Zodiac Paradigm
A downloadable game
Paradigm - a typical example or pattern of something; a model
The Emperor sends out 12 letters to 12 animals to be a part of a mysterious new council. Upon arrival, 13 animals show up instead.
Suspicions and doubts are thrown left and right as the group of animals work to figure out who the outlier is and overcome their misguided perceptions of each other.
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Art, Design, Writing, Coding, Dying:
Editor, Assistant Artist, Bone:
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Writers:
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Assistant Sprite/CG Artist:
Assistant Chibi Artist:
Background Artists:
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Composers:
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Audio Lead:
Audio Editors:
*With Very Berry Studios
Sound Designer:
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Voice Actors:
Ren Alberg ............. Cat
Eric Wheeldon .......... Emperor
Sam Grace .............. Rat
Harold Ingram .......... Ox
Kaylee Dankese ......... Tiger
Wish Utaite ............ Rabbit
Angie Min .............. Dragon
Elissa Park............. Snake
ZoraLune ............... Horse
Luke Avon .............. Goat
Vanessa Benoit ......... Monkey
Rain Lefever ........... Rooster
Huy Pham ............... Dog
Charles Nguyễn.......... Pig
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Additional Resources Used:
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Additional Notes:
- Content Warnings For:
- Murder and Related, Blood, Drowning, Burning Alive
- This game is NOT gore heavy, CGs are relatively tame other than blood and bruising.
- Minor Jumpscares
- Minor Flashing Lights/Sudden white screen
This game is LONG... at around 49K words.
- To get to the true ending, it takes about 6-7 hours.
- First playthrough of prologue + case to reach one of the five "endings" is about 3 hours. The prologue stays the same so getting the other "endings" takes less time.
If you run into any problems with the game, leave a comment here or DM me on twitter @no_xiruo!!
Note about 1.2 version:
There are some issues with the PAUSE menu... when you open it up it will likely say something like "Refusing to open [filename] while predicting."
This is a known bug... and I do not know how to fix it yet. But if you navigate to "History" then the PAUSE should load back in? It might still dissappear at times, as long as you go back to "History" it should help it... load.
I don't know why this happens... I'm working on it ;;7;;
Additionally, some of the formatting on the menu is a little awkward and the investigation segments might be kinda hard. (No hover cursor.) Otherwise it should work fine!
The game was meant for PC. So if you can, please download on a PC!
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Promo Images:
Included in downloads is a zip folder of transparent logos and sprites and chibi heads!! You can use these for things like thumbnails and memes if you want! :>
JUST KNOW, I'm giving you this for free out of the kindness of my SoulTM. Don't go reselling/claiming it's yours/training AI. As long as you use it within the context of Zodiac Paradigm, it's all good! Thank you!!
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Updated | 19 days ago |
Status | Released |
Rating | Rated 4.9 out of 5 stars (12 total ratings) |
Author | xiruo |
Genre | Visual Novel |
Tags | chinese, murder, Mystery, mythology, republican-era-china, zodiac |
Download
Development log
- Zodiac Paradigm 1.2! Android Version!!48 days ago
- Zodiac Paradigm 1.1 !69 days ago
- Hooray for Zodiac Paradigm! (AKA: what is scope)73 days ago
Comments
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loving this game! On earth trial (my 3rd)… I specifically got it by answering yes to the emperor. Does it go in a set order like the guide says or is it due to saying yes?
It goes it a set order like how it is on the guide! :> Thank you for playing <3
I just wanted to let you know I (May) have found a bug… loved the game so much I’m having a friend play it, they were exploring the About section (something I never even thought to do) and we realized that every character has the same character info as Cat. It was honestly quite funny because now it says every character dislikes Rat, and I know the game was made in a month so it may just be something that wasn’t completed, but just wanted to let you know in case it’s some kind of bug.
Oh yeah! I know... that bug... ;;7;; I've fixed it now in the latest version lmao.
Originally everything worked fine actually, but after a few bug fixes to the menu screens the photos got messed up... and then while fixing the photos the text got messed up LMAO. That's the mistake of rushing to fix bugs... you start making new bugs. )-)o
But thank you for letting me know!! :>
Enjoyed the game, but i took a bit to get use to the evidence stuff at the ending of each case, guess i should have played more danganronpa as a kid lmao.
BTW: i like the ox but the goat, dog and rabbit are also really cute..
..i just couldnt stand the rat, sorry not sorry Ratthew Stans
LMAO We all have our tastes HJSLFGKJSH
Thank you for playing!! <3 :>
I LOVE THIS GAME SM!!! The characters and routes are super fun and I had a blast playing it!! The story had me IMMERSERED the whole way through. Just wondering where I can find the transparent sprites though, I swear I've been searching the files for so long and I'm itching to make an edit :') ONCE AGAIN PHENOMENAL GAME!!!! :33
omg THANK YOU ;;O;;!! I'm glad you you liked it! :>
If you download the "Zodiac Paradigm Promo" folder and unzip it, there is a folder inside with all the sprites from the game!! Happy editing :>>>!!
OMG IT WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME THIS WHOLE TIME LOLLL
This is so embarrassing :')) Thank you so much!!
THIS GAME IS SUPER COOL
tho i havent gotten everything yet the first two cases slayed so hard. the characters are so cool and funny and literally the style and aesthetic is just EVERYTHING. this game slays so hard and I indulged so hard because the story was pretty interesting. i was so suprised that the ui and game mechanics were so well made and cool! i had so much fun honestly will play again tomorrow and bring my friends in it HAHA
omg LKJASFGKLS Thank you!! I'm so happy you're having fun with it!
I hope your friends also have a fun time >w>
ahh this game was really fun!! i loved the art and the characters are so nice too...
i just can't get the endings though ;v; will you post a walkthrough of them??
