Scarlet Sorceress: The Mystery of Castle Alaire

This game was entered as part of the short games showcase for games under a half hour, but it is quite a bit longer than that. It's part of a larger, projected Choicescript game.

The setting for this game is a magical fantasy world where women can be born as powerful sorceresses associated to different elements and men can become Guardians who have anti-magic powers and can defend sorceress or fight them.

You play as a fire sorceress, but can choose your specialty within fire. There is an extensive amount of early customization, not just for your character, but also for the game itself. I found this a bit overwhelming as I was expecting a small chunk of game for the competition, but it makes sense as part of a larger work.

The game has an extended intro section where you meet characters and explore. There doesn't seem to be much long-term effect of your choices here, besides setting a couple of romantic options. It's more flavor, but it's well-written flavor.

Later on the game hops into an investigation mode which I think has close to twenty subsections (which again shows how large this game is, as to fit under thirty minutes each subsection would have to take less than a minute to read). In this section, you can investigate three suspects' rooms with a time limit, and also different areas of the castle. In between investigation segments, you must attend a party, with choices of who to dance or flirt with.

Some investigation options let you use magic to solve them. This consumes the magic.

I was able to solve the puzzle the first try, although I wasn't sure until later on, and I thought the game did a good job of steadily building clues.