Visual Novel / Process of Elimination

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One of these detectives is The Quartering Duke. But which one is it? Pictured L-R: Armor Detective, Renegade Detective, Workaholic Detective, Rowdy Detective, Ideal Detective, Incompetent Detective, Posh Detective, Senior Detective, Doleful Detective, Techie Detective, Gourmet Detective, Downtown Detective, Bookworm Detective. Not pictured: Mystic Detective.

Process of Elimination is a murder mystery visual novel developed and published by Nippon Ichi, released in Japan in May 2021 and the rest of the world in April 2023. The story follows Incompetent Detective, a high school detective who has been caught up in the operations of the Detective Alliance, an international group of expert detectives. He is brought to a mysterious island along with 13 other detectives in order to solve the mystery of "The Quartering Duke", a vicious killer with over 100 victims to their name.

Upon arrival at the island of Morgue, the gathered detectives quickly come to the realization that one of them is "The Quartering Duke", and all of their lives are in grave danger. They must work together to stop The Duke before they all perish and solve the mysteries behind the killings.

During certain segments of the story, the gameplay will switch over to the investigation phase, where you can control the detectives as they search for clues about the cases. This is followed by the resolution phase, where you can use the gathered evidence to find the culprits behind each case. Each detective has unique stats that make them suited for different roles during the investigation phase.

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Process of Elimination contains examples of:

