Venice After Dark

Venice After Dark is a point-and-click adventure combined with visual novel elements, set in a detailed rendition of Venice. Players follow Aiko, an introverted programmer, and Thea, an AI with a distinct personality, as they navigate a mystery involving a crime setting that blends factual and fictional elements, including real locations, historical figures, and events. The story explores themes of reality versus dreams and the nature of humanity, and includes three possible endings determined by player decisions.

Gameplay is built around a day and night cycle. During the day, players gather information by travelling, talking to non-player characters, collecting items, and solving puzzles. At night, gameplay shifts to auditory tasks and optical illusions based on real scientific experiments. Puzzles emphasise attention, interpretation, and perception rather than speed, requiring players to examine backgrounds for items or secret passages and converse with numerous characters for clues. Logic puzzles include tasks such as hacking an elevator and investigating hidden locations.

The game features hand-drawn characters and animated scenes, a full soundtrack, and complete voice acting for all characters. Venice is depicted with dynamic weather and changing times of day, altering the atmosphere of familiar locations throughout the story. Many settings are based on real places researched on location in Venice. The game currently supports a limited number of languages, with the developers indicating plans to expand localisation options depending on reception and available resources.