Visual Novel / Gnosia

This universe is insane.

Gnosia is a Visual Novel by Petit Depotto, first released on the Playstation Vita, ported to the Nintendo Switch in 2021, and ported to PC in 2022.

Sometime in the distant future, a small group of passengers aboard a drifting spaceship discover that at least one of their own has become infected by the "Gnosia" plague. Those who become Gnosia are endowed with supernatural power and compelled to eliminate humanity, while pretending to still be human.

As a compromise with the ship's computer (which would ordinarily self-destruct the ship to halt the spread of Gnosia), the crew agree each night to discuss their suspicions and place one person into Cold Sleep until there are no more Gnosia detected. However, each night the Gnosia are given one opportunity to eliminate a human from the ship, until there are too few humans to protect the ship from takeover.

As one of the fated passengers, you find yourself trapped in a time loop in which you are forced to relive this process over and over again, with details shifting such as which crew members are present, who is assigned certain roles and privileges, and even who is Gnosia.

A single-player Social Deduction Game, Gnosia utilizes short rounds of debate and time loop mechanics to let the player slowly piece together the overarching mysteries about the Gnosia and their shipmates, and hopefully figure out how to escape the time loop.

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Gnosia contains examples of:

• Alternate Universe: The different loops run on the multiverse theory of time travel, explaining how each loop can contain different crewmates and roles. When the characters figure out the difference between SQ and Gnosia-SQ, they speculate that Gnosia infection might be causally tied to key events in a character's past: e.g. only the complete success of Manan's personality transfer creates the prerequisite chain of events for SQ to become infected with Gnosia. Given that Gnos can do some funky things with "pan-possibility calculation", this presents some unsettling implications on how exactly the Gnosia "plague" spreads.
• And I Must Scream: Several examples, with most triggered on a Gnosia win depending on who is Gnosia and which humans are left standing. Remnan usually gets the worst of it, given there are two incarnations of Manan on the ship and both want to enslave and torture him. Then there's cyberisation, the process by which someone's consciousness is converted into data and uploaded to a computer server as a means of gaining immortality. It sounds like a sweet deal until one character points out that only your consciousness is preserved: you are unable to interact with anything unless you pay to have your file "recalculated" for every single action, which is prohibitively expensive. That's not even including the dirty secret that most cyberised minds are absorbed into the Gnos collective.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Gnosia believe that this is what happens when they kill someone, and therefore killing people is the greatest good.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Various individuals and factions all work against each other and the crew of the ship for their own purposes, and will be different people each loop:
  • The Gnosia are humans infected by the "Gnosia" plague and want to kill the humans to bring their souls to Gnos, the entity that has promised them utopia. The AC Follower is a human member of a pro-Gnos cult that supports the Gnosia by sowing discontent and lies amongst the human side.
  • The Bug is a human-identified anomaly who will destroy existence if they make it to the end, and are thus enemies of both the human and Gnosia sides. Raqio speculates that they are a corrective measure manifested by the universe to purge an element that should not belong: the player.
• Blending-In Stealth Gameplay: Characters (including the player) can fall under suspicion if they are too quiet or too loud during debates, or uncharacteristically loud or quiet. This includes characters who are suddenly more cooperative than usual, which might indicate they are working together as Gnosia. Standing out too much might also make you a target for the Gnosia, especially characters that target the most influential (or annoying) opponents. Thus, it's key to moderate how much you speak up during the debates: enough to sway the vote your way, but not enough that you draw attention. A high Stealth stat helps to moderate how much heat you draw from your comments, and agreeing with someone draws less attention than being the one who initially proposes something.
• Bluff the Impostor: One of the ways of revealing that someone who is faking being an Engineer or Doctor is having them misdiagnose a person and then revealing why their assertion is incorrect. For example, if an Engineer impersonator claims that someone is Gnosia, with the allegedly examined person later revealing that they are on Guard Duty, the Definite Enemy skill can be used on the claimant immediately.
• Brain Uploading: It’s stated that the very rich are able to pay to have their minds “cyberized,” seen as a version of immortality. According to Yuriko, these minds actually all combine to form Gnos, and that this is the “heaven” that the Gnosia believe in.
• Closed Circle: The refugee ship. At most fifteen people, with at least one murderer among them and no way to leave.
• Crapsack World: Even ignoring the Hate Plague problem, it’s clear that the universe is full of dangers and misery, with slavery, castes, and inhumane experimentation all mentioned in different areas.
• Cruel Twist Ending: Sometimes when the ending conditions are fulfilled, the system won't tell you that the Gnosia have won until the Gnosia in question suddenly puts on their Game Face and declares their victory over you.
• Death World: Comet’s home planet of Vuomo is harsh and full of dangerous organisms, enough so that only the very strongest children survive.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Shigemichi and Jonas can challenge one another to a video game contest if they both claim the same role. Whoever wins will say that they were able to do so thanks to being Gnosia... and then get thrown into cold sleep after realizing they slipped up.
