Visual novel 'The Girl Who Wasn't There' launches a demo on Steam as it kicks off its Kickstarter

The small Hitogoroshi Studio (1564 Studio) is a modest team based in the coastal city of Castellón, Spain, and wants to position itself as one of the leading studios in the genre of visual novels. After the release of their first work, Murder on the Marine Express, which started The Mysteries of Ranko Togawa series, they are now working on their second project, The Girl Who Wasn’t There, which they want to finish funding with an ongoing Kickstarter campaign.

The Girl Who Wasn’t There is a pixel art detective visual novel inspired by the old SNES and PC-98 adventures, which follows two girls investigating the disappearance of a student at their high school. The project features designs by Taeko Izuno, former animator of anime studio Sunrise. The title features a branching structure, with six different routes and 20 possible endings, and is estimated by its creators to have a play time of approximately 15 hours. In addition, the game will be localised into several languages (English, Japanese and Spanish).

But since it’s hard to put into words what this visual novel (acclaimed by some of the genre’s benchmarks in Japan) really feels like, the studio has released a free demo on Steam, where we can enjoy the story’s prologue and discover how the new case of its protagonists, Ranko and Astrid, begins at the academy where they study.

The Girl Who Wasn’t There expects to finish funding this September. After that, the plan is to launch the game in Early Access in January and the full version in summer 2025.