• Anyone Can Die: Of the 14 detectives alive at the beginning of the story, only six of them are left to confront the Quartering Duke.
• An Arm and a Leg: Renegade sacrifices his arm to the red SPX unit in order to buy Techie time to get away. This turns out to be a ploy to lure the unit to the group later on.
• Asshole Victim: In "The Case of the Paradox Murders", one of the victims is Renegade, who had just held Posh hostage, tried to kill Incompetent and had generally antagonized the group during their time in the research facility.
• Awful Truth: When his identity is revealed, the Quartering Duke reveals that none of his crimes can be traced back to him because they were actually mutual suicides by the victims.
• Beast in the Maze: Both the invisible and red SPX unites act as this in the maze beneath the prison facility.
• Bequeathed Power: After the death of Ideal Detective, Incompetent Detective gains the power of the Denouement, which lets him observe his environment to see how people will die.
• Bottomless Pit: An inconvenient one appears in the maze when the group is trying to escape from the red SPX unit. Armor Knight sacrifices himself by pushing himself and the unit into said pit.
• But Thou Must!: The first option in the story once you arrive on Morgue is whether or not to go into the research facility. You can only choose this option once, and once you've experienced the path you're forced to go to the manor.
• Characters Dropping Like Flies: By the end of the second case, four characters are already dead and the group only grows smaller as they go.
• Cherry Tapping: Getting the "Gray Giant" trophy requires solving an MP with Armor Detective who has an Infer rating of 1.
• Closed Circle: Following the death of Senior Detective, the arrival of a deadly black robot traps them inside Gormenghast Manor with no way out.
• The Corpse Stops Here: After being knocked out by Workaholic and dropped into the maze below the prison facility, Incompetent escapes through a hole in the ceiling into Rowdy's cell, where she lies dead. The other detectives find him in there with the cell door locked, framing him for the murder.
• Dead Man's Switch: The bomb collar in Renegade's neck can be activated this way by his observers, as when an observer dies it sends one of the three commands needed to activate it.
• Deadly Gas: After Incompetent proves that Downtown killed Mystic, she releases a poisonous gas into the manor to kill herself and drive the rest of the detectives into the secret passage.
• Deadly Hug: Downtown surprises Mystic with a hug in order to poison him with a neurotoxin-laced fingernail. This results in his death when he is unable to escape the spike trap in the room.
• A Death in the Limelight
  • Mystic is killed shortly after he spends the evening talking with Incompetent about the occult.
  • Rowdy is killed shortly after a scene where she encourages Incompetent to go with his gut and not second-guess himself.
• Detective Mole:
  • "The Case of the Phantom Killer" reveals that Downtown is a mole for the Quartering Duke.
  • "The final chapter reveals that Senior was also working with the Duke and planned to kill himself and Downtown in a mutual suicide.
  • The Quartering Duke himself is hidden among the group, who turns out to be none other than Doleful.
• Determinator: The red SPX unit manages to survive not only the usual method to disarm the SPX units, but being pushed down a bottomless pit by Armor and getting crushed under a hydraulic lift.
• Disability Alibi: During "The Case of the Semi-Sealed Cell", Workaholic tries to claim that Techie would be a suspect in Rowdy's killing due to the position of their cells. He forgets that Techie is a paraplegic who wouldn't be able to stand on the box the killer used to set up the wires for the death trap. And even if he was faking it, Techie could have simply used his wheelchair to stand on and thus wouldn't have needed to grab a chair from the office.
• Disney Death: Armor falls into a pit in the maze after being stabbed by the red SPX unit, but survives thanks to a hot spring at the bottom of it.
• Doom Magnet: Doleful's Danger Magnet ability has caused the death of many people around him and frequently gets him in trouble, but also keeps him safe from harm.
• Double-Meaning Title: The title of Process of Elimination refers both to the deduction technique for figuring out who the culprit of the case is, and to the fact that the game itself is a process of 'eliminating' the detectives.
• Dwindling Party: The initial group of 14 detectives is gradually whittled down as some are murdered and others fall victims to traps.
• Dying Smirk: Renegade has a smile painted across their face after tricking Doleful into activating the elevator, killing him.
• Explosive Leash: Renegade has a bomb collar attached to his neck that can be activated if he goes out of line. Gourmet also puts these on the remaining detectives after "The Case of the Paradox Murders" in order to root out the Quartering Duke.
• Foreseeing My Death: Ideal has an ability called the Denouement that allows her to observe her environment and see the deaths of those around her. This ability is passed on to Incompetent after she dies to the black SPX unit.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The ghost of Ideal explains to Wato that upon her death her power of Denouement got transferred over to him. But remember how Wato received a vision upon passing by the poisoned research lab, well before he met up with her? It's later revealed she was lying and the power was Wato's from the start.
  • Whilst discussing the SP Xs, Techie gets mad at the others for calling the machines awful, saying the people who programmed them to do awful things are the ones at fault. Later, Armor gets killed by the Red SPX, which seemingly was simply protecting its assigned area. Only for it to turn out that Renegade deliberately set things up so the SPX would hunt the group down.
• Fresh Clue: The detectives determine that The Quartering Duke must still be inside Gormenghast after killing Senior Detective because there's a fire going in the fireplace.
• Gentleman Detective: Detective Gentleman derives his name from this archetype.
• Great Detective: All of the detectives from the Detective Alliance are among the best in their field, but Ideal Detective stands out above the rest due to her future sight.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Armor sacrifices himself to stop the red SPX unit by pushing it into a bottomless pit.
• High-Voltage Death: Workaholic kills himself by handcuffing himself to a power cable while sitting in a puddle of water.
• Impeded Communication: For most of the story, the communications antenna is down, leaving the detectives unable to communicate with anyone off the island.
• Isometric Projection: The investigation gameplay is played with the map styled this way.
• Murder by Mistake: Workaholic originally intended to kill Renegade but ends up killing Rowdy instead because she switched cells with his intended target.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Quartering Duke, a brutal serial killer whose murders often involve the victim being torn limb from limb.
• Noodle Incident: The Detectives have cases that they are famous for solving. Finding Keywords during Investigation phases allows you to learn the details of how they solved them.
• No-Sell: In the investigations where there are invisible SPX units, Armor is immune to being attacked by them due to the strength of his armor.
• Occult Detective: Mystic is known for solving mysteries involving supernatural entities, such "The Case of the Lycanthrope".
• Off with His Head!!: Renegade ends up losing his head when Doleful activates the elevator he stuck his head in.
• The Peeping Tom: Ideal's ghost tricks Incompentent into using his Denouement powers to see what would happen if he spied on the girls in the shower. The vision ends with Posh killing him, and when he comes back to, Posh punches him for having a nosebleed.
• Private Intelligence Agency: The Detective Alliance is an independent organization of detectives formed in the aftermath of "The Dayless Night Incident", working to solve mysteries related to the resulting uptick in crime.
• Razor Floss: The Detective Agency developed a type of extremely sharp wire that's both used to create dangerous traps in the underground tunnels and as the weapon that was used to kill Senior. The wire itself is sharp enough that you need special gloves to be able to handle it.
• Rewatch Bonus: The game's scenes take on a different meaning after you complete the game and learn Doleful Detective is the Quartering Duke.
• R-Rated Opening: The game sets up the violent tone by having the Quartering Duke off two of his victims in a gameshow style opening.
• Shower Scene: Ideal tricks Incompetent into using his Denouement Powers to spy on Bookworm, Posh and Gourmet in the shower. It leads to him getting killed by them.
• Slain in Their Sleep: Rowdy accidentally gets killed by Workaholic in her sleep while he's trying to eliminate Renegade.
• Spikes of Doom: The second floor living room has a spike trap that's triggered by closing the door. This almost kills a group of the detectives while they were investigating the manor, and ends up being the cause of Mystic's death.
• Suicide, Not Murder: The final chapter reveals that Senior's death wasn't caused by the Quartering Duke but instead was an elaborate suicide planned with the help of Downtown.
• Suicide Pact: The reason every Quartering Duke case has two victims is because every case involves two suicidal people mutually killing each other with the help of the Duke.
• Taking You with Me: Workaholic kills himself in order to trigger the bomb around Renegade's neck, keeping him from escaping the underground facility. This turns out to be unnecessary as Renegade is dead by the time the bomb goes off.
• Trail of Blood: During "Into the Maze of Mysteries", Renegade lures the red SPX unit to the group by using the bloody stump of his arm to leave a trail of blood on the wall for it to follow.
• Trap Is the Only Option: After being brought down to the tunnels by Workaholic, Incompetent finds an opening in the ceiling that leads out. Ideal warns against the idea, saying it's a trap, but Incompetent is worried that if he doesn't he can't stop the murder he saw with his Denouement. Turns out the murder had already happened and the trap was set up to frame him for it.
• Useless Security Camera: Techie sets up security cameras around Gormenghast in order to try and catch The Quartering Duke, but Downtown takes advantage of their blind spots in order to kill Mystic.
• Villain Opening Scene: The very first person you're introduced to is the Quartering Duke, who makes you choose which of his two victims to kill. He then proceeds to kill the other one because the audience didn't like them.
• Waking Up Elsewhere: After being knocked out by Senior, Incompetent wakes up in a locker in the woods on the island of Morgue.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Senior only appears briefly in the prologue before being found dead in the basement of Gormenghast.
• Who Murdered the Asshole: "The Case of the Paradox Murders" has the remaining detectives solving who was behind the murder of Workaholic and Renegade. While there was some sympathy for Workaholic, the group agreed that Renegade got what was coming for him.