Visual Novel / The Zodiac Trial

The Zodiac Trial is a mystery visual novel developed by Themis and released on January 21st, 2021. It can be purchased from Steam and Itch.io.

In Zodiac Trial, 12 people wake up in an unfamiliar environment with animal masks and metal collars around their necks. They decide to go by aliases named after their animal masks, which are themed after the 12 animals of the Zodiac. They have been kidnapped by a mysterious figure calling himself the "Jade Emperor" and must participate in a "Zodiac race", making "moves" to advance their tokens across a game-board, where the consequences for losing are dire.

You play as "Mouse", a female law student, in hopes of investigating the mysteries behind the race and looking for a way to survive the game.

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Tropes:

• Abandoned Area: Justified. The Zodiac Trial takes place during Thanksgiving Break to explain why the school is abandoned besides the cast. The Zodiac Bid similarly takes place a month later during Winter Break.
• Acquitted Too Late: Aaron was innocent of murder which Mouse convinces the other jurors of, but it's been years since his execution, his son Brian is killed for obsessively investigating the case, and there's enough corruption around the case that Aaron is never legally or publically cleared.
• A Day in the Limelight: Each character becomes more important on their specific route—except in a twist, it's because each character is the antagonist of their own route.
• Asshole Victim: Amadeus Bowen was a terrible person as Sheep, his former secretary, can attest to and his blackmail ring over his own brother, the chief of police, and the rest of the city is the reason why he was murdered.
• The Atoner:
  • Horse's backstory involves him accidentally killing a man in a drunken fight and adopting the victim's daughter to make amends for it. The happiest ending for them is to fully accept their past instead of rejecting it and become a police officer.
  • Bunny's epilogues can potentially include turning himself on and confessing all his crimes while pointing out the corruption or truly reforming the police force after his experience.
  • In Rooster's interview room, they point out that they're legally in the clear for everything that's happened, but they still feel guilty over their actions and decide not to fight the charges.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Monkey. All the different routes are her simulating the possibilities of the Zodiac Trial in her mind until she finds the one she likes. During the Joker route's conclusion, she's able to effortlessly subdue and escape all the remaining survivors until an unnoticed variable stops her.
• Behavioral Conditioning: Monkey set up hypnotherapy sessions with Mouse to control her which is how she's able to pick Mouse's choices during her mental simulations of the Zodiac Trial.
• Big Bad: The Jade Emperor, a mysterious figure wearing a green hoodie and a mask, and it's speculated who he might be very early in the visual novel: Brian Morris, whose father Aaron Morris was tried and executed for the murder of entertainment CEO Amadeus Bowen. Brian is trying to get these 12 characters killed out of revenge, because he insists that his father was innocent and didn't deserve to be executed, but these characters contributed to the trial.
• The Big Guy: Horse is a very large and muscular man, befitting his job as a construction worker. Tiger is a female example, since as an Olympian athlete, she has a buff physique.
• Blackmail: The entire police force is being blackmailed by its chief, Oliver Bowen, who in turn is just one of several people blackmailed by his brother Amadeus. The amount of blackmail he has is enough to turn the whole city into his personal playground.
• Blind Mistake: Played for Drama. On Tiger's route, Mouse proves that Tiger didn't get rid of the obvious Dying Clue implicating her because she wasn't capable of reading it. Tiger reveals that she and her brother were kept in a pitch-black basement during their early childhood so their eyes were unable to see texture. This also resulted in her brother's death because he wasn't able to see that the ice they were on was cracking.
• Blood Knight: Dragon is a gang leader who tends to use violence (or at least the threat of violence) as a solution to problems.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Dog is intelligent, but he usually has a lazy and apathetic personality.
• Calling Card: On Snake's route, an origami cat is left behind with each Locked Room Mystery. This is both to make the murder seem refined and to make Tiger's murder look unrelated when her body doesn't have an origami cat nearby.
• Can't Live Without You:
  • On Dragon's route, a Major Trinket is activated that groups the Zodiac Jurors into packs of 3. Everyone in the same group shares their personalities including traitorous roles and if one person faces execution, so do the others.
  • On Dog's route, anyone who has been tamed via the Whip major trinket will perish if their tamer dies.
• Card Sharp: Dog is a very proficient cheat at gambling on top of natural skill and experience from being a bartender. On his route, this enables him to activate a Major Trinket to enforce challenges via gambling which allows him to dominate the rest of the cast until he challenges Mouse to Liar's Dice.
• Caught Monologuing: On the Joker route, Mouse is the only one left to stop Monkey, but she's powerless to do anything so Monkey starts gloating about how much control she has over everything. During this time, Rooster recovers enough from his stab wounds to get up, sneak up on Monkey and strangle her to death.
• The Corrupter: On routes where Monkey is a traitor, she pushes other people into committing murder without lifting a finger herself. For the overall story, she encouraged Brian towards formulating the Zodiac Trial and convinced Rooster of the plan to kill three more people to fully cover up his murder of Amadeus.
