Gnosia is the best game about a guy with a cat living inside of his neck ever made.

A Visual Novel lives and dies on its story and characters, its art and music, and its VIBES. And in all these ways, Gnosia sings the sweetest song you'll ever hear. A social deduction game where everyone is certifiable and your strategies are ever changing, because so are the rules.

What makes Gnosia realltly stand out among its contemporaries is how it handles progression. Not only do you level up your stats as you play, allowing you to build out your character like an RPG, but the world of Gnosia and the lunatics trapped therein are rife with mysteries and riddled with secrets. As you learn more and more about the gameplay systems and how to manipulate the other characters onboard the ship, you become more able to use that knowledge to advance your understanding of the backstories of the characters and world of Gnosia, and that knowledge will further enable you to manipulate the characters in search of the results you're looking for with every round you play. Gnosia's "final boss" is a spectacular culmination of these mechanics, forcing you to execute every skill you've learned over your 20 or so hours with the game with peak precision against a terrifying threat. It's one of the most memorable boss fights I've played in a game this decade, and Gnosia is a visual novel. It's awesome.

Gnosia excels in its presentation as well. The art is excellent and unique and oh man, the music is blissful. Tense, exciting, nerve-wracking, and always enhancing the mood of every scene. The only fault to be found within Gnosia is that locating the game's final secrets may become a bore, but even that feels thematically and mechanically appeopriate. It's a very unique game well worth seeing through to its poignant and memorable conclusion. Cannot recommend it enough.

Very interesting game, and I think it's solid, but it is far too repetitive by the end. It doesn't help that my game either bugged out after the first trigger for an event, or I just have to keep doing these loops over and over for it to pop up again, so I can watch the event and get the true ending. Because to be honest, I wanted to stop actually playing these loops like 40-50 loops earlier than that. It's just too much

After 120+ loops I just decided to watch it on YouTube because I don't have faith the event will actually show back up. I don't think the game's story is particularly great either. It's great relative to the structure of the game and it works far better than one would expect, but when I step back and think about it, I think it's just not the most interesting story. Interesting characters though. I will give them that.

uhhhh i mean amogus

A very effective implementation of a "single player hidden role" game with great art, enjoyable characters, and an entertaining but not quite revolutionary narrative. It starts strong with a tutorial that blends well with the format of the core game loop and narrative, but can drag a bit near the middle and the very end.

As a hidden role game it nails one particular aspect needed, which is a balance between random chance elements and character driven elements. The six stats you can level are present on each participant of the "who dunnit" debates and influence the results of uncertain actions, like say how many people will buy your lie, but then you'll pickup on behavioral quirks with the NPCs that you can also work into your strategy. For instance, some characters will simp for others by default and will support them until it's firmly proven their preferred character is against them. It can be more subtle things too, like one character who would almost always shutdown attempts to derail debates if they were a specifc role. These little touches make the gameloop itself part of the narrative and accentuate the main objective of the game.

However, the format also works against the game the further you get in. In each loop you're not only trying to win the hidden-role game, but also uncover information through additional scenes that unlock under certain conditions. The further in you, the more you have to search to find them. There are two things that the game does really well to keep this from becoming a complete slog, though. First, you level up as you go, so you gradually get more advatages in the random elements of the game. Second, there's a subtle "search" feature that will at least do the work of finding the starting conditions needed to unlock scenes, and that is enough to keep you going 90% of the time.

These parts sometimes fight against each other, though. For instance, one scene requires completing a loop with specifc characters alive, but roles are always random, so you may have to restart a few times just to get that half of the condition set, then you still have to win which is far from guaranteed untill you have really good stats. Additionally, while the NPCs stats also start low and increase over time (in their unique ways) to help keep the difficulty from going wild, you do have the classic problem in RPGs of accidentally giving yourself a terrible build, which can really pump the brakes midgame. There is a respec option, but it is fittingly esoteric to access.

The pace of the game also helps mitigate some of these problems, but overall it still ended up feeling a bit long for me playing with no guide....

I also encountered a bug that prevented a certain scene from occurring, so I couldn't actually finish the game. 😥 So I watched the rest on YouTube.

Overall, this game is very smart and creative where it matters, but still feels like it's missing that last bit to be a real top tier experience. Definitely recommend playing it, and even to those outside the usual VN crowd. Definitely more a game than a book.

