Gamedec is a Detective RPG by Anshar Publishing and is based on a collection of short stories by Polish science-fiction author Marcin Przybyłek. In the future humans have created the Virtualium - a globe spanning virtual reality network with countless virtual worlds, the protagonist is a Gamedec, short for Game Detective who specializes in Virtualium based crimes, and as they solve more cases and travels to new virtual worlds they notice a pattern, as if their cases were part of something bigger...
The reveal trailer is here.
The official trailer is here. The narrative branching trailer is here. The launch trailer is here.
Gamedec contains examples of:
- Advert-Overloaded Future: There's a holo-advert outside the player's office window.
- Anti Poop-Socking: A gameplay mechanic in Knights Code, though if you have the right profession you can reboot the timer.
- Axis Mundi: The Axis Mundi is the background program that keeps all the virtual worlds in the Metaverse running; you visit it in the fourth case.
- Become a Real Boy: A bonus sidequest in the Definitive Edition has a Eldritch Abomination NPC from a Cosmic Horror themed game try to modify itself into a computer virus so it can become a Digital Abomination for real, in the end it suffers an existential crisis when the reality of being just a computer program made by humans sinks in.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: It turns out Mr. Haggis sexually harasses his coworkers, the Jester wanted to get revenge on him for it by causing a scandal.
- Car Fu: During the case Father and Son you can ask a fellow Gamedec to help you with the Jester in the theater, this results in the Jester getting turned into roadkill.
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: Some conversations work this way, you can raise someone's mood by getting them to open up to you or lowering it by trying to break them emotionally, a meter shows you the persons mood and how high or low you have to get it for them to say something useful along with a vague description of what it is.
- Farm Life Sim: The second case takes place in a VR world based on the genre called Harvest Time.
- Goomba Stomp: If you infiltrate the theater through the secret entrance you can do this to the Jester, you get an Achievement for it.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: Turns out the Realium is another world within the Virtualium and people inside are being kept oblivious due to an Amnesia Loop, the Gamedec's predecessor found this out and found a way to preserve his memory between loops as a Helpful Hallucination.
- Hit So Hard, the Calendar Felt It: In the backstory a massive cyberterrorism attack messed up all timekeeping programs, digital records as well as the perception of time for everyone who was on the Virtualium to the point where society had to reboot the calendar, by everyone's best estimate it is around the the 2140's according to the old calendar. This is actually part of the cover story for the Amnesia Loop.
- Item Crafting: A game mechanic in the Knight's Code VR world.
- Job System: Doing certain tasks or completing them a certain way gives you one of four kinds of aspects, which can be traded for jobs which allow for special interactions
- Layered Metropolis: High City, Mid City, Low City, Undercity, pretty standard.
- Multiple Endings: Six of them, though based on your actions you only get three or four per game:
- Ending 1: Replace the Jester: The Gamedec becomes a Virtual-Reality Warper but becomes Lonely at the Top.
- Ending 2: Stop the resets: The Gamedec and Ken hang out in Yet's bar, though now there's a chance that people in the simulation can get Killed Off for Real.
- Ending 3: Turn off the simulation: The Gamedec wakes up in his apartment where the Jester tells him the simulation has reset again and the delete will begin shortly, the Gamedec calls Ken who doesn't remember him and asks to call him again tomorrow, the Gamedec hangs up as the simulation shuts down.
- Ending 4: Escape the simulation: The Gamedec negotiates with the CEO of Blue Whale Interactive and his lawyer regarding getting a robot body in the real world to upload to and questions whether this is a trick, the CEO tells him there's no need because they have blackmail material to destroy his credibility and they argue whether one of them is willing to go down and take the other with them.
- Ending 5: Become a Hive Queen for the simulations inhabitants: Lord wonders whether he actually started believing his own Scam Religion, the Gamedec appears before him as a pink unicorn only he can see, Lord starts the cult of the Invisible Pink Unicorn.
- Ending 6: Go back into the simulation: The events at the start of the game repeat themselves, though there is the implication that it isn't a perfect Amnesia Loop and the Gamedec might get a chance to do something else the next time around.
- Refugee from TV Land: Actually a common occurrence, technology is advanced enough that anything mimicking a human mind like a videogame NPC or Virtual Assistant has a chance of becoming self aware.
- Shout-Out:
- The Clown in the Eldritch Abomination quest looks like a combination of Pennywise and Cthulhu
- The achievement names for two of the endings are Red Pill and Blue Pill
- One of the endings has you make a scam artist cult leader start the cult of the Invisible Pink Unicorn.
- In the Fallen Hero case while searching Ken Zhou's body you can check if he has a bullet in his mouth.
- Achievement names:
- You can get an achievement for finding a robot called Morty, it is called I am in great pain, please help me.
- "Write that Down": Get 50 entries in the Codex.
- "BOY!": Help Fredo in Like Father, Like Son.
- "Never Gonna Give You Up": Complete all the fetchquests from Troll King.
- "I Have the High Ground": Surprise Jester in the theater.
- "Guns, Lots of Guns": Get a gun in Harvest Time.
- "This is the Way": Do 5 quests for the Clan Masters in Knight's Code.
- Showdown at High Noon: You get in a showdown with the Sherrif in Harvest Time. He's using a cheat to draw his gun faster, if you made the right deductions to figure this out and do the right actions during the showdown you can sabotage the cheat to win the duel.
- Skyscraper City: We see a cross-section of the city while traveling between locations in the Realium like your appartment and Mr. Haggis's office at the start of the game, the buildings look incredibly tall and thin.
- Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: The case Harvest Time involves a Farm Life Sim Idle Game being turned into what is essentially a slave plantation where game addicts are pressganged into harvesting lootboxes to be resold for real money.
- Songs in the Key of Lock: The harp in Mr. Haggis's office opens the floor safe.
- Taxidermy Is Creepy: The sci fi equivalent, Mr. Haggis has a Panda suspended in several blocks of some transparent substance, pressing the button lets you separate the blocks to see cross-sections of the panda.
- The Internet Is for Porn: Both Paradise Beach and Twisted and Perverted are sex themed, the latter being Darker and Edgier than the former obviously.
- The Most Dangerous Video Game: Happy Hunting Ground is an illegal hunting game with the VR safeties off.
- Unicorn: You meet a Jerkass Unicorn in Twisted and Perverted that keeps blowing you up, and in one of the endings you can start a cult of the Invisible Pink Unicorn just for the heck of it.
- Virtual Ghost: Like Refugee from TV Land above the tech is there, at one point you have to construct one from a dead persons data to solve a case.
- Virtual-Reality Warper: The Jester in the first case modified the theater into a Time Loop as part of his plan, players inside it are aware but have to repeat their actions over and over, you have to figure out how to break it.
