Review: Homicipher Asks You to Learn and Keep an Open Mind

You wake up in a dilapidated apartment building, unsure of how you made your way into the sprawling concrete maze. Whispers and the sounds of crawling surround you at every step. You’re unsure if some is following you or if you’re imagining it. Then he appears when turning a corner. It’s a man crawling on all fours, long dark hair covering everything but his eerie smile… and he’s kind of cute? Okay, maybe the creepy men and characters in Homicipher aren’t exactly your definition of “cute.” But if you spend time with them and make the effort to decipher their language, them you might just find that they are, in fact, pretty endearing people.

Developer Yatsunagi describes Homicipher as a “female-targeted” language deciphering visual novel. As such, you play as a self-described “cute” girl that is trapped in the liminal space inhabited by various dangerous monsters and half-scary, half-handsome men. The concept of the game is very simple. You interact with the inhabitants of the otherworld in order to learn their language and request their assistance in returning home safely. I find the hook brilliantly simple and attractive, as someone with a fascination for this particular brand of Japanese horror taken from popular urban legends.

Another important aspect of Homicipher is what the developers describe it as the concept of “romance with horror men.” As I mentioned earlier, the characters you interact with in the game are all designed to be kind of handsome or attractive in some way. You can clearly see some of the character design tropes that inspired characters such as Mr. Silvair, Mr. Chopped, or the enigmatic Mr. Hood. In my opinion, Yatsunagi absolutely threaded the needle when it came to making the characters look equally appealing and uncanny. This made my interactions with new characters thrilling, as I wasn’t sure if they were going to be friendly or if they’d trick me in some way, as it often happened. Other times, characters would be inoffensive in their intentions, but accidentally cause harm because of their lack of understanding when it comes to humans.

However, Homicipher is not a dating sim, and the idea of romance is interpreted in a more subtle and nuanced way throughout the game. I much preferred this take, rather than the game being a more traditional romance and dating sim, as the mechanical focus lies in deciphering and communicating. Your protagonist has her own voice, and will interact with monsters and creatures alike while trying to decipher their words. Despite this, the onus of having to interpret the words of the otherworldly language falls completely on the player. While the protagonist will sometimes try to infer the intention of certain actions or describe the gestures accompanied by words, this doesn’t happen often. You’re tossed into the thick of it in order to survive.

As with other visual novels, making decisions is an important part of progressing and getting into different character routes or endings. However, it is the language deciphering that makes Homicipher stand apart, both mechanically and thematically. Playing as a human trapped in a horrifying, incomprehensible world while having to bridge the language barrier with people that might not have your best interests in mind brings a different kind of fear and anxiety to the game that I’m not used to seeing in the medium. The other language is simple, but effective. As you interact with the characters and environments, you can type in what you think the meaning of different words are on top of each one. The game also makes sure to explain the rules of the language organically.

While playing, I found it important to remind myself that verbs are reliable for the most part once guessed. Nouns are vague and closer to wide concepts, such as “tool” instead of a specific object, or “tether” instead of “chain” or “thread.” You can make your own interpretation when it comes to what words mean, and the game can be completed without filling them in or even if didn’t guess correctly. Personally, I found great satisfaction in going back to the beginning of the game and starting to puzzle what early-game conversations meant, and realizing the intentions behind each character earlier than I did during my first go.

This simplistic language also affects characterizations in an interesting way. Because words are limited to a few hundred options, characters can’t express complex ideas or feelings. This doesn’t stop them from feeling like fleshed out individuals in the ways they emote and interact with the player. For example, it is very clear early on that your main partner during the game, Mr. Crawling, is a kindhearted and open-minded person that just wants to spend time with you and protect you. (Despite him looking like Sadako’s cousin.) In contrast, Mr. Gap is constantly trying to play tricks and play games with you. Sure, sometimes the games are ripping your finger off, but monsters don’t have the same experiences of pain and healing as humans, so things that could be innocent to them might appear dangerous or malicious to the protagonist. In that way, you’re not only forced to interpret words, but also interpret intentions and meaning.

During its 7 to 8 hour runtime, Homicipher is a lean game with lots of routes, words to decipher, characters to interact with, and several endings. Some of the endings you can find as early as chapter 1, and they feel like the more traditionally “good” endings. The longer your character stays in the underworld without finding a way out, the less of a chance there is to return home as the person she once remembered. There are some neat and subtle narrative twists in Homicipher about what makes someone scary or dangerous, no matter if they’re human or monster, but I will keep those vague for those that might want to pick up the game.

Homicipher is an experimental visual novel that asks you to keep an open mind for the unknown. All that is gold does not glitter, and not all creatures that crawl on the floor in a terrifying manner are monsters. Only by making the effort to learn and communicating with them you might discover that the unknown might not be as scary after all.

Homicipher is readily available for Windows PC via Steam.