 to 10 times larger than the ones in Broken Minds. The Kariyama Mansion alone has more rooms than every location in Broken Minds. With more space comes the need for more props. Fortunately, making props and environments is something I enjoy, but it does take a long time I've been working on the Kariyama Mansion set for three or four months now and I would say its only 50% complete. I have a new system where I try to complete a room a day. So far I'm only three rooms into that schedule, but it works, for the most part. [/olist]

IMPROVEMENTS

I'm hoping to address many things that I feel were poor choices that I made with Broken Minds/Egg/Spiral. One of those things is stigmatizing mental illness. Most of the characters in the Kowareta Kokoro series are terrible people, and some of them are murderers, and right now most of those murderers have mental illnesses that caused them to become detached from valuing human life. Though their motives for murder are more than just that, I regret relying on mental illness as the underlying justification for them to be able to murder people, not just because it's lazy and overdone, but because the majority of murderers in the real world are sane people (the revenge-seeking boyfriend, the desperate robber, or the friendly neighborhood police officer who shot someone who was unarmed "in defense", for example). Going forward, mental illness will not be a scapegoat in any shape or form for the murderers' violent or morally questionable actions. [spoiler]To be clear: Noa's mental illness was not an underlying reason for her to murder her parents and Uzumaki. However, calling Noa's murderous persona "Psychopath" was, I think, in poor taste. Uzumaki was meant to exhibit narcissistic traits that also link him to psychopathy, and Hato's savant-style delusions also hinted at unspecified mental divergence.[/spoiler] I think that there is a reason why psychopathy has that stigma, but it's not entirely justified, and of course, sweeping generalizations should be frowned upon, generally speaking. It's a nuanced issue, especially once you start talking about psychopathy in terms of ASPD, and I think that's worth exploring. Broken Spirits will tackle the stigma around mental illness and ASPD head-on in what is hopefully a productive, interesting way that won't be preachy. With Broken Spirits' larger cast, I will be able to branch out a bit and have characters who are not murderers, or stalkers, or victims, who are good people, and who happen to have a mental illness. The actual change here is that I'm letting some characters be good, in other words. But don't worry. It won't be too many. Another improvement will be the release of the game. Broken Minds was first released on itch.io. The only marketing I did was two posts on visual novel forums. Then I released it on GameJolt, where nobody bought it. I'm probably not going to bother with GameJolt next time. Several months later, after I'd repeatedly updated the game with new backgrounds and features like the Flowchart, I released it on Steam. It hasn't done amazingly well, but it's done better than itch.io, mostly thanks to being included in a few bundles. Then I reluctantly wrote a Reddit post about it, which didn't result in any further sales and now, here we are! Looking back, it was a pretty terrible rollout. I have no enthusiasm for marketing my game, I kind of just wanted it to sink into obscurity, where maybe it would be found by a tiny group of people and become a cult thing. But Broken Spirits will be a little different. For one, I'm going to prioritize Steam as the release platform, and instead of a full release, I'm going to make Broken Spirits an "Early Access" title first. This allows it to have two releases, in a way. As far as marketing goes, I'm attempting to be more public about my development process in fact, you're reading marketing for Broken Spirits right at this moment! You fell for my trap!! Now you'll have to buy Broken Spirits and the entire line of limited edition Yuzuki dolls and the Utsu Neko t-shirt I haven't yet made!! The final improvement is that I am attempting to make some of the characters attractive this time. I know that Takuma is incredibly sexy, but his shining abs did not rake in the big bucks, as I had hoped. This is priority one for me, because all I care about is money, just like the YPDA. It will be extremely difficult to draw, but one... maybe two characters in Broken Spirits will not have broken-looking fingers. I will be putting their attractive hands in all of my clickbait thumbnails so be prepared for this series to really take off. Hopefully I will have more updates about Broken Spirits soon. However, if you're dying for more content from me RIGHT NOW you can check out my NaNoRenO game "Prison of Lies", which is currently on my itch.io page. It's about an hour long, and it covers a lot of familiar territory. Stay tuned! LockedOn.

