The Silver Case

The Silver Case[b] is an adventure visual novel video game developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and published by ASCII Entertainment for the PlayStation in 1999.These scenery are a combination of 2D and 3D artwork, real-world photographs incorporated into the game, limited full-motion graphics, and short live-action sequences.The Heinous Crimes Unit consists of detectives Tetsugoro Kusabi, Sumio Kodai, Chizuru Hachisuka, Kiyoshi Morikawa, Morichika Nakategawa, HCU chief Shinji Kotobuki, and the rookie player character.Both parties soon come into conflict with Kamui Uehara, an assassin who was involved in a brutal crime 20 years ago and is now resurfacing as a threat to order in Ward 24.A series of mysterious and bizarre murders have surfaced, prompting the Heinous Crimes Unit (HCU) of the 24 Wards Police Department to investigate.[1][10] The Silver Case, and consequently Grasshopper Manufacture, was born from Suda's wish to create something original, having only worked on pre-existing projects for Human.[11] During development, the team was faced with severe financial restrictions, which further exacerbated the problems caused by a small staff as they could not produce all the art assets normally needed for such a game.He used the main theme, in addition to other dedicated character motifs, to create remixes and tunes that highlighted important parts of the game.[17] Suda's focus on the activities of a serial killer was in reaction to government censorship on general media following the Kobe child murders and its resultant controversy.[9] This theme, in addition to delving into justice, evil and sin during the narrative, was intended by Suda to make the game original within its genre.[8] Ooka was brought onto the team based on a companion piece he had written for a strategy guide for Moonlight Syndrome that acted as a subtext within the main narrative.[21] Speaking later, Suda noted that The Silver Case was very different from the studio's later titles, with no action gameplay and a lack of bloody violence.[24] While Suda wished for the game to be localized in English, translating and localizing the game properly initially prevented this: issues with translation ranged from the sheer amount of dialogue and some of its more nuanced and technical aspects, to questions in gameplay that required deep knowledge of how Japanese worked due to its implementation in puzzles and dialogue.Co-developed by Grasshopper Manufacture and Active Gaming Media, it was set for a worldwide digital release in Autumn for Windows through Steam and Playism, in addition to other unspecified platforms.According to the programmer Yuki Yamazaki, while some algorithms such as those related to videos and scene changes were completely redone, others such as the film window system were kept as intact as possible to maintain the original atmosphere.The main problem with the port was that the original source code had been lost, so the audio data needed to be extracted from the PlayStation disc version using a converter.[42] A port of The Silver Case 2425 for the Nintendo Switch was released in Japan on February 18, 2021,[43] and for North America and Europe in July.[47] Prior to its release in the West, The Silver Case was highlighted in multiple articles by 1UP.com as an early example of Suda's distinctive style.Suda would later say that, when making Killer7, he tried to revisit and refine the thematic, narrative and gameplay elements he envisioned and developed for The Silver Case.[53] Titled The 25th Ward: The Silver Case, it was a text-based adventure game with action commands linked to number inputs.