  The chaos and darkness of this race will erase what happens here. The truth will be written by the survivors.
• Crime of Self-Defense: Zigzagged. Tiger fears this is the case on her route since she lost control and killed Dragon after being attacked instead of subduing her non-lethally, so she invents a third-party attacker which only makes her more untrustworthy once unraveled. This prompts Snake to provoke her and get killed in turn which drives Tiger into a frenzy unless Mouse has enough trust from everyone to deescalate the situation. Once everyone is able to talk about it, Ox thinks she can get away scot-free if they play up the angle that Dragon and Snake were traitors or she could accept a plea bargain for less than 5 years of prison time.
• Dark Action Girl: Dragon fits this trope the best at the beginning, but every female character can become one if you play their own route, because of the twist that each character is actually the antagonist, rather than the deuteragonist, of their specific route.
• Deadly Game: The premise of this visual novel, as the player character "Mouse" and 11 other characters have been kidnapped and forced to play a Zodiac race for their lives.
• Deuteragonist: Ox is the first character that Mouse meets upon waking up, and along with Mouse, Ox is usually the one trying to keep everyone organized and on track. The game also has specific "character routes" like most visual novels, so it looks like every character can become a deuteragonist—except in a twist, it turns out every character is actually the antagonist of their specific route.
• Dirty Coward: Pig is not normally this, as despite being nervous she's usually friendly, but if you're on Pig's route, she discovers a Trinket that, in combination with her special ability, allows her to move far ahead of everyone else. She attempts to use this Trinket to finish the race in first place to save herself, despite knowing that her classmates will be executed if they don't finish alongside her. Mouse can also become this trope in the Pig route's first bad ending if she chooses to use her special ability on Pig; Mouse and Pig both hole up in rooms and finish the race along with Ox, but everyone else is executed.
• Dead All Along: Brian was killed before the Zodiac Trial. Everything the Jade Emperor says has been pre-recorded statements and a voice modulator by the true mastermind.
• Dead Person Impersonation
  • On Dragon's route, Mouse's pack kills Rooster and she pretends to be him as a hostage.
  • On the Joker Route, It turns out that Brian has long been dead with the mastermind impersonating him with pre-recorded messages and a voice modulator.
• Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: On the Ace route, Dragon and Snake appear to have killed each other with no one the wiser. That's what the mastermind plans to have happen anyways while secretly executing them. This also occurs during Monkey's route where Mouse does fall for it, though she chooses it against an even more incorrect of Dog using a major trinket to kill them both.
• Destroy the Evidence: The final decision in the game is what Mouse chooses to do with the USB flashdrive of blackmail material. One decision is to leave it for the authorities at which point it just disappears with Mouse and Ox disappointed in how corrupt the system is. Another choice is for Mouse to destroy it herself to just stop all the blackmailing that drove the background plot.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • For the Ace route, Dog is the reason it turns into Joker route. The mastermind's simulation of the route didn't account for him being attentive enough to see through their attempts at specifically targeting Dragon, Snake, and Mouse, as well as run off and hide with them.
  • Joker route:
    • Monkey expected Snake to be a Fake Defector and for Dragon to beat him up without thinking in order to land a sneak attack on her. What Monkey didn't expect was that in itself was a ruse for Snake to get Monkey's phone away for Dragon to smash.
    • Monkey is able to effortlessly subdue and escape all the remaining survivors through Awesomeness by Analysis, but she didn't think Rooster survived getting stabbed through the neck earlier which allows him to get up and put her down for good.
• Didn't Think This Through: As the dev commentary for Tiger's route points out, Snake was a traitor and was trying to goad Tiger into going on a killing spree by enraging her. He didn't think enough about the part where he's actively antagonizing someone who goes into a blind rage and he becomes the next (and possibly last) victim.
• Dirty Cop: The entire police force is corrupt from the top and full of blackmail on each other. Dog gave up and quit while Bunny wanted to be an Internal Reformist, but became just as corrupt.
• Distracting Fake Fight: On the Joker route, Snake pretends to sell out to Monkey and Dragon pretends to be enraged enough to start breaking his bones until she can land a sneak attack on Monkey. Monkey is amused at the failed attempt until they reveal that was the distraction for Snake to knock away her phone for Dragon to break.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • On Sheep's route, she requests a Mercy Kill from Mouse rather than be executed by the Jade Emperor. It's up to Mouse whether to grant it.
  • On Snake's route, he slashes his own throat after Mouse conclusively proves he's the traitor and he explains his motive. He does this as a Graceful Loser and to prevent Brian from having blood on his hand for executing him.
  • On Pig's route, Monkey sees everyone mistrusting her as a known traitor and asks to be killed. However, the Joker route and developer commentary show Monkey was Faking the Dead as the mastermind and chose Bunny as a "witness" since he'd be the easiest to blackmail.