Okay! :>
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VHRYEHgapjkh85oGFgmJhZqXa2NoLzdiBAGzS0Oz1ts/...
aaaaaaa thank you very much !!!!!!!
Hi! Loving the game so far, but I am stuck on the 2nd case (the stabbing). I talked with everyone and looked for area items but still missing 1 last clue! Any guidance on what I'm missing would really help, for reference I am missing the middle/3rd clue on the list
Hello! Sorry for the late reply!
Yeah, that one is pretty hard to find. Here's a photo of where it is :>
I hope that helps ;;7;;!!
tysm for the help!!!
Amazing Game! The story, the art, the characters, the game play, the gui, the mysteries, the well... everything, was just awesome. Been following this one since concept and was so hyped to play it! And it delivered on every front! Fantastic job everyone. Loved it.
Thank you Val!! ;;7;; I'm so glad you ended up playing it <3
🐀 Justice for Ratthew! 🐀
Suddenly I can't read...
Wow, this was really lovely to play, the atmosphere, the character designs, the UI, the voice acting, music, SFX, but what really caught my eye tbh was the backgrounds!! Like I saw the red reflection on the floor where those red curtains were drapes and I just lost my mind, like, it's so good looking! All of them are gorgeous!!
One thing, though. Pretty sure I got the worst ending (Unless there's something even worse). And I was going to go back and try again, but I accidentally pressed the new game button, and now I can't revisit any of my old saves, and I don't have the option to skip through stuff I've already seen either. I might see if someone makes a video on it, but with all due respect to this great game, I'm not risking carpal tunnel to finally solve the mystery. I thought usually saves carry through playthroughs, (even if rollback is turned off?) so a bit confused on that.
Overall, absolutely amazing! You guys deserve all the praise you're getting :)
Hey o/
Not involved in development, but I can say that what happened [the ending you saw, saves lost] seems to be an intended part of the experience.
If you try new game again, you'll notice progress.
Hello! Here to add on that yes, the saves are deleted after you reach the "correct" ending for any case. This is so that you're forced to start again from the beginning (to trigger another case) and lowkey manually perpetuate a time loop.
You SHOULD be able to skip through anything you have seen before. I'm not sure why it would prevent you from doing that.
But in the off-chance that you would like to try to get the true end/different case, you can toggle the skip "Unseen Text" in the preferences to True.
I have written stuff in to stop skipping when you've reached certain sections. (Like the end of the Prologue for example.) So even with skipping "Unseen Text" you should still be able to get back to the new content. As long as you don't have skip "After Choices" turned on, it should give you breaks to stop skipping.
Thank you for playing the game though! Other than the saves/skips I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Commenting on here as well to say that this is peak. Genuinely while playing this I was shocked that I didn't spend money, the amount of content was insane!
All of the character designs were super well executed, every single one registered as their animal inspiration(big kudos for rooster, goat, and snakes designs in particular) and I loved all of the snappy dialogue in between the characters.I remember seeing your progress pics on twitter and wondering how you were gonna juggle 13 characters but you did it! And really well at that!
All of the UI designs were super crisp as well, and I'm definitely taking notes on the way that you scripted and placed characters along the screen.
Overall excellent work, the whole team should be proud of how polished of a game they released.
Thank you so much!! :>> For this comment as well as on twitter and the game jam page ;;7;;
Honestly, you're right, IDK how I was gonna juggle 13 characters LMAO... while I was coding the positions, camera, and stuff during the discussion I could feel the massive weight of work looming above me. I'm just glad that by some miracle I made it.
But yeah, thank you for your kind words! This really was too big of a game for a game jam and I kind of regret not trying to make a smaller game. But seeing people enjoy it makes everything pretty worth it ;;7;;
Really impressed with how meaty this was for a jam game! I was a big fan of the styling, from the character design to the super slick UI (especially the pause screen! so cool). Also was super impressed with the amount of voice work! Everyone was fantastic, but I wanted to give extra kudos to Horse, Monkey, and Rat who I think really nailed their character voices :)
I was a little confused at the end of the first case, and then once the realization hit me things clicked into place in a very satisfying way. Very clever little twist!
My one piece of feedback is that I had a tough time finding some of the pieces of evidence in a few cases bc they were so close to items I had already investigated that I didn't register there were separate objects! Having an item outline in addition to the question mark pop up might be helpful for poor idiots like me.
Overall, I had a lot of fun with this and I think the whole team deserves a round of applause! Congrats on a fantastic jam entry!
Thank you!! AA I'm so happy you had fun with it! And I'm so happy you enjoyed the story (and the twists) :>>>
For the item highlighting, I was honestly going to do that originally but went with the ? cursor for time. I'm working on an update to the game right now (typos and minor bug fixes) so, hopefully I can squeeze in a quality of life improvement with the investigation too :>
But yay!! Thank you so much for playing!!
I just finished the game and it was sooo good oh my god! I absolutely loved the story, art, voice acting, and music, but my favourite was definitely the characters and their relationship.
AA Thank you!! I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
I definitely poured as much writing juice as I could into the characters themselves, so I'm glad you liked them :>>
Hi!!! I really really enjoy the game so far, but I have. run into a slight issue
I probably just missed something, but I'm on the fire case and cannot for the life of me find the first piece of evidence. I've talked to everyone multiple times and looked in every room multiple times but havent found it yet. Sorry in advanced if it turns out i just missed it LMAO
Hey! Thanks for playing :>
Sorry about the confusion jlsdkfgj
Here's a hint, it's an image.
Ohhhh okay, thank you!
That was a fun detective sleuthing game with a really sweet story. The UI is so fun and charming!
Thank you! (again) :>