Bawling my eyes out about the he/she/they shawties you don't get to bang after the hundred plus loops 😭

If we're being real though this one of the most expertly crafted and designed experiences I've seen out of the indie scene for a minute. Every step of the way you learn about a system of rules and characters, which in turn you are given the tools to perturb the system to move in your favor. At first it plays the hidden role gameplay straight so you can learn the roles and understand the AI. Over time though you learn how to predict the AI, and can move things in your favor easier and easier. The more you play the more you learn but it never gets repetitive because the whole system of AI is carefully balanced to create incredible variety loop to loop.

The challenges are simple until you hit about the mid game, where the goal is often not to win the individual rounds of Werewolf but to instead focus on smaller more unique objectives. Ensuring certain characters survive or trying to eliminate particular targets early, things that exist outside the typical win state/fail state mentality built up in the beginning. One of my favorites is when playing as the killer, you have to make sure the only people who survive are you and a specific crew mate. In order to do so you must eliminate everyone else, teammates included. All these challenges are met with small underlying changes that never make it unfair to get your desired outcome, yet can pull the most out of your understanding of the group and their behaviors.

In many ways a peak science game where using the scientific method will lead you to the fullest understanding of the game and allowing you to perform at ease. Legit I could probably write a grad paper on how this game uses cognitive behavioral theory so competently but they ain't paying me to do that.

On the other hand, the unfortunate part in all this is the narrative is little more than self agrandizing fluff. There's nothing here that uses the sci-fi setting well. You spend lots of time learning about characters but only as a service for useless trivia that only occasionally feeds back into the gameplay. Most of the story plays around different scenes where the extremely anti-social protagonist gets flirted with by people of all genders then treats these same people as nothing more than pieces in the game to win. The repeating patterns give such a dissociative feel to the narrative the scenes meant to evoke an emotional response feel empty. They definitely could've done something with this but in the end it focuses on romantic tragedies and pointless, unanswered questions. C'est la vie I guess.

Overall though the game is hella magnificent. From top to bottom cleanly designed with only a rare few rough patches. Plus you can live out your pansexual fantasy, and what other game gives you that?

Okay, hear me out here. What if... a social deduction game, but as a single-player RPG? To some, it must sound like complete lunacy. How can a genre of game that is fundamentally about its human aspect have that removed from it? Well, the folks at Petit Depotto took that idea and ran with it, and the result is, simply put, one of the best games I have ever played.

The starship D.Q.O. travels across the galaxy, its crew a mishmash of displaced people from different planets, all of them fleeing from an invisible, terrifying threat called Gnos. This alien presence of unknown origin aims to erase humanity from existence and, to achieve that goal, it infects those who come in contact with it, taking over their minds.

Indistinguishable from their peers, these infected, called the Gnosia, seek to deceive and eliminate their own kin, and by the time the story begins, have caused the fall of entire worlds. Within the D.Q.O., the crew's worst fear comes to pass: someone, or some people aboard have become Gnosia, and they must be unmasked before they can take over the ship.

Taking after social deduction games such as Werewolf, The Resistance, or the more recent Among Us, in Gnosia, a pool of players is split into different groups, each player's role known only to themselves, that must identify each other and defeat the opposing faction. These types of games are common at parties, and are very fun. If you have never played them before, though, don't worry, as the game will carefully walk you through the rules in the beginning loops.

Yes, loops. Gnosia takes place in a time loop that begins as the Gnosia infect a set number of crewmates and a contingency plan is put in place: on each day, the crew will vote to cryogenically freeze a person who they suspect is Gnosia, in the hopes that all of the enemies will be neutralized. So long as there's at least one Gnosia free, during the night, they'll erase one of the humans on the ship. Humans win if they can freeze every Gnosia, who in turn are victorious if they come to outnumber humans on the ship.

Like in Gnosia's inspirations, there are other character roles that are introduced as you progress, all of which change the way the game is played when they're present. What makes the game more fascinating, however, and what I think is Gnosia's greatest achievement, is how effectively they mapped the social deduction gameplay to an RPG system.

During each day in Gnosia, a debate takes place, which consists of five rounds during which you and the other characters can use different commands to steer the conversation. Don't let the initial simplicity fool you: while, at first, it's only possible to accuse or defend other characters, as the game progresses, the discussion becomes more and more complex.

Characters in Gnosia have six stats: Charisma, Intuition, Logic, Charm, Performance and Stealth, all of which allow the use of different commands and affect various aspects of gameplay. As the game progresses, both you and the NPCs increase their stats and, from them, gain access to a myriad of different commands that help steer the debate, commands that can enhance the effect of others' speech, outline logical conclusions, and put other characters in tight spots, among other things.

At the end of the debate, you and your fellow crewmates cast your votes on who to eliminate. Hopefully, you didn't talk too much so to become annoying nor too little so to become suspicious, and were able to guide the conversation to the direction you wanted. Should you avoid the fridge, during the night, you can interact with other characters and get to know them better.