• Dungeon Bypass: On Rooster's route, the characters apparently discover a "ritual" that, if performed correctly, will allow all 12 of them to finish the race without anyone having to die, allowing them to bypass the deadly game. Unfortunately, the ritual is a fake; it's a trap set by Rooster to kill Ox.
• Dwindling Party: The bloodier routes have the cast being gradually killed by a hidden traitor as with Bunny, Snake, Monkey, or an unstoppable non-subtle traitor such as Horse or Dog.
• Dying Clue:
  • On Tiger's route, there's a written message implicating the killer, Dragon writing out that Tiger is crazy. It's initially taken as proof of Tiger being innocent since it's so obvious and Tiger would have disposed of it if she was guilty, but Mouse is able to prove that Tiger isn't able to read it due to her poor eyesight.
  • On Mouse's route, Ox finds two colored markers in Snake's vest and determines that the colors match the pawn pieces on the Zodiac Trial board, red for Rooster and grey for Mouse. Interestingly, Mouse can choose to reach that conclusion when Ox prompts her since she's about to silence him anyways.
  • On the Joker route, Dog covers his mouth and holds 3 fingers out in his final moments after getting shot. It's him miming the Monkey Morality Pose and holding out 3 fingers for the "M" in Monkey.
• Eastern Zodiac: All of the characters are named after animals from this Zodiac: Mouse, Ox, Tiger, Bunny, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Dog, Rooster, and Pig. The antagonist, the "Jade Emperor", has named himself after the deity who organized the original race to determine Zodiac membership.
• Enemy Rising Behind: On the Joker route, Monkey is gloating to Mouse over her total victory, unaware of Rooster rising up from behind after getting stabbed earlier and killing her to save everyone.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Rooster is complicit with Monkey's plan to kill Brian, Snake, and Dragon to ensure there are no loose ends to him murdering Amadeus, but when she kidnaps everyone a second time to sadistically toy with them and Leave No Survivors, he draws the line there.
• Everyone Has a Special Move: Normally, the characters advance in the Zodiac race by choosing "Run" on their tablets, which advances their pieces one space on the game board. But each character also has a "special ability" that can accomplish other things:
  • Mouse — "Sneaky Ride", which lets her choose an animal, and then when that animal moves, Mouse moves the same number of spaces
  • Ox — "Stampede", which lets Ox move to a space behind the animal currently in first place
  • Tiger — "Dive", which lets Tiger move to the closest river
  • Bunny — "Lucky Bounce", which moves Bunny 1, 2, or 3 spaces forward at random. His special ability is actually moving forward a space and if anyone else is there, repeating his special ability again until he lands on a space without anyone else. He uses Hop on Snake's route after Snake gets the truth out of him there.
  • Dragon — "Dragon Breath", which lets Dragon breathe fire on a lane, and anyone on that lane gets burned and won't be able to move for 3 turns
  • Snake — refuses to reveal his ability when the abilities are discussed at the beginning but if you play Snake's route, you eventually learn it's "Serpentine", which moves Snake to the finish line if all 12 animals are on completely different spaces (though Snake will try to trick the group into helping him win by claiming that 12 animals on different spaces would only move him ahead 5 spaces instead of all the way to the finish line)
  • Horse — "Steady Gallop", which lets Horse move 3 spaces
  • Sheep — "Sweet Sleep", which does nothing on its own, but allows Sheep to make two extra actions next turn
  • Monkey — "Monkey See, Monkey Do", which allows Monkey to use any of the abilities used last turn as if they were her own
  • Rooster — "Encouraging Crow", which moves any other animal 4 spaces forward
  • Dog — "Rabid Leap", which allows Dog to jump over the person closest in front of him
  • Pig — "Loser's Desperation", which allows Pig to move one space for every person ahead of her
• Everybody's Dead, Dave
  • On Monkey's route, Mouse finds Dog and informs him of how everyone else has killed each other with only them as the remaining innocent survivors.
  • On Mouse's route, either Horse or Rooster will mention that Horse killed all the other survivors.
• Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: Played for Drama. On Dog's route, Snake is familiar with the gun type used for Russian Roulette and explains how to manipulate the gun to avoid drawing a bullet. This promptly gets them shot because openly cheating is grounds for execution.
• The Faceless: Unlike the other characters, Mouse does not have a sprite. The only known details are her facing away from the camera in the loading image of the Zodiac Jurors and her being the same race as Rooster.
• Faint in Shock: On Bunny's route, Sheep faints after being voted for death. Mouse considers it a small mercy for what happens after.
• Fair Cop: Bunny is a male example, as he works as a police officer and has handsome looks.
• Fiery Cover Up:
  • If Rooster lives on Mouse's route, he suggests pouring gasoline all over the school and lighting it up to cover up their murders. If anyone asks, they'll say the Jade Emperor forced them to via the threat of their collars.
  • On the Ace route, Mouse is supposed to trip a wire when she tries confronting the Jade Emperor which triggers a fatal explosion. Dog prevents this from happening on the Joker route by knocking her out before she opens the door.