• Everybody Lives: Setsu's eventual goal is to find a loop in which no-one dies, and break the time loop there. You figure out how to create a loop where there are no Gnosia, but you can only break your own loop; Setsu cannot, and must sacrifice themselves by moving into another dimension. However, you can then figure out how to join Setsu in the new dimension and break their loop there, with the only "casualty" being Manan (who must move into another dimension and complete the ontological paradox of her inhabiting Kukrushka's body).
• Evolving Title Screen:
  • After learning the truth of Day Zero, the title screen's aesthetic changes to space-like.
  • Similarly, after completing the game, the title screen becomes a wide scrollable wallpaper that shows everyone except Setsu, who doesn't show up until after the player rescues them from the loop.
• Fake Relationship: Setsu can claim that they’re dating the player to throw suspicion off regarding how close the two are.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Characters with low "Charm" are the easiest to throw under the bus and turn the group against, due to their abrasive (Raqio) or just plain weird (Shigemichi) personalities.
• Guide Dang It!: It can be tricky to figure out how to progress. The Event Search helps to find settings that will trigger events, but it still relies on a dice roll of certain characters ending up with certain roles. In general, accepting any offers to Collaborate (and protecting your partner until the end, even if they're on an enemy team) is a good move. If you're looking to trigger events with certain characters, raising your Relationship Values with them (by agreeing with them and defending them during the debates) will increase your chances, amplified by your Charm stat. The two endings require a bit of additional lateral thinking: for the first ending, you must "create a world without Gnosia" by using the Silver Key to set the number of Gnosia to 0. For the second ending, you need to complete the first ending, then start a new game on a different (and clean) save slot.
• Hate Plague: The Gnosia infection makes people believe in murder as the greatest good, and to lose all inhibitions regarding it.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • If Otome is a Bug and survives to the end of the loop, she will voluntarily enter cold sleep to protect the rest of the crew.
  • If Gina survives as the only Gnosia, the ship may enter an asteroid field and become damaged. Gina will give up her life to repair the ship and get the rest of the crew to safety.
• Hive Mind: The true identity of "Gnos" is a conglomeration of countless cyberised human minds who - through sheer volume - gained a singular consciousness and will. Gnosia are connected as "terminals" to Gnos and become agents of its collective will, believing that those who they eliminate are cyberised to become a part of Gnos.
• Hyper-Awareness: Characters with high Intuition are more likely to detect when someone is lying, especially if the liar has a low Performance stat. The game points out that if a character with high Intuition (such as Comet) suddenly turns on a character, there's a good chance they detected a liar.
• Killed Offscreen: Every Gnosia kill, with the exception of the very first one that you carry out as one, is done off-screen. Setsu can also do this to Sha-Ming, with no repercussions, on random loops.
• Last-Minute Hookup: Possible under specific conditions after clearing a loop. Of course, these relationships don't really go anywhere as the protagonist is almost immediately sent into another loop.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The function of the Silver Key is a parasite which latches onto characters, repeats their story over and over until it gains 100% Completion, then leaves the universe behind once it is satisfied. There's also ongoing hints throughout that the player themselves (not the main character whose body they inhabit) is the entity which Yuriko and others refer to as the antithetic existence which should not belong in their universe. Several lines by Yuriko, Raqio, and Setsu make more sense if the "you" they sometimes refer to is the player, especially scenes in which they are uncomfortably close to the camera.
• Never the Selves Shall Meet: When the player travels back before the start of the loop, they need to avoid their hurt self in the medical pod or the universe will end.
• Nightmare Face: Whenever the Gnosia reveal themselves if they take over the ship and you are one of the only humans remaining.
• No Body Left Behind: When the Gnosia kill someone, they vanish. The Gnosia believe that they’re being transferred into Gnos, but the player never learns the truth.
• Nonstandard Game Over: The game will generally let you try all sorts of things and still gain EXP for it. However, it's possible to break the AI of the game to such a degree that the game itself forces a premature shutdown of the loop. This mainly happens if you don't reveal your role in response to a false claim to your role on Day 1: this can lead to the faker being considered "real" by the AI (e.g. enough that they can be authenticated with the "Genuine Human" skill), which can then result in "impossible" scenarios such as the "real" doctor lying in a detectable or demonstrable way. If an "impossible" scenario like this occurs, the universe literally glitches out around you, the game warns you that this might happen if you don't reveal your role in response to a fake, and you get 0 EXP for the loop.
• Overly Long Gag: When you and Setsu talk to Jonas about the "Kukrushka" doll found in the hangar, he delivers a long-winded explanation that takes three in-game days to finish because Jonas keeps going off on tangents. It's so long that you character drifts off to sleep on the third day and Setsu has to wake you up because he's finally getting to the relevant part.
• Point Build System: There are six stats you can put points into when you level up:
  • Charisma: The "chain attack" stat. A high Charisma makes others more likely to follow your statements with an agreement of their own, thus significantly increasing their overall impact. It also unlocks actions that influence others' opinions, such as Seek Agreement and Retaliate.
  • Stealth: A high Stealth stat moderates how much heat you draw with your statements, making it less likely that the room will turn against you for being too loud or forceful. It also makes the Gnosia less likely to select you for attack, and gives abilities that help you survive longer, like the ability to Grovel for a last chance at avoiding cold sleep.
