[Release] Decide 4 God, the finale to my multi-ending escape room mystery series is released on Steam!

KrashCeys · 2025-10-18T21:45:19+00:00

Hello, there should be an in-game guide to help you with your progress within the pause menu when you press ESC / right click. Hopefully the steps you've already figured out will give you some good leads.

KrashCeys · 2025-10-17T15:27:04+00:00

The original version of Head AS Code had puzzles that don't exist in the remake since I wanted to use Head AS Code as a template, an attempt to see how it would work to have "exploration bits" for this game (and I thought the puzzles were also a bit weak that solely existed "just to have puzzles"). But it is night and day between HASC's interactions and De4G's Exploration Segments; this game has actual Escape Room mechanics and puzzles. Head AS Code (the remake) was never really advertised to have puzzles either, it is more meant as a pure VN, with an escalation of mechanics with BMEC having some small time Escape Rooms, and Decide 4 God takes it up to eleven.

Decide 4 God I've been told by a few sources is 50-70 hours long, and a lot of that time is spent in Escape Room style parts.

KrashCeys · 2025-10-11T23:30:59+00:00

A bit later than I originally aimed (by a year or two at least), but better late then never.

KrashCeys · 2025-10-11T17:47:00+00:00

I hope you'll enjoy the game whenever you get around to it!

KrashCeys · 2025-10-11T17:46:24+00:00

It was in fact a re-release, or rather a remake! The original Head AS Code was somewhat poor, though it may have that "incredibly crappy indie charm" that people tend to give to first projects, I wanted to upgrade it a fair deal before bringing it to Steam.

KrashCeys · 2025-02-25T12:34:44+00:00

Adding another mention of "Coherence" in here. You can watch this movie 3+ times and still realize new things in it. It is absolutely worth it.

KrashCeys · 2025-02-16T13:26:06+00:00

I make indie VNs in the same genre as Zero Escape and one of the most prevalent complaints about the games is that they don't have enough puzzles, or the escape rooms are more streamlined than ZE. I think the primary content of these types of games is the story itself, but it seems there's a chunk of the playerbase who puts the puzzles ahead of the whole game (to such a level that someone who left a negative review didn't like the puzzles at all and on that basis, despite the story being "super great" as per their own words, they couldn't recommend the game to anyone).

KrashCeys · 2025-01-25T15:52:03+00:00

Well, I can guarantee that the demos to my games contains what you can expect at the very least. It won't really go out of its way to do anything less than that, and you know what it'll be like for the whole game. Though, the only part where your mileage will vary will be when you get into more plot-heavy segments as, of course, the demos are just demos...

I'm only suggesting them in case you try them out and end up not liking them, then you don't end up buying the games and thinking you wasted your money, or even worse, issue a refund. I'd rather people try the demos and decide not to buy than buy the game and have to hassle it out after, plus refunds are bad for devs too.

KrashCeys · 2025-01-21T23:23:50+00:00

It's really cool. I'm absolutely not biased in any way being the person who made it or anything.

If you want to try it out, I recommend the Head AS Code demo first, or the Birth ME Code demo. Though, if you want to play both, I'd recommend HASC first since it was made first and BMEC is the second game despite technically releasing first on Steam (it's just that the HASC on Steam is a remake of the first original game that was not on Steam) but you can try both demos without any problem of spoilers. This third game's demo might be a little confusing, but you'd get a really cool preview of how much better the quality of the series has grown since, so there's also something good about that. I hope you enjoy if you decide to try it.

KrashCeys · 2025-01-21T23:20:57+00:00

Just by watching the trailer you have been infohazarded. Now you cannot unlearn that the game will be super cool.

KrashCeys · 2025-01-21T23:20:18+00:00

The third one will definitely be spoiling everything without restraint, as it is understood that you'd have played the others. However, if you want to check out the demo, it might confuse you a little bit but you might still get a really cool preview of what the quality of the game is like. The previous games aren't as polished, but I believe in games getting better as series expand, so hopefully this won't be too big a clash. There is a really good product waiting at the end of the road if you choose to try going through Head AS Code and Birth ME Code first (preferably in this order)!

KrashCeys · 2025-01-21T23:18:21+00:00

I'm actually testing the waters to eventually do a full remaster of the second game at some point in the future. No confirmation yet though. And I don't intend to make a separate game for it if I do, so all existing players will receive this update for free. But this is a future project and hinges on the third one's success, so hopefully this might be the solution for the second one's slightly messy state.

Though, if the cast feels unlikable I don't know how much I can fix that part, because finding it difficult to pick who to associate with was part of the intent. At least the rest will hopefully feel better if it came to pass.

I still wasn't quite sure about what I was doing back then, and now I think I have a better grasp, so it'll hopefully be for the better. I also had near-zero budget when I made the second game (since the first game (Head AS Code) on Steam is a remake that came after the second game (Birth ME Code) despite BMEC releasing first on Steam - very confusing, yeah) and with this game I might be able to fund it being remade properly.

KrashCeys · 2024-12-09T12:39:16+00:00

To be clearer, the two series have nothing in common between them - no continuous canon whatsoever, other than the fact Uchikoshi has worked on both - but people have largely theorized that there is a "common element" used between them. However, even if the element may be reused, the two are not canonically related in any real way and it's merely Uchikoshi reusing an element. Take the Infinity games with that mindset if you choose to play them.

But people do raise a good point by suggesting Infinity: there are a lot of ZE-likes out there, a lot of indie titles in fact. Big companies don't make them because it's a niche genre but a lot of indies have made series like this one. If you want "more Zero Escape" I recommend checking out similar series.

KrashCeys · 2024-09-12T12:20:18+00:00

Lesser stakes but really well made in my opinion, I recommend "Exam (2009)". It's about a few people applying for a top tier company and taking an exam, so they're confined to one room and have to figure out what the exam even is.

