Gnosia

Gnosia is a visual novel adventure game with RPG elements. Project was developed by Japanese Petit Depotto studio.

Plot

The action takes place in distant future on board of a spaceship. Part of its crew has been infected by alien beings known as Gnosia. The victims look and behave practically identical to healthy people, but their goal is to eliminate everyone on board.

To survive, the crew decides on an unusual plan. After brief deliberations, they will vote on who among them is most suspicious, and then place those people in a cryogenic chamber. Unfortunately, discovering the identity of the intruders is extremely difficult, so there is a considerable risk that innocent people will be eliminated in this way.

Mechanics

Gnosia is a visual novel type adventure, but it strongly deviates from the standards of the genre. The gameplay is divided into two stages. In the first one, we talk to the characters, asking them questions and answering the ones we were asked. At the end, we take part in voting, indicating who to put in the cryogenic chamber. The person who gets the highest number of votes is eliminated.

After these sessions, as part of the second stage, we get the opportunity to explore the ship and have conversations with the characters. We can use those chats to gather information useful for subsequent votes or to gain the sympathy of the crew, which makes them less suspicious of us.

The player can take on the role of both human and infected. In the latter case, we have to divert suspicion from ourselves and sabotage the actions of the crew. The whole game takes place within time loops. When certain conditions are met, the situation on the ship is reset and the roles of the characters are changed. Just because someone was human before, doesn't mean he or she will be so in the next variant of the story. Each such cycle also brings unique events. Some of them take place randomly, while others are unlocked through our decisions in previous approaches.

The gameplay is enriched by RPG elements. Our character is described by statistics which affect conversations and effectiveness of our actions. During the game we can improve them and they are not reset after starting a new cycle.

Game modes

Gnosia offers only single player mode.

Technical aspects

Game features graphics typical for visual novels. Thus, Gnosia offers 2D characters and backgrounds, which are mostly static and only rarely enriched with simple animations.

The advantage of the game is an unusual design. The characters look like paintings, not simple cartoon drawings which are standard for visual novels.