Demon's Timeline

Logic deduction games are something I enjoy, having played games like Case of the Golden Idol, Obra Dinn, etc. and Demon’s Timeline was a logic game I finished recently and liked! I remember wishlisting this game a while back when I first saw it, but I only decided to buy it because a friend shared a tweet with both the girl (Nyasuteria) and Sherry from Manosaba with something along the lines of “I hope people try both”. I initially thought that this was because the two characters were similar (they’re not), but I’m glad that I got it anyways!

The gameplay is straightforward, but I like the execution. You browse a Definitely Not Twitter TM timeline and from there draw conclusions about the case you’re investigating. Initial tasks are usually identifying the parties involved, then pointing out specific evidence for certain answers. Pretty typical for these kinds of deduction games.

Something that I really did like though is that in the process of answering the questions, the main character L gives essentially what is a rundown on how you “should” find the answer. The reason for this is because there’s no penalty for bruteforcing and the game even suggests as much when you’re stuck. It’s a very generous system and it’s helped me because I’ve made some… assumptions or used elimination process, and it’s cool that the game explains how you could get to the right answer with no assumptions whatsoever.

The dialogue is also charming even if the main character is quite abrasive. It’s actually quite fitting for reasons I’ll explain later, but the back and forths between the squad are fun.

Where the writing shines is of course the tweets themselves. Being a twitter user myself (though it’s just to follow artists), and perhaps more importantly, having been on the internet for a long time myself, they did a good job at capturing that sort of internet culture.

Obligatory spoilers ahead!

I actually had an initial misgiving with the game when I first played it. Mainly I thought to myself “okay, I know people post private information on sub accounts, but surely people wouldn’t post THIS much even still” since people were effectively admitting to crimes. I acknowledged and moved on because in my head I figured it’s needed as part of the game.

What I was pleasantly surprised about was that the reasoning for such is provided in-game. Your partner in crime essentially causing all those posts to exist made things make a lot more sense to me.

In fact, for the “most” part, I was surprised by how a lot of elements tied back narrative wise. Accounts being brought up later, of course it makes sense with how you go back and forth between timelines but even still! I really appreciate it when a game has a very well defined scope, and I think this game does a great job with it. Not too much where there just felt like filler accounts/posts, but not too little where it didn’t feel like enough (especially considering how the internet is).

The biggest grievance I have with the narrative is unfortunately the ending. To preface this, I will say I’m usually the kind of person that in a narrative when things get into the “hard to explain” category, I just roll with the blows and let it go. Prime examples of this are Nasuverse things, and most science fiction stories. To me, I see these elements as parts of the story, and I personally am not invested in them making complete 100% rational sense (yes, you can tell me all about how Nasuverse makes complete sense and I’ll just nod my head and agree). In other words, I absolutely roll with rule of cool.

However… There are a few elements with the ending I don’t 100% buy/agree with, and while it’s not enough to ruin the narrative for me, it does make me wonder if there was a better way to resolve it. Or maybe I just didn’t get it, in which case I’ll gladly accept someone explaining it to me!

Effectively my issue lies in with exactly how the rollback and observed things are “saved”. They explain that once L synchronizes a demon, that effectively locks that reality. No problems there. When L tries synchronizing Nyasuteria, it causes rollback to hit 100% and trigger a rollback. Also understood! I also understood that by resolving the disappearance case of Kasane and synchronizing Nyasuteria it sets the rollback to 99%. I can buy that too.

What I’m unsure of is, I don’t fully buy how identifying her in the current time they’re in triggers the past to be reset. Things that are observed by the world should remain consistent, and many of the cases are observed. It’s like somehow synchronizing Nyasuteria unsyncs everyone else because the theory is the disappearance case never happens and therefore nothing ever happens. I’m a bit confused by how that mechanically works with everything else explained, but again, it’s not enough to ruin the narrative for me because to me that was never the “main” focus of the narrative. Also the ending was cute and I liked it! I think it was a fitting character arc resolution for the parties involved regardless.