• Forensic Accounting: If Mouse does not rip up the note on Pig's route, it's revealed Pig had investigated where Amadeus' money went and found it going to all of the Zodiac Jurors except for Mouse, Dragon, and Monkey.
• Frame-Up: Aaron Morris was framed for the murder of Amadeus Bowen which Rooster deeply regrets because he hadn't expected the overwhelming amount of evidence to appear on top of his frame job or for the judge to hand down an execution verdict. It's heavily implied the police chief Oliver Bowen wanted the case shut down fast before anyone could discover the blackmail material Amadeus kept on him so he piled on evidence and police pressure to everyone in every possible way towards the first suspect found.
• Framing Device: Completing the Ace route continues the mystery prologue dialogue where one person has finished simulating all the possibilities for the Zodiac trial in their mind. Completing the game entirely gives the context of Monkey and Rooster planning out the Zodiac Trial, along with Mouse's choices being subtly influenced by the hypnotherapy Monkey had treated her with. All the Death Card commentary is Monkey judging what will work for her plan.
• Fury-Fueled Foolishness: On Tiger's route, she kills Dragon in a blind rage after being attacked and she makes up an attacker to cover it up which harms her credibility once it's disproved. Snake then enrages her more which leads to her killing him in another blind rage which has Ox and Bunny prepare to put her down unless Mouse is able to gain everyone's trust to deescalate the situation.
• The Gambler: Dog is skilled at gambling games, but this doesn't normally become important. On Dog's own route, however, this makes him dangerous, as he uses a Taming Whip "trinket" to gain control of other players' tablets by winning at gambling.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: 6 of the 12 Zodiac characters are women (Mouse, Tiger, Dragon, Sheep, Monkey, and Pig) and 6 are men (Ox, Bunny, Snake, Horse, Dog, and Rooster).
• Gentle Giant: Horse is a very large and muscular man, but he's polite and doesn't antagonize anyone except on his own route, where he becomes a "butcher" whenever he wears a skull mask.
• Gratuitous Latin: If Snake has a chance to deliver his Last Words, he ends with "Plaudite, acta est fabula!" or "Applaud, the story is done!"
• Hand Wave: The dev commentary says they and the playtesters never caught that Rooster's device should've exploded from not inputting an action during Round 3 of the Zodiac Bid, so in the interview room for Rooster, he acts confused over it as well before remembering that he helped construct the device and disarmed it from Round 1.
• Hanging Judge: Aaron Morris was executed for the murder for Amadeus Bowen which is noted to be an extreme decision due to public opinion and an improper verdict for a single murder. Brian planned for the judge to be a juror, but he died a week before the Zodiac Trial.
• Have a Nice Death: Every ending has a "Death card" associated with it that can then be viewed in a card gallery.
• He Knows Too Much: The Zodiac Trial's hijacked purpose by Monkey and Rooster is to silence Brian, Dragon, Snake, and Mouse to make sure no one knows Rooster was the true murderer of Amadeus Bowen. Brian was investigating his father's wrongful execution, Dragon complimented Rooster on taking Amadeus' wallet (though she doesn't remember at all from being drunk), Snake faintly noticed that the statue he made was heavier than it should've been (though he didn't connect the dots), and Mouse went through hypnotherapy with Monkey making her a convenient and disposable tool, though Rooster was unaware of Mouse being a target.
• The Hero: "Mouse", a female law student, is the player character, and also The Protagonist.
• Hidden Villain: The true mastermind is Monkey who inserted herself among the kidnapped people. In the Joker route, she calls it a mistake to put herself so close to the action and plans to refrain from doing so for her future planned death games.
• Highly Specific Counterplay: Snake refuses to share his special ability on the basis that it can stop any traitors, but can be easily countered if the conditions are known.
  • On routes where the traitor is known, Snake says he's unable to use the ability since it's for if several people are betraying the group instead of just one.
  • On Snake's route, he states that when every animal is on a different lane, his ability will force everyone to his position and then move himself 5 spaces forward. Actually, it propels him alone straight to the end of the board.
• Holier Than Thou: For Mouse to become a Villain Protagonist on her route, she needs to unlock the computer when investigating with Ox to see that she wasn't on Brian's list for the jurors and his evidence for Ox's corruption. This gives her the resolve to betray the group by rationalizing that she doesn't belong there unlike everyone else. If she ends the route as the Sole Survivor, she cracks and believes herself to be the righteous avatar of the Jade Emperor come to smite the jurors for their wickedness.
• Hollywood Acid: On Pig's route, she tries to melt her collar with homemade chemicals, but fails and kills herself with it.
• Insists on Being Suspected: In Rooster's route, Rooster insists on being a potential suspect after someone is immolated, but everyone is tired of his immature It's All About Me behavior. Rooster being Rooster, he was the killer and bragging about it.
• Instant-Win Condition
  • If all the animal are on different lanes, Snake is able to trigger his special ability which takes him right to the end of the board.