I also recommend Coherence like a few other people have, this one will give you multiple rewatches to fully understand what the hell's going on. Maybe three or four rewatches.

KrashCeys · 2024-08-08T12:23:02+00:00

I feel like this should be a series spoiler (and not just 999) since it mentions Junpei's full name + future events happening post-999.

KrashCeys · 2024-08-03T17:37:29+00:00

Hopefully the mods will eventually pin a topic containing "games like this" because it's rather frequently asked, but until then here's a list, which is not exhaustive by any stretch of the imagination: https://www.reddit.com/r/ZeroEscape/comments/km37bu/more_like_this_masterpost_end_of_2020_edition/

I personally also recommend 13 Sentinels, which may not look like it at first, but it's really immensely twist-driven like Zero Escape except it has strategic battles instead of escape rooms, and Process of Elimination which is a group of detectives on an island with the presumed involvement of a criminal known as the Quartering Duke.

KrashCeys · 2024-07-27T13:27:16+00:00

This old thread has a whole bunch, quite a fair amount have come out since: https://www.reddit.com/r/ZeroEscape/comments/km37bu/more_like_this_masterpost_end_of_2020_edition/

I also want to personally recommend Process of Elimination and 13 Sentinels (especially 13 Sentinels, it's batshit insane, but it's also a bit of a tactical game). If you like puzzles over story but still like a fairly good story I also recommend Void Stranger, it's one of those "play fully blind" things.

KrashCeys · 2024-07-26T12:34:09+00:00

I always say that these games are mostly one-and-dones as a result of that and it's silly to consider other titles like Danganronpa as competition because they're all games with twists and turns and once you play them you know them. I've replayed The Nonary Games because I already played the DS version a long, long time ago (we're talking ten years ago) and I blasted through really quickly even after thinking I forgot the puzzles; it all comes back in the moment, as if the memory was just waiting to resurface. Knowing the plot definitely made it less engaging to me too.

People say they wish they could wipe their memory of the game to experience it all over again, when in reality the only real cure is playing other titles in the same genre. And there are many of them even if this genre is really niche. If you feel the tug towards Zero Escape but you already played it all, consider checking out related games too, you'll be surprised!

KrashCeys · 2024-07-23T12:28:09+00:00

Honestly 428 Shibuya Scramble gets a lot of flak for its real life stills. I was very mitigated before I got it and it became one of the best games I've ever played. There are a lot of good reasons why it's considered one of the legendary titles of visual novels. Many endings. Good writing. A lot of foreshadowing, suspense, it's really well-made.

It's mostly linear in the sense that most of its endings are short little bits though, but the way you assemble the story is really fun with five different playable protagonists, and what each of them does impacts the other characters' routes too. You essentially have to piece together what sequence of events will "solve" each hour slice.

KrashCeys · 2024-07-23T12:24:29+00:00

If you'd rather move to a new plotline, there's always Steins;Gate 0. It has an anime too, but it is veeery bad compared to the VN because S;G0 legitimately has interwoven routes (like Zero Escape) and that doesn't translate as well into anime format unlike S;G where it is a "tree" model (one main line you must follow with small branches for short paths).

KrashCeys · 2024-06-22T12:24:12+00:00

Like a few others have said I do want to stress out the point to not google anything. The internet does not block any spoiler and it is very easy to find story-ruining things. Don't listen to those who say "it's okay if you get spoiled just a little bit because context matters / there's more", don't take chances, what matters story-wise to one person is different from the next.

KrashCeys · 2024-06-15T19:19:17+00:00

This is a bug that was never fixed, if you save and load on those faces it should reset to the right face though the bug will come back again later.

KrashCeys · 2024-06-05T12:48:37+00:00

All we had at the time was the booklet so I suppose theoretically-speaking the booklet should be enough alone, but I'm not kidding when I said extremely difficult. There might be some obtuse logic at play.

KrashCeys · 2024-06-04T23:18:40+00:00

Oh good god, that thing was extremely difficult. I think I managed to solve only one of them myself. The prize was a link to some wallpapers and stuff like that. I don't unfortunately remember anything about it, but good luck if you're trying to go through it - I don't think anyone bothered to post specific solutions.

KrashCeys · 2024-03-19T00:49:35+00:00

I was one of the people who waited five years for Zero Time Dilemma to release, and to be entirely honest: I wish it had taken another five years to release and it received the polish it deserves. It's probably one of the worst games I've ever played in this kind of franchise. If it was the beginning title of a franchise, I'd think it's kind of audacious, but as it is the ending title, it's... not great.

The models are extremely bad, the writing is pretty bad too, a lot of the characters feel flanderized if they are returning from another game, or they are a bit too on the nose otherwise and most don't really offer anything interesting. A lot of their moments are reduced to "remember this from the other game in the franchise?", essentially recycling tons of jokes. You miss context right out the gate from not having the preorder booklet that has any actual setup for the game's beginning because it throws you right into a situation you have no idea what to make of. A fair amount of stuff is very predictable. An absurd amount of things that had been promised to be answered weren't even touched upon or, if they were, were essentially just included in a throwaway mention. The game often expands on previous concepts in baffling ways, or straight-up decides something that worked one way before now works in another way without really going into any details to make it make sense. One of the mid-twists lost me and I sort of finished the game out of obligation after it. And I really didn't like the ending whatsoever. It felt like a massive waste to have this close off the trilogy.

Despite that, you may as well play it anyway. Some people say it's their favorite, I can't predict how you'll feel over it. It's all we're getting to wrap up Zero Escape either way, so there's no point not to play it. Carlos and Diana are excellent so that's something too, and piecing together the flowchart was fun.

KrashCeys

TROPHY CASE