Dark Auction: new adventure game written by Rika Suzuki (J.B Harold, Another Code, Hotel Dusk) announced for Nintendo Switch

1 November 20231 November 2023 Lite_Agent Bellwood, Dark Auction, Izanagi Games

Update: the crowdfunding campaign for the game is now over. IzanagiGames ended up raising 9,289,500 Yen (roughly $61,631.6) from 466 people!

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Izanagi Games are back with another game for the Nintendo Switch: Dark Auction (full title: Dark Auction: Hitler’s Legacy), a new adventure game with an original story written by none other than Rika Suzuki.

Older players will remember her for adventure games developed at Riverhillsoft (J.B. Harold series, Toudou Ryuunosuke Tantei Nikki, etc.), while younger players will know her for the Nintendo DS and Wii games created for Nintendo (Hotel Dusk, Last Window, Another Code series) at CiNG.

Dark Auction is an adventure game written by Rika Suzuki, featuring character designs by Kohsuke (author of the GANGSTA. manga). It takes place in 1980 Germany, and its story revolves around a mysterious auction where people can bid on various items in exchange of their memories. It depicts mysteries related to Hitler’s legacy, as well as the people involved in it.

The protagonist, Noah, lives with his eccentric father who is literally obessed with items related to Hitler, constantly looking for new ones. He takes part in a mysterious auction in an old castle, where items related to Hitler’s secret legacy are on display. About that auction: there’s a rule that states that only memories can be used to buy the items, and said memories have to be true.

Here’s a teaser trailer:

And here’s the synopsis:

1981, Germany.
Eighteen-year-old Noah remembers being abandoned by his mother as a child.
He lives with his eccentric father, Leonardo, a failed writer devoted to researching Hitler.
Noah wants him to stop his research, but Leonardo refuses, no matter how much money he pours into it.

One day, an invitation arrives for an auction where ‘items related to Hitler’ are to be sold.
Leonardo ignores Noah’s objections and heads for the old castle, promising that he will tell him everything when he returns.

Noah goes to the castle to pick up his father, who has failed to return by the scheduled date and cannot be contacted.
There, Noah witnesses a shocking event.

Noah soon discovers that he is trapped in the old castle with the other auction participants.
The auctioneer invites him to take part in this mysterious auction.

The characters of the game are:

Noah Crawford (voiced by Kengo Kawanishi in Japanese. Age: 18). A university student in search of himself. He was abandoned by his mother when he was a child: this event traumatised him, leaving him unable to trust other people. He abhors his father’s obsession with Hitler, but he simply cannot bring himself to hate him, and so finds himself with a dilemma;
Leonardo Crawford (voiced by Rikiya Koyama in Japanese. Age: 55). Noah’s father. An eccentric man and failed author, who has written only one best-seller: “The Truth about Maria”. His wife ran away when Noah was but a child, and so he raised him all by himself.
Edgar Schulz (voiced by Daisuke Namikawa in Japanese. Age: 20). A doctor and a full-fledged genius who got his medical licence after skipping grades at university.
Kristoph Treheim von Berg (voiced by Nobunaga Shimazaki in Japanese. Age: 19). The heir to an aristocrat. He’s intrigued by Noah.
Otto Klein (voiced by Shunsuke Takeuchi in Japanese. Age: 18). A civil servant, and a good-natured man. The most redoubtable of auctioneers.
Karla Becker (voiced by Maaya Uchida in Japanese. Age: 16). A bashful high-school student. She’s surprisingly composed for her age, but her immaturity occasionally slips through.
Lorraine Klopp (voiced by Yui Ishikawa in Japanese. Age: 21). A selfish actress from the United States.
Hell (voiced by Akira Ishida in Japanese. Age: unknown). The librarian of the old castle. You can always find him reading a book in silence at the library’s reception.
Auctioneer (voiced by Shou Ayami in Japanese. Age: unknown). A mysterious auctioneer wearing a parrot mask.

The game is made of three parts:

0) Beginning of the day: you get information on the day’s target, and the list of items on display, in your room.
1) Investigation part
- walk around the old castle, and talk to the various characters
- search rooms for items
- search for books in the library
2) Auction part. That part is divided in three stages: first, second, and third stages.
3) Deduction part. Takes place in the common room (where you can interact with the other auction participants) and in your own room (where you can gather your thoughts and create a relationship chart)

Here’s the key features:

An intriguing worldview set against the backdrop of Hitler’s legacy.
Stylish and unique characters.
A 3D map that allows you to freely explore the old castle.
A word cloud system that lets you deduce and think using keywords.
During auction parts, reveal the truth of memories through visuals and puzzles.
The game’s multiple endings change the future depending on the choices made by the protagonist.
A full-fledged mystery adventure.
An original work by Rika Suzuki.

Dark Auction is set to release in 2024 on Nintendo Switch, but before that, it’s getting a crowdfunding campaign on Campfire from September 2nd to October 31st. Izanagi Games were hoping to raise at least 2 million Yen ($13,719.50), and as of writing, they have raised over 7 million Yen (7,720,500 Yen to be precise, roughly $51,577.2). Make sure to check out the Campfire page for the game (only available in Japanese)!

With this campaign, Izanagi Games intend to bring Dark Auction to players around the world. It will feature the following languages:

Voices: English, Japanese
Text: English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified, Traditional)

Bellwood (the company Rika Suzuki founded in 2009) is in charge of planning along with Izanagi Games (who is also in charge of development and marketing). Here’s a partial list of people working on the game:

Concept and Story: Rika Suzuki
Character Design: Kosuke
Music: Yuko Komiyama
Technical Director: Takuya Miyagawa (former CEO and President of CiNG)
Producer: Shinsuke Umeda (IzanagiGames)
Director: Con Umeda (IzanagiGames)

Here’s some comments from Rika Suzuki, sharing some more details about the game and its story:

This new game is a mystery adventure game based on the motif of “A fictional legacy secretly left behind by a historical figure”. It features a timeless mystery and the drama of characters living in the modern era.

The game takes place in an old castle in 1981, 36 years after Hitler’s death.

The main character, Noah, is an 18-year-old man who has decided he will never grow up to become like his father, but he doesn’t know what kind of adult he should be. The game follows Noah as he participates in a mysterious auction held in an old castle. As a person living in the 1980s, he discovers the terrible scars left behind by the war and the hidden truths of the people who were at its mercy, while also uncovering the great secret that his father has kept hidden from him all this time.

Studying history makes us think about ‘the present’ and about ‘human beings’.

Also, studying the ‘past’ inevitably leads us to think about the ‘future’.

There are people who are destined to leave their mark on History: they are special individuals who reflect aspects of the times they lived in. One of them, Hitler, is the figure of absolute evil that embodies the great upheaval that was the Second World War.

What if that man had left something, in secret, for the next generations?

How did the young people who became involved in that legacy in 1980s Germany, where his dark shadow still lingered, perceive it and what did they think about the future?

In this game, I would like to portray this kind of ‘human drama’.

Dark Auction (Switch) does not have a release date yet, but is slated for a 2024 release.

Source: Gamer