Anyways, to me the main focus and reason why I liked the game is that I think it’s a good look at how people operate social media.

At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt when Schrodinger’s cat was brought up. Mostly because as someone who has read VNs, it’s always like a “oh boy here we go again”. But I think the concept plays nicely with the concept/themes of the game.

Humans naturally tend to want answers for things. They want explanations, things to make sense. I get it too, because the unknown is scary in a lot of ways.

The internet is such a weird and fabulous place for this, and it’s shown throughout all the posts in the game. The person you talk to on the other side of the screen, all you know about them is what they show you or what they post. I’ve made plenty of online friends before, many of whom I’ve never even seen. But I still consider them my friend. Their ’true’ identity isn’t necessarily something I need to know, or even can technically know unless they show me more and more of themselves. And I have met some of my online friends too!

I guess this part of the story struck a chord with me because I remember a very defining moment of me being online happened because I’m also a fic writer, and very recently (…2022 is recent right?) too! The connection from this blog to my account isn’t hidden, and some of my friends have found/know about this blog so they can connect those dots too. But I remember on one of my earlier fics, someone made a very simple benign comment along the lines of a compliment but also following it with “man/woman/other”.

It kinda stunlocked me for a second. Not to get too deep on my personal gender identity, but given the spaces I’m in it’s not hard to get a grasp on what my at birth sex is. But for once, because I was essentially completely anonymous, and posting just a story I liked writing, people could only see a very specific side of me. It was actually heartwarming to me in a strange way when I read that comment. They didn’t know who I was, only what I was writing. And in the game, they comment on this too. Does it “really” matter who the person posting something is? Do you have to know their “true” identity? Or does it just serve one’s own selfish curiosity?

Anyways, the point I was trying to get around to me is that it’s a cool part that if you really try, you only have to show parts you’re comfortable with! Of course, this is a double edged sword for many reasons though, and it’s evident as such in the story of the game too.

People LOVE drawing conclusions. I’ve been around the internet to see numerous if not countless witch hunts of varying degrees. Posts that were made being used against people, posts NOT being made being used against people, I’ve seen enough that it was one of the reasons why I decided to stop really interacting on social media outside of well, liking art basically. I’ve been in discord servers filled with looping arguments that repeat the same things over and over again, making the same assumptions about people because of various things, and I just got so tired/burned out by it.

And I think that message carries over well in the game (in an extreme way). L realizing that his desire to “seek the truth” is what’s causing that reality to effectively exist. A real life example of this is when people on reddit falsely accused someone of being the Boston bomber. That was their “truth”, and what happened to that person was tragic. But humans are driven by their desire to KNOW a truth. It’s why conspiracy theorists and cultists are so effective.

It sort of loops back to you only see what people post. On the internet, you have no idea the struggles someone may be going through. Humans are complex creatures, and to summarize someone up by just their posts on social media I think is unfairly cruel. Though for me I think it’d be interesting to see who people would think I am on twitter when all I do is retweet art…

I like that the game comments on this. Maybe I’m biased because the game shares very similar views I do on the topic, but I also appreciate that the most important thing behind problems is not necessarily the “truth” behind it, but rather solving the problem. And that’s something that applies to real life topics as well. For many, many, obvious reasons I don’t talk politics, but I’ve always been annoyed when people in positions of powers try to assign blame for an issue instead of trying to fix it.

One last thing that I really wanted to comment on is that I love the director’s last message/tweet during the ending roll. “Even if conflict on social media never ceases, I still believe that, at their core, people are good.”

In the modern digital age, I think it’s so easy to point fingers and hate. I’m guilty of it too even. But I’m trying to be better. And I’d like to think how much better online spaces could be if everyone was too.

But hey, it’s the internet. And I know people love to hate, even if I don’t.

This got very rambly near the end, but I did really like the game! The art’s great, the music’s good (though one song was played a biiiit too much), and I enjoyed the story/characters!