  • On Rooster's route, they discover a ritual that will instantly end the game with everyone surviving. It's actually a fake for a murder setup.
• Internal Reformist: Zigzagged. Bunny is trying to reform the police force, but he himself has become just as corrupt to blend in and his account is suspect since he's still trying to garner sympathy on his route to avoid getting killed. The Joker route shines a bit more light as Monkey thinks he's a threat to her future blackmailing plans towards the police and his epilogue has him potentially turning himself in or successfully reforming the police force.
• Intrepid Reporter: Pig works as an online journalist.
• It Amused Me: On Monkey's route, she manipulates the other characters into committing murder in order to satisfy her curiosity.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The developer interview room says the condition to unlock Rooster's interview room is to make sure everyone has the happiest epilogue because they do care about everyone deep down despite being a self-absorbed blowhard and a collaborator of the Zodiac Trial.
• The Juggernaut:
  • On Horse's route, he's an unstoppable physical force who kills everyone that tries to face him in open combat including Dragon, Snake, Tiger, and Bunny. He only dies once Mouse causes a chemical reaction by tricking him into putting his mask on and stabbing him fatally.
  • On Mouse's route, Horse winds up killing everyone else after Mouse and Rooster have caused enough chaos with their kills at which point he's disposed of by Mouse or Rooster shooting him.
• Kansas City Shuffle: On the Joker route, Dragon beats Snake up when he pretends to defect to Monkey until she gets an opportunity to get a hit in on Monkey. She dodges, but that show was for Snake to catch her off-guard and knock her phone away for Dragon to crush.
• Kick the Dog: On the Joker route, Monkey explains why she feels the need to kill everyone else save for Sheep who she reasons could be left alone, but who she'll kill anyways because she may as well be thorough.
• Large Ham: Rooster has a very dramatic personality, which is fitting because he's an actor who aspires to be the hero of big-screen movies.
• Late to the Tragedy:
  • At the end of Dog's route, Rooster comes back to the scene after some extended trinket hunting and is utterly baffled by all the dead bodies in the room.
  • At the end of Monkey's route, Mouse is nonplussed to find out that Dog had been resting away unaware of practically everyone else killing each other.
• Laughing Mad: If Rooster dies at the end of Mouse's route, Mouse laughs madly as her sanity slips and she believes herself to be the Jade Emperor's avatar of justice for killing off the rest of the Zodiac Jury.
• Leave No Survivors:
  • If Sheep dies and there are even more victims, Horse will snap and decide to kill everyone else just to make sure he gets the traitors.
  • Snake all but spells out to Mouse that Brian can't be the only mastermind handling the Zodiac Trial which is why he opts to kill everyone when selected to be a traitor because the mastermind must be among the Jurors.
  • Despite Dog's nihilism being the apparent motivation, the dev commentary compares him to Snake in regards to their motivation and methods for rooting out the hidden mastermind and attempting to kill everyone when selected as a traitor.
  • On the Joker route, Monkey opts to toy with everyone and then kill them all after her attempts to kill Dragon, Snake, and Mouse fail during the Zodiac Trial.
• Let's You and Him Fight: On Dragon's route, Bunny tricks Mouse's group into fighting Horse, though there's not much of a fight because it's immediately revealed to be an ambush for both parties.
• Locked Room Mystery
  • Snake's route has three:
    • Snake tricked Sheep into playing dead and while Dragon ran off as the unsuspecting witness, Sheep opened the door for Snake to go in at which point he killed her, locked it up from the inside, left through the window, and quickly locks the window when everyone enters the room.
    • Snake offered Dog an theory for Sheep's death and tricked him into fatally electrocuting himself while waiting outside.
    • Snake was able to hide in the closet when Dragon's body is discovered because he has a master key as one of the teachers which nobody else would be able to check or unlock.
  • For the Joker route, Monkey killed Pig, set up a timer for a clip of a woman screaming, knocked over the bookcase from the outside, and made it pitch-dark to make it seem like someone was escaping when she was actually shoving Mouse from behind.
• MacGuffin: The Minor Trinkets, which lets you move a number of spaces equal to however many people are using a Minor Trinket that turn, and the Major Trinkets, which all have different effects.
• The Man Behind the Man: The true mastermind is Monkey who pushed Brian towards creating the Zodiac Trial and Rooster towards thinking Murder Is the Best Solution for covering up his murder.
• Manipulative Bastard: Monkey. On routes where she's a traitor, she pushes everyone else towards murder without getting her own hands dirty. For the overall story, she's the one manipulating Brian into running the Zodiac Trial and Rooster into thinking Murder Is the Best Solution for his crime.
• Man on Fire: On Rooster's route, Ox is covered with oil and dies from being lit on fire.
• Mellow Fellow: Monkey is a female example, as despite being in a death game, her personality is usually calm and peaceful. On the rare occasions she's alarmed about something, the other characters will take note of how unusual it is.