[ 2019-04-13 16:55:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Sequel Information

The one year anniversary has come and gone, and I think now is a good time to start talking about what the sequel to Broken Minds is going to be like. In Japanese, "Kokoro" has three meanings. One is "heart", which is the most common meaning. One is "mind", which is obviously what I went with for Broken Minds, and the last is "spirit", as in who someone is "in spirit", like their characteristics, in a way. That is the true meaning of "Broken Spirits". However, there's also, another, more playful meaning of the word "spirit", which is "ghost". And "ghosts" have something to do with "Broken Spirits" as well. Here are ten fun facts about it! [olist]

Broken Spirits takes place after Broken Minds.

Noa is not the main character. It's someone entirely new.

The "ghosts" are Japanese ghosts, aka yokai.

The main themes are "secrets" and "family".

There will be two new detectives replacing two of the older ones.

The character sprites will be shaded and more polished in general.

The Logic Trains will not be returning. However, the concept of "arguing with the detectives gameplay" remains.

I'm planning on making this game in Unity instead of Ren'Py, with 3D character models.

The main inspirations for the game are Witch Hunter Robin, Monster, Ergo Proxy, and Persona 3.

Like Persona and Danganronpa, I'm working on a "social link" way of getting to know the characters better. [/olist] The approach to storytelling in Broken Spirits will be more conventional, but vastly improved. Eliminating multiple routes is part of that, and I'm going to do everything I can to ensure that the ending is as satisfying as possible, with very few loose ends. Playing Broken Minds is not necessary in order to play Broken Spirits. One of the goals I have for this series is to make each entry pretty different from one another in tone and gameplay, with really the only consistency being the YPDA, and the element of a murder mystery. However, obviously there will be incidental clues and contrasts that will make it 10% more fun to have played Broken Minds first. Because the game is in 3D, I will have more opportunities to let visual storytelling take over, through unique camera angles and cinematic moments that are more difficult to pull off (and a little awkward) with 2D cut scenes. On a purely functional basis, expect more gameplay and less talking (though it is still a visual novel, so dialogue is sort of the bread and butter of the game). I hope to have some screenshots available early next year, which be able to show off the character sprites and 3D models. Until then, stay tuned! LockedOn.

[ 2018-11-04 15:18:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Light Novels DLC Released!

Surprise! I'm finally releasing Broken Egg on Steam, with a brand new light novel as well Broken Spiral! They are free to read for anyone who has purchased the main game which right now is pretty cheap, thanks to this Halloween sale! These light novels are a good way for me to bridge the gap between games, and hopefully answer some unresolved questions. Why today? Because it's the one year anniversary of Broken Minds! One year ago, I finished the final build of the game. Of course, since then there's been bug fixes and a much-needed update. But it was finished "in spirit". And speaking of spirits (hey, check out that smooth segue), I'm planning a post soon that will announce a few things about the sequel to Broken Minds, Broken Spirits, across all platforms, so keep an eye out for that. I hope you had a happy Halloween! LockedOn.

[ 2018-11-01 13:47:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

OST Now Available on Steam

I'm happy to announce that the OST for Broken Minds is now available to purchase as DLC! It includes 40 tracks, over an hour and seven minutes of music. Successfully publishing this DLC was sort of a test now I am confident I will also be able to put the light novel "Broken Egg" as DLC up on Steam as well. Unlike the soundtrack, Broken Egg will be free for anyone with the base game. Stay tuned! LockedOn.

[ 2018-08-29 20:32:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

"Cold Lemon" Update Now Live!