  • Logic: The "credibility attack" stat. It increases how much your statements affect the credibility of your target; low credibility means that their statements have less impact and influence. Logic also improves the chance that others will follow your lead if you appeal to rationality with skills such as "Don't Vote". It gives abilities based on logical deduction that can drastically swing the argument in your favour, such as being able to declare others as Definite Enemy or Definite Human if you have hard evidence (based on previous Doctor or Engineer reports).
  • Intuition: This stat gives the ability to randomly detect when enemy characters are lying, with your Intuition stat rolled against their Performance stat. It unlocks abilities that either force others to lie (such as Say You're Human), or rewards you for catching liars (like Don't Be Fooled).
  • Performance: The "likability attack" stat. A high Performance makes it harder for others to detect when you are lying, rolled against the Intuition of opposing characters. It also increases how much your statements affect the likability of your target in the eyes of the other participants; low likeability increases the chance of being selected for Cold Sleep. It unlocks skills that force other characters to do your dirty work without drawing heat onto yourself, such as Exaggerate and Seek Help.
  • Charm: The "defense" stat. It reduces how much credibility and likability you lose when others attack or doubt you, thus making it harder for others to turn the room against you. It gives abilities that compel others to defend you (such as Regret), and also passively increases the chance of triggering new story events, including having others propose or accept alliances with you.
• Social Deduction Game: The main gameplay involves short Werewolf-like sessions where the player and characters try to identify or hide the Gnosia. The "social deduction" part comes from learning the individual personalities and argument styles for each character over many loops, thus making it easier for you to identify suspicious behaviour: e.g. a character being more direct or passive than normal; two characters who dislike each other working together too closely; a distrustful or independent character working hard to cover others or form alliances; and so on.
• Speculative Fiction LGBT: A running theme across several characters is that of "transformation": namely the idea of disregarding the sociocultural or physical limitations of one's body and changing yourself to become closer to your true identity. Raqio and Setsu both identify as non-binary, with the former giving a speech about how "it's about how one identifies, not how they're arbitrarily defined by others". Chipie identifies more with cats than other humans. Otome dreams of becoming more human-like. The player can identify as non-binary themselves. This is contrasted with examples of those who selfishly use transhumanism as a means to remain static, such as pursuing immortality through cyberisation or (in Manan's case) stealing bodies, or the Gnosia virus forcefully transforming infectees into something further from their true selves and closer to the will of the Gnos collective.
• Stable Time Loop: As Setsu and the protagonist go through the loops in a different order, sometimes they affect the other’s behavior in a loop that for them was in the past.
• Straight for the Commander: Based on their individual personalities, some characters will prioritize identifying and eliminating the biggest threat on the other side. (And in contrast, some characters are petty and mainly target people who they personally dislike.)
• There Is Only One Bed: In the loop where Comet’s slime escapes, the player has to hide in a small medical pod with Sha-Ming.
• The Virus: The Gnosia infection turns humans into beings subservient to their "god", Gnos. Most Gnosia broadly retain the personality traits they had as humans: for example, characters who tend to target people they don't like (instead of who would be most logically advantageous to eliminate) will continue to do so as Gnosia. Some characters are even so kind that they refuse to play along, and sacrifice themselves instead of carrying out their Gnosia duties. However, there are examples of Gnosia infection significantly altering a character's personality by unearthing a hidden side of themselves, such as Stella becoming obsessed with experiencing human pleasure, or SQ's body becoming possessed by a different person entirely.
• Wham Episode: There are a few events that come as a massive shock, though when they occur is semi-random.
  • During one loop where you and Setsu both survive and wipe out the Gnosia, LeVi will warn the crew that the Gnosia threat remains. Cue Kukrushka, who was thought to be dead, appearing in the hallway and killing the player.
  • If SQ is voted off after attempting to collaborate with Remnan, she will reveal herself as Remnan's daughter in front of everyone. If the player then goes to Remnan after this, he will tell you that this is true, and that he was kept as a slave by a wealthy couple and was forced into conceiving SQ.
  • Having established that Kukrushka and Remnan were both on guard duty and therefore definitively human, Kukrushka suggests that to eliminate the Gnosia threat, they put everyone except for them in cold sleep. Everyone agrees, and Setsu comments to the player that they're relieved to see a loop where nobody has to die. Then the player gets abruptly woken up from cold sleep by Remnan, who tells you that Kukrushka ejected everyone else into outer space. Cut to Kukrushka suddenly entering the room, giving you a wild look with her "Uh-Oh" Eyes. The loop cuts off there.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The first ending gives most of the characters' future fates in the credits. Gina goes back to her normal life, Raqio and Remnan become revolutionary leaders, Comet becomes an adventurer with Chipie as her cat, Kukrushka and Shigemichi vanish, Jonas eventually dies of old age leading Stella to put herself and the ship in sleep mode, SQ becomes a private detective, Otome helps champion intellectualized animal rights, and Sha-Ming ends up as a prominent zoologist.
• You Are Worth Hell: Both Setsu and the protagonist trap themselves in the loops to protect the other.

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