• Miscarriage of Justice: Aaron was innocent of murder, but the police chief wanted the case closed down as fast as possible to prevent the discovery of Amadeus' blackmail material, so all the evidence and testimony were arranged to make the first suspect found look guilty as sin. While the Zodiac Jurors figure out he's not guilty, his name is never stated to be cleared.
• Mistaken for Betrayal: In Monkey's route, there's a whole chain of mistaken betrayal kills under Monkey's influence. Sheep killed Pig, so Tiger tracked her down to the library and killed her there. Horse kills Tiger in turn, but tries to cover it up which makes Bunny suspicious of him when investigating. Bunny believes that he's the traitor and shoots him from behind due to Horse's immense strength. When Dragon walks in on him, Bunny tries to explain himself by showing Horse's tablet, but he wasn't actually a traitor. Bunny then pulls a gun from Dragon's aggressiveness, but she kills him. Mouse walks in on Dragon and thinks she's the traitor since from the bodies and Bunny's tablet getting broken, but the library deaths end there. As it would turn out, the other traitor was Pig, though she hadn't made any traitor moves nor would she have been inclined to from not talking to Monkey during this route.
• Mob War: On Dragon's route, she uses a "herding whistle trinket" to turn the Zodiac race into a "gang war", with two opposing groups attempting to kill each other. Her rationale is that this way of doing things is more honest and straightforward than potentially allowing traitors to undermine everyone.
• Modular Epilogue: Each character has a different possible epilogue depending on what advice Mouse gives them during the Joker route and the choice of what Mouse did with the blackmail USB flashdrive.
• Morality Chain: Sheep is the one closest to Horse, to the point that he chooses not to hurt her even when he turns traitor on his route and has killed all the capable fighters. On Mouse's route, Sheep's death on top of all the other killings leads to Horse murdering all the other survivors along with the dev commentary stating that he was close to snapping and murdering everyone on Snake's route too if things had gone worse there.
• Murder by Inaction: In Tiger's backstory, her abusive mother confronted her with a knife and ended up on the balcony where she fell to her death. Tiger considers it murder on her part for not dealing with the situation better non-lethally and for not pulling her mother up.
• Murder Is the Best Solution:
  • On Dragon's route, she decides an all-out brawl with 6 survivors and 6 traitors is better than slowly being whittled down and deceived by 2 hidden traitors.
  • Rooster fears the people will start digging into the murder of Amadeus once he becomes a famous star, so Monkey convinces him that he just needs to kill the three people who could discover the truth. It also turns out to be completely unnecessary because Dragon was plastered and doesn't remember seeing Rooster, Snake was unfocused and barely noticed the statue weighing more, Monkey was already manipulating Brian as his therapist, and the case is long cold with the police chief already making sure no one looks deeper.
• Mutual Kill: In Rooster's route, Mouse finds Rooster and Dragon in a standoff and tells them both to knock it off. The moment she believes she deescalated the situation and turns her back on them, they end up killing each other.
• Mutual Disadvantage: On Bunny's route where a Major Trinket is activated and everyone is able to anonymously vote to kill someone else off via majority vote, an equilibrium is formed when one group announces their intent vote for everyone not with them which causes the outsiders to form their own group and do the same to the first group forcing a tie between them; the dev commentary confirms that Snake carefully cultivated this solution. However, the stalemate breaks when the traitor makes use of the dead's tablets for extra votes.
• Nervous Wreck: Pig is pessimistic and nervous, understandably freaking out about being in a death game.
• Nice Girl: The protagonist Mouse can be this depending on your dialogue choices. Sheep and Monkey also have sweet-tempered personalities except on their own routes: if you're on Sheep's route, she becomes a "butcher", while if you're on Monkey's route, she manipulates others into murder to satisfy her curiosity.
• Nice Guy: Among the male characters, Ox and Bunny are the most helpful except on their own routes: if you're on Ox's route, he's poisoned by a Trinket and is willing to commit murder to obtain the antidote, while if you're on Bunny's route, he manipulates the others into a lethal popularity contest that uses "votes" to kill the others one by one.
• Non-Protagonist Resolver: Zigzagged. Mouse is the one to present the truth and expose Monkey, but it's ultimately Rooster who kills her to save everyone.
• Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: On Dog's route, anyone caught cheating during a duel will be executed. "Caught" is the keyword since everyone can tell Dog is cheating on top of their natural skill, but nobody can call them out for lack of proof.
• Not Hyperbole: On Ox's route, he calls an emergency meeting while holding everyone at gunpoint which Mouse interrupts because she knows everything about what happened. He thinks that's hyperbole only for Mouse to repeat herself and lay down the facts.
  Ox: Admittedly, I am not yet clear on the culprit's identity.
  Mouse: Then don't worry. I know everything
  Ox: Well that seems a bit like hyperbol-
  Mouse: Everything.
  Ox: O-okay then.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Rooster is Small Name, Big Ego, but he is competent. On Mouse's route, he's able to kill everyone else alongside her. For the overall story, he was the one who killed Amadeus and covered his tracks well enough that the blame went to Aaron instead.