This update is called Cold Lemon because, like a cold lemon, it's very refreshing. Here's what's new! Goal Indicator The map now has a little exclamation point icon that appears in the areas you need to go. When you're required to click on a "Talk" icon to proceed in the story, it changes accordingly. Feel free to deviate from the path, as the indicator only shows you the quickest route through the game. Wheel of Fallacies Hint System The hint system will now indicate when you've selected the wrong fallacy, instead of just telling you when you've missed a fallacy. Initially, I was going to remove some fallacies to make this minigame simpler overall. But I realized that that might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. With this improvement, the entire game is much less frustrating, so I just left them in. Slippers in the YPDA About halfway through developing this game, I had a panic attack: in Japan, people wear slippers indoors! It had somehow slipped my mind, so I frantically added slippers and bathroom slippers in every location, and updated the sprites to wear slippers as well. However, I went a bit too overboard, and added slippers to the YPDA's porch. What I somehow didn't realize was that you wouldn't wear slippers in an office building just at home. "Duh!", to use a 90s expression. Oh well. I've since removed the slippers from the YPDA. However, I left the slippers in Uzumaki's office, because the floor in his meeting room is covered in tatami mats. Arrows Since there was some confusion about where to go when the game requires you to leave your location, I made it so that the forward arrow wiggles so that it's more obvious that you need to press it. As part of this, I added a new angle to Noa's apartment that focuses directly on the window, instead of the center of the image being focused on the couch (which makes it way easier to know what to do). CGs I added Noa's parents to her apartment while you're able to look around. I also updated/redrew some CGs at the "Detective's accusation" section. Uzumaki Route Fix [spoiler]The detectives never addressed why the autopsy was "poison and a heart attack" on the Uzumaki is Guilty route. I've since changed that, but in doing so, I also changed the cutscene to reflect the new version of events. In the original, Uzumaki was shown to have played a sound on a cassette that caused Noriko's pacemaker to malfunction, and then smear lipstick on Hiroki's lips, but that had a few flaws. Why would Hiroki die just from having the lipstick smeared on his lips? In the new, simpler version, Noriko dies by panicking at being shot at (remember, she has a heart condition), and Uzumaki feeds Hiroki a pink poisoned chocolate, leaving a stain on his lips that the detectives thought was the lipstick.[/spoiler] Noa's Backyard I modeled an entirely new backyard. It's still a big field, but now there are buildings and a road behind it, so it doesn't seem like Noa lives in the middle of nowhere. The ambulance is also no longer still there. Uzumaki's Computers The original interface on the computers was based on (and used some icons from) Windows 3.1, which was released in April in 1992. However, I don't know if that was the case in Japan. But more importantly, apparently Microsoft's guidelines about using screenshots of their software is that they can't be modified. Since I have to modify screenshots to serve the story, I decided to just make my own interface from scratch, inspired by Windows 3.0. Also, Reiwa's computer and Uzumaki's computer have different windows open on them, whereas before they were both the same. Internet References Removed I wanted to reference the internet as part of the mystery, but there wasn't much to the internet back then. I've updated it so that Takuma talks about books instead. Other Changes

Save prompts before Logic Trains
Changed the final Logic Train infoboxes to be less confusing. Now it's clear that you're "breaking" the logic of Takuma's argument.
[spoiler]Fixed a flowchart goof where it didn't actually show you the right way to be innocent on "bad" routes.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Noa now solves/tampers with the lipstick clue in a way that makes more sense.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Noa now has a "reading letter" expression, so that it's clear that it was in her possession when Ume asks for it later. I also updated the Puppet Theater minigame to include this.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Takuma no longer discusses his brilliant theory about how toxic paint chips from the ceiling landed in a glass of water that Hiroki drank.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Noa's body was flipped the wrong way in the "alone" ending, so I re-rendered it.[/spoiler]
I ran the entire script through spell check (which I actually hadn't done yet). Hopefully there aren't any more spelling errors.

There are a few other things that I mentioned in my last announcement that aren't in this update. I decided not change Ume's motive theory, or add dialogue to further explain the fire at Noa's house. I was initially going to change Ume's motive theory because it really is nonsensical. However, that is also kind of the point it's supposed to be initially wrong. If I rewrote it, it would essentially be the same, just a different crazy explanation. So I kept it in, even if it is a bit confusing. I tried adding exposition to the scene after Noa jumps out of the window (and it's actually still there in the code if you take a look), but I felt it ruined the flow of the scene. Plus, all you really need to know is that Noa went to the hospital, which is something she mentions right afterwords, so it wasn't really necessary. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the update! LockedOn.

[ 2018-06-20 16:15:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Upcoming Patch!

I'm so glad people are playing Broken Minds, and someone even did a Let's Play, which is very exciting. However, it's also brought to light some of the lingering plot holes/weird inconsistencies/mistakes that I somehow left in the game. I think it would be pretty negligent of me to leave these in. Part of the reason these mistakes are there in the first place is that, in the beginning, the game was going to be extremely short, so I was just making it up as I went along. I had the main mystery and idea in mind, but it wasn't fully thought out yet. However, I later decided to expand the game and added much more complexity to it, in the process creating plot-holes and illogical dialogue. Much of this I later thought through more and fixed, but in the early parts of the game, there's still some stuff there that I added as set-ups for things that ended up never happening, half-baked theories, etc. I also never really went over the game's dialogue with a fine-toothed comb after I completed it, mostly from burn-out. I'm regretting that a lot now, haha! That's why I'm excited to announce a new patch that will hopefully fix as many of these things as possible, and make it a more accurate 90s experience as well. I'm not sure when this patch will be completed, but I've moved it to be the next thing on my agenda, and all of these changes will be in the next update to the game. Here is a quick list of things I'm planning:

[spoiler]Add parents to apartment during fire. (I was originally going to, but for some reason I thought it wasn't necessary).[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Add dialogue to fire CG explaining what happened in more detail.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Forward arrow will pulsate near the window so it's more obvious that you need to go there.[/spoiler]
An icon to indicate where you need to go next on the map.
[spoiler]"Cross-reference my handwriting with the letter" contradicts the Logic Train later.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Ambulance is still there for some reason. Also, Noa's house was originally in a strange empty field of grass, which I later replaced with a surrounding neighborhood. However, the CG of the evidence bins still shows an empty field.[/spoiler]
Remove the yukata reference at the window (for some reason I thought Noa was wearing a yukata, when she clearly isn't).
[spoiler]Poison scar is weird. Why not have Noa taste the lipstick to prove it isn't poisoned instead?[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Ume's motive theory is so bad that even lampshading it doesn't work. I will change it to be better.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]I'm going to replace the computer screens in the therapist office with my own custom interface.[/spoiler]
I'm going to replace all the cellphones in the game with beepers. Japan actually did not start using cellphones as early as '92.
[spoiler]Lower transparency on Uzumaki's bookshelf so you can see the books inside.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]I'm going to cut down on redundant fallacies in the Wheel of Fallacies. Right now there are just too many options, too soon. I'm also going to change the code so that it will run a bit faster.[/spoiler]
You will be able to skip a Logic Train that you played if, for whatever reason, you loaded a save from before you played it.

These are, of course, just some of the changes. I don't think not having any of these things outright ruin the game, but they will definitely improve the experience and hopefully make it less frustrating. I will also be on the lookout for any more Let's Plays to see what sort of problems players are running into, and I'll do my best to include fixes for them in this update. A game developer's work is never done! LockedOn. EDIT: While researching pagers, I came across a document that stated that while cell phones were not widespread in Japan in 1992, they were available (the one in particular I found reference to was a Motorola phone that looks very similar to the ones I use in the game). I have decided to table that change for now, unless you guys really clamor for it, because, even though it'd be really cool and much more 90s to have pagers, it requires replacing a LOT of assets and significant rewriting. But tell me what you think in the comments! Is this a more important anachronism than I'm making it sound? I'd also appreciate feedback on the Wheel of Fallacies. The two fallacies that I think are the most confusing are SIDESTEPPING and HYPOTHETICAL, and those are the ones I'd be taking away. Do you agree that those ones are the hardest, or did you have other ones in mind? Or do you like having eight fallacies? Whether or not I end up removing fallacies, I will be implementing a fix for the hint system right now if you select the right fallacy on a statement plus a wrong one, the hint system won't tell you that it's wrong. I'm going to add a little icon that's similar to the "!" that appears now, but instead with an "X", indicating you should unapply that fallacy from the statement.

[ 2018-05-29 17:58:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Broken Minds is a murder-mystery visual novel set in 90s Japan.

When lonely 20-something Noa Karada finds herself being stalked by a mysterious killer in a rabbit mask known as The Orphan, she contacts the Yamagata Private Detective Agency for help. However, as her case grows more complex, the detectives grow more distant and eccentric. Perhaps Noa would’ve been better off never letting them into her life at all…

Because you are playing as a client, and not as a detective or a lawyer, the gameplay consists of logic and reading comprehension puzzles based on Noa arguing with the detectives about the solution of the mystery.

• Explorable environments
• Many choices & hidden secrets throughout
• Six different endings
• Over an hour of original music
• That indie game sense of humor you've come to know and love
• Intense rabbit-related imagery

MINIMAL SETUPOS: Ubuntu 12.04 or newer
Processor: Intel Core 2 DuoMemory: 2 GB RAM
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: GTX 260 or equivalent
Storage: 2 GB available space
RECOMMENDED SETUPOS: Ubuntu 12.04 or newer
Processor: Intel Core 2 DuoMemory: 2 GB RAM
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: GTX 260 or equivalent
Storage: 2 GB available space

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