away. The leadership team really liked the prototype, and we started figuring out a way of putting a team together.”


GET THE GANG TOGETHER And put a team together they certainly did. Of the numerous hands involved in the project, one that is particularly of note is Hato Moa (director of Hatoful Boyfriend), who stepped in to handle the character design, much to Fear’s delight. “It was huge when she came on board to do the characters. Obviously, we’d had success working with her before on Hatoful Boyfriend, so getting her buy-in was a huge moment for us. And that kind of thing kept happening as development went on. It suddenly grew into like, ‘wow, this is really happening,’ rather than just this… thing we’re doing in the corner.” The big-name talent didn’t stop there however, with the legendary Masakazu Sugimori (of Phoenix Wright, Viewtiful Joe and Ghost Trick fame) stepping in to handle the game’s soundtrack. Which, for a game inspired by Phoenix Wright, is a tremendous bragging right. “The original idea for the game came about when I was playing Picross DS, which is around the same time I was


playing the Phoenix Wright games. I didn’t quite realise how much fans would draw that line with it. “I mean, Phoenix Wright is a terrifying thing to live up to, right? Especially the original trilogy, they’re just really amazing, wonderful games. The structure of Pheonix Wright was always a part of Murder by Numbers, and then it just gradually became more that way over time.


Below: The game’s Picross elements blend surprisingly well with its visual novel aspects


January 2022 MCV/DEVELOP | 47


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