Left Eye Jacking Incident (Free Suspense ADV) Introduction, Impressions, and Walkthrough Notes

This is an introduction to "The Left Eye Jack Case," a work by Torikago, known for adventure games such as "Shiyouka" and "Kamibayashi Family Murder Case."
While Torikago's previous works haven't included many straightforward mystery stories, this one is no exception, as the Readme file explicitly states, "This is not a mystery story."
You should be able to clear the game up to the end credits in about an hour of gameplay.

In my case, I was confused and lost for a long time until I reached the ending that displayed "Complete."
However, I think it's a game that can be completed in about an hour and a half to two hours.

Game Overview

This game, "The Left Eye Jack Incident," is billed as a suspense adventure game.
The gameplay involves walking around town, going to designated locations, and talking to people to advance the story.
There are some chase sequences, but you can save right before them, and the difficulty level isn't high.

When you open the menu, it clearly shows you what you need to do next.
Basically, if you follow these steps, the conversation will proceed smoothly.
As stated in the Readme file, there is no need to talk to people you don't need to talk to.

However, in this game, you can earn "TIPs" by taking certain actions or experiencing events.
These are bonus sections unrelated to the main story, but viewing them can give you a deeper understanding of the narrative.
There are so many tips that collecting them all will be far more difficult than seeing the ending.
You can also toggle the display of hints for obtaining tips from the "System" option in the menu screen.

Review (no spoilers)

Given the nature of the game, it's difficult to talk about it without spoilers, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
As is typical of Torikago's works, the game is filled with various tricks designed to deceive the player.
There's no point in being on guard to avoid being deceived, so I think it's best to just enjoy seeing how they try to trick you.

While collecting many tips often requires starting over from the beginning, simply clearing the game won't lead to irreversible mistakes.
I think it was good that you could ignore the unnecessary elements and just aim to clear the game without any particular problems.

When I first started playing, I had a little trouble memorizing the city map.
It's quite large, and there's no visible distinction between areas you can enter and areas you can't, so there were actually some places I only realized I could enter later.
It would have been nice if there were markers or signs indicating places you could move to or investigate, but there's also the fun of discovery, so perhaps it's fine as it is.

"This is not a mystery story" means that identifying the culprit or solving the mystery is not necessarily required.
The culprit can be identified by brute force, and the necessary evidence and key clues are clearly shown in scenes that all players see, so there's no need to collect them (although you can get hints by taking detours).
It's not a straightforward mystery, but it definitely felt like a proper mystery.

Strategy hints (contains spoilers, but doesn't reveal the core plot)

This guide is for those who are stuck on the last Sunday morning after deciding to "go meet the culprit."
If you want to complete it on your own, I recommend you don't watch this.

- If the culprit is unknown
In this game, you don't need to take any detours to complete it.
Therefore, the culprit is among the characters who are forced to appear as you progress through the game.
(The first person you encounter after exploring the city is not the culprit.)
However, since this is not a mystery story, I think it will be difficult to figure out who the culprit is through deduction.
I believe the quickest way to clear the stage is to simply nominate everyone in a brute-force manner.

- If the location of the perpetrator is unknown
Even if you have a suspect in mind, there are times when you don't know where the culprit is.
Even in that case, don't panic. Use the select button to search the area around the location and the building to see if there's a way to get in from somewhere.

- An event that you can complete without watching, but is highly recommended.
On Tuesday night, while searching for the key to Takao's room drawer, examine Sakura's clothes to obtain the "Sakura's Room Key."
If you miss this opportunity, you won't be able to get it.
After that, I personally recommend you check out the event that occurs when you use the key to enter Sakura's room on Sunday morning.

Review (contains spoilers)

This section also mentions the culprit and the tricks used in the work.
If you haven't finished the game yet, I strongly advise you not to watch this.

The first time I played, I got stuck in the opening scene at the house and almost gave up, but I eventually managed to complete it.

At first, I thought the culprit was the novelist, Shion Kaihara.
Because in the scene where Jack attacks and Takao comes to the rescue, he said that the left side was slow to react.
However, upon closer inspection of the TIP section, it states that Kaihara has a bad leg, so I thought it would be difficult for him to keep up with Sakura.
Most importantly, Kaihara wasn't at the bookstore, and I couldn't find him anywhere, so even though I suspected something was up, I gave up.

Later, when I started the game over from the beginning, I realized that news reports and newspapers only referred to it as the "One-Eyed Jack Incident," and it didn't say anywhere which eye was gouged out.
The game's title and Sakura's horror-tinged dream at the beginning create the illusion that "everyone knows it's the left eye," which is the trick behind the game's design.
For these reasons, I became convinced that Sakura, the protagonist who knew it was her left eye, was the culprit.
On the last Sunday, I stood in front of the mirror at Takao's house and declared myself the culprit, but nothing happened.
If you were to start over from the beginning and pay attention to who besides the protagonist accidentally mentions the left eye, you might have noticed the real culprit's line.

After that, I was stuck for a while.
While exploring the city by trial and error, I finally remembered that there was a back entrance (thanks to restarting the game from the beginning, I was able to remember), and I successfully completed the game.
Indeed, it might have been more of a missing person game than a mystery story.

I had a hunch that the main character, Sakura, and Takao were not siblings.
The main character is referred to as "I" on the menu screen, and the way the main character and Takao interact gives the impression that they are lovers rather than siblings.
Because I had that impression, I also thought that the protagonist, who had taken the place of the older sister for some reason, might be the culprit.

So, I was surprised when I used the key to Sakura's room on Sunday and came face to face with Sakura.
This is an event you can't see if you fail to obtain the key, but I was surprised and enjoyed it.
This event made it clear that "Sakura" can mean both "Sakura" and "Sakura" (written in katakana), so I think it also serves as a hint to be careful about names written in katakana.
Indeed, when you look at the TIP, names like iris, ren, and mugwort are listed with their kanji characters, but the real culprit isn't listed, which I think shows that it's been carefully thought out.

The final line from the real culprit, "My eyes are alexandrite," is likely a quote from "Angels of Death."
I felt that this suggested the victim's eye was a prosthetic, while also expressing the victim's obsession with eyes.

By the way, the free game that Yomogi is talking about is"Murasame" (the current latest version is "Shin Murasame")That's the work I'm referring to.
It's a suspenseful adventure with mystery elements, and I highly recommend it (shameless plug).

Character relationship chart (contains spoilers)

(Added in September 2020)
The apparent mystery of this work is"Who is the culprit in the Left Eye Jack case?"If that's the case, then the mystery behind it is,"The protagonist's background"That's what it's about, I suppose.
To uncover this, you'll need to complete various side events in this game.

For a guide to completing sub-events focusing on characters related to the protagonist, I recommend the following website, which is very thorough and easy to understand.
The reviews are carefully written to avoid spoilers, and the comments on the works are very insightful.

If you're interested, I recommend checking out the walkthrough on the website mentioned above to complete the side events.
I think you'll be able to fully immerse yourself in the profound world of this work.

It might be a bit uncouth, but I've included an image summarizing the relationships between the main character and those around him.
I think the key to this work's appeal lies in its "names" and "facts that are not explicitly mentioned."
The real thrill lies in the process of gathering information, piecing it together, and arriving at the core of the mystery through your own reasoning.