• Obvious Rule Patch: On Dog's route, a major trinket allows one person to challenge another for control over their tablet and the timer to vote is paused while the duel occurs. One character brings up intentionally stalling to look for more trinkets, but the Jade Emperor immediately chimes in to say that any such stalling will result in the execution of both players.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: On Ox's route, he's marked for death unless he's able to kill his poisoner and drink their blood. Once Mouse is able to identify Bunny as the traitor, Pig as the one to actually use the poison trinket, and Dog as the other traitor, Ox promptly shoots all 3 for their actions against the group.
• Perfect Poison: On Dragon and Snake's routes, Snake uses a poisoned syringe as a murder weapon, one that capable of instantly killing Horse.
• Permanently Missable Content: Asking for any hints at all will lock away a small Easter Egg after achieving 100% Completion.
• The Pollyanna: Tiger has a very optimistic personality, even in a death game, and sometimes the other characters even find her suspicious because she never stops being positive. The only exception is on her own route, where after fending off an attack from Dragon, Tiger loses control of her anger and kills Dragon.
• Poor Communication Kills: On the Joker route, Dog had been keeping Mouse, Dragon, and Snake locked up in one of his hideouts for a month before finally explaining that he had done so for their safety. By this time, the mastermind is able to track them down, kill Dog, and kidnap the rest of them for the Zodiac Bid.
• Post-End Game Content: Completing the Joker route unlocks the Interview Rooms which has certain characters comment on their role in the story and developer commentary as an option when playing.
• Prisoner Exchange: A variation during Dragon's route. Mouse's group will return a hostage if the hostage's group brings back an unconscious member of the third group to be killed once the exchange is complete. It's a betrayal on all sides. Rooster was already killed before negotiations and Mouse dressed up as him with the goal of getting close enough to subdue Dog. The unconscious person is a fully awake Dragon who's ready to rumble. Dog is out to kill everyone having already killed Snake from Dragon's group and striking to kill Rooster from his own group even without knowing it was Mouse.
• Psycho Psychologist: Monkey. In routes where she is a traitor, she manipulates the other jurors into killing each other while presenting herself as Beneath Suspicion because she confessed her role in the beginning and was tied up. For the overall story, she encouraged Brian to set up the Zodiac Trial, influenced Rooster into thinking Murder Is the Best Solution, and is the Big Bad.
• Resign in Protest: Dog's backstory involves resigning from the police force after one corrupt case too many.
• Revenge:
  • The "Jade Emperor" has trapped everyone in this deadly game because they're connected in some way to the execution of Brian Morris's father Aaron Morris, and Brian insists that his father was innocent and didn't deserve execution.
  • On Rooster's route, he successfully kills Ox using a phony "ritual" and attempts to kill some of his other classmates he thinks are connected to the deaths of his parents.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Pig's backstory involves being bribed to write damning articles on Aaron Morris' guilt to turn public sentiment against him instead of writing articles arguing for his innocence. She justified it to herself by saying that someone else would've been bribed and she really needed the money.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: Downplayed. Tiger does have issues with anger management, but they're otherwise as genuinely friendly as they appear. Notably, she's the only one to confess to having a traitor role with no hesitation or strings attached because she's not willing to place her own life above the group's which gives her the group's sincere trust.
• Shrinking Violet: Sheep is a timid and nervous young woman. Pig also has a nervous personality, but she isn't shy about speaking what she thinks, so she doesn't completely fit the trope.
• Sinister Suffocation: Strangulation comes up as a common murder method, but it's particularly notable during Snake's route. Snake is able to kill Tiger by placing a wire noose around her neck and jumping off the second floor. In doing so, his weight instantly tightens the noose and brings Tiger down to the floor where she's unable to get the noose off her neck.
• Sins of the Father: Mouse, the protagonist, was apparently put into the Zodiac death game for this reason, because her defense attorney father failed to save Aaron Morris from a guilty verdict. Mouse is definitely not happy that Brian Morris would put her into a death game when she wasn't involved in the whole mess.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Most of the characters are clean spoken, but Dragon uses a lot of swear words in her dialogue, as she's a gang leader.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Rooster is an obscure actor no one else has heard of, but he thinks he's the greatest thing to grace the rest of the jurors and serves as the Plucky Comic Relief.
• The Smart Guy: Snake is a teacher in real life and has a brilliant mind. Mouse is a female example, as she's a law student and as the protagonist, she's the one solving the death game's mysteries. Ox is a prosecutor and helps Mouse with solving mysteries.
• Smart People Play Chess: If Mouse talks to Snake at the beginning, they'll have a conversation about an abandoned Chess game where White was winning, but surrendered to Black due to their superior analyzing skills.
• Social Deduction Game: After Round 3, The Jade Emperor announces that two personalities are chosen to be traitors. One traitor will only win if they reach the end first with two or less other people. The other traitor wants to be in last place when the race ends with 8 or less people reaching the finish line together which allows them and the other traitor to be the only survivors. This leads to murder on almost every route.