These mechanics form the core loop of Gnosia, which is brilliant for many reasons. First, it's one of those "one more turn" types of games that are hard to put down. So many play sessions of mine were made a couple hours longer because I just felt for going for "one" more loop before stopping, which then became four or five. It might feel random at first, but once you get a hang of the debates, the game becomes hard to put down.

More than that, the stat system in itself is beautifully realized, both mechanically and as a storytelling device. Mechanically, when building your character, no stat is useless: while there are some parameters you might want to focus on depending on the build you like, all of them serve an important gameplay purpose and there isn't a single stat that feels safe to have low.

Stats are also a means of characterization. Much like yourself, each of the NPCs in the ship has a specific build. Some characters easily make themselves loved, while others will find themselves under crosshairs for minor missteps. Some rely on their perception to catch others lying, others use logic to tear a hole in their opponents arguments.

There are also preexisting relationships between NPCs -- and even between them and your own character -- that you'll uncover as you see more character events, but that can be perceived from how they act towards others during debates. Some characters have a predisposition to liking you, and might protect you even if it isn't in their best interest for the vote, while others are the opposite, and you will learn to fear them.

It's important to pay attention to these sorts of details because whenever a character happens to be Gnosia, their behaviour might change, and an attentive player can use this to their advantage and sniff them out. This is a game where mechanics and storytelling are deeply entwined, one feeding into the other,

The overarching narrative that surrounds the time loops is engaging and set up in a way that makes it very fun to uncover. You will laugh, you will cry, you will fall in love with many of the characters, and as the story comes to a close, you'll wish there was more to uncover. Just one more excuse to go looping again in this game of lies and deception.

From beginning to end, Gnosia was a delightful experience, one I will recommend wholeheartedly to others even if my track record of getting people to play quirky Japanese games is... less than positive. I wish I could erase it from my mind so I could do it all over again.

This game is part of the reason I came out as non-binary.

Setsu and Raqio are my enby heroes.

Amazing music and art. Tight "Werewolf" gameplay.

My only complaint is that it's a bit unclear how to get the true ending, which caused the game to drag on for almost 10 hours more than I think it should have.

I could just say: 'omg among us x danganronpa???', but I would be unfair. This game has a charm, the whole time-loop mechanic thing where the roles and the character changes at the start of every loop is really interesting: more so because there's another character who shares the conscience of knowing that they're at a loop. Your relationships changes and the character that you like the most can, well, kill you.

It's a nice game. The art is... charming: not something that you see everyday. The roster is really diverse in terms of color palettes, gender and personality.

But knowing that you have to get, at least, 160~ loops to get the ending (even with a short duration of 5 minutes each) sounds so... exhaustive. Well, I can read online and my reaction would be the same, I guess.

If that's your thing, even being time-consuming, you should at least check it out.

Gnosia's design premise--a single-player randomized Werewolf with stat progression--is both its most intriguing asset and the source of its violent downfall. It works for a certain amount of time, as you're still getting used to how characters act, still discovering new skills through leveling stats, and likely seeing healthy amounts of new story content. But there comes a point when certain events are required for story progression, that require specific interactions with specific characters in specific configurations, and the game will allude to what's important but fights against itself by how it's set up.

God help you if a story event is locked behind SQ or Raqio, because keeping either of the most suspicious characters alive long enough to trigger events [and hoping that you don't need to meet other hidden variables], while also praying that you're not selected to get murdered or put in cold sleep yourself is not only unideal, it can often feel like downright trolling on the game's part. And since doing this may actively fight against a win, you're possibly not going to get much experience either, so I guess you could just play randomized games and try to win with the impression that increasing your stealth by 2 or 3 points will actually matter for your "story runs" whatever the hell those are.

What's even weirder is the game has a built-in "event finder" mechanic after you've done a certain number of loops, where the game will select randomized settings for you that "guarantee" to satisfy requirements for at least one event you're missing, and yet it's not like I'm going to know what event they have in mind [you would hope they'd prioritize story-mandatory ones but who can say] and it ultimately feels as though I'm selecting my own random settings anyway.

There was only so much of the same dialogue over and over that I could personally take, whether I was actively pursuing story progress or just hoping to level up. Just because a game operates as a loop narratively doesn't excuse when design repetition sets in, and the alarming speed with which this feels repetitive does a great disservice to whatever sci-fi tale they wish to tell. While there are some red flags [great treatment of your one trans character by the way] I won't ever know what that tale's finale is, and part of me wanted to know, but oh well.