  • The true route involves Mouse already finding the major trinkets to immediately remove the traitor threat by having the traitors overwrite their traitor personalities with non-traitor ones so no one has incentive to betray the group.
  • On Bunny's route, a major trinket is found that unlocks the option to place an anonymous vote every 15 minutes to kill someone off. The group analyzes it as a way to get rid of physical threats like Horse and Tiger, but everyone agrees it's too dangerous. When it's inevitably used, the end discussion devolves to voting out the most suspicious and figuring out the traitors' votes.
  • Discussed on Mouse's route. Because it's a Social Deduction Game, the traitors believe that a major trinket may be used to test for traitors and the survivors hold too much power over the board for the traitors to try tricking, so their conclusion is to murder everyone before being found out as the best route to survival.
• The Sociopath: Monkey was born with an emotional defect and turned off her emotions entirely after being dumped by an abusive boyfriend, along with Rooster encouraging her to live her own life freely after that. After running the Zodiac Trial, she develops a taste for controlling people's lives and analyzing all the possibilities which leads to her future plans for blackmailing the city for her whims and running more Deadly Games.
• Split-Personality Switch Trigger: Whenever Horse puts on a skull mask, they turn into a brutal, battle-ready killer. On their route, they explain that the mask was his way of disassociating his upright upbringing with his unrestrained behavior as his Night Devil persona. After accidentally killing a man in a drunken fight, he locked away the mask but woke up with it for the Zodiac Trial. However, the dev commentary goes out of its way to make it explicit that it's not an actual split personality.
• Ten Little Murder Victims: The 12 Zodiac characters are strangers to each other, but the Jade Emperor is familiar with all of them, because as the characters speculate early in the visual novel, his true identity may be Brian Morris, whose father Aaron Morris was executed for the murder of entertainment CEO Amadeus Bowen, and Brian insists his father was innocent. He wants to get the characters killed because each of the Zodiac characters either contributed to his father's guilty verdict in some way or has some connection to Brian himself.
• Tiger vs. Dragon: Tiger and Dragon sometimes argue, as a mild example of this trope. If you're on Tiger's route, however, this trope is played much more seriously, as after Dragon attacks Tiger, Tiger loses control of her anger and kills Dragon.
• Treachery Cover Up: On Pig's route, her will is asking the group to make her look better than a cowardly traitor who killed herself from trying to break her collar. It's up to Mouse whether to go through with the request or whether the note even gets read at all.
• Unfazed Everyman: Downplayed. Mouse is a law student who does get affected by all the killings, but she notes that she's always had the ability to expel her own fear which allows her to think logically and take control of the situation.
• Unwitting Pawn: Mouse. All the choices she thinks she's making are suggestions by Monkey through their hypnotherapy sessions to make Monkey and Rooster appear less suspicious from having Mouse make the important choices. It's only in the Joker route that she truly makes her own choices.
• Villain Ball: On the Joker route, Monkey could just kill everyone with a touch of a button on her phone, but she waits for everyone to chase after her to display just how in control of the situation she is. This allows Dragon and Snake to break the phone which causes Monkey to head to the library where Rooster ends up killing her.
• Villain Protagonist: Mouse is not normally this trope, as she's usually the heroine, but if you're on Mouse's own route, she'll decide that because her father is connected to the Morris incident and not her, she deserves to survive more than the other "sinners", so she tries to win the death game with Rooster's assistance.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: After the Ace route, the survivors recount what they've been doing since the Zodiac Trial. After the Joker route, Mouse and Ox fill each other in on how everyone has been doing since the Zodiac Bid.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness
  • On Bunny's route, he was working with Dog as traitors, but once public opinion shifted, they decided to jump ship and throw their partner to the wolves.
  • On the Joker route, Monkey decides that Rooster is another loose end to be cleared so she stabs him in the neck.
• You ALL Share My Story: The cast figure out early on that the Jade Emperor is Brian Morris who is upset over his father's guilty verdict and execution with the Zodiac Jurors being either related to the case or someone Brian knows. Mouse is angry over being kidnapped because her father was the defense attorney who earnestly defended Aaron Morris, and Dragon is pissed since she's completely uninvolved. Mouse, Dragon, Snake, Monkey, and Rooster are the exceptions because Brian hadn't planned to bring them in. The former three are targets Monkey wants to eliminate; Mouse as an Unwitting Pawn for Monkey to be disposed of while Rooster thinks Dragon and Snake could reveal that he's the true murderer if someone looks into them. Monkey and Rooster saw fit to blend in to keep a closer eye on the Zodiac Trial and to boost Rooster's fame for being in such a dramatic incident.
• You Killed My Father: On Rooster's route, they accuse Dragon of killing their parents and want to kill them for it in turn. As the Joker route shows, it's a total fabrication and Rooster is more bloodthirsty on his route from already killing 3 people, having Dragon marked as a target beforehand, and Monkey manipulating him even further.