You knew your family would be the death of you… but not literally!
a time-loop murder mystery
You’ve finally returned home, after being gone for four years, to celebrate your mother’s retirement party. As you spend the evening catching up with your relatives, you are murdered.
…at least, you were. Because you keep returning to the start of the evening. Over and over and over again.
Using information gained in the four time-loops, secretly investigate your family members throughout the party, scour your previous death locations, uncover secrets your family would much rather keep buried alongside you, forge alliances or betray before you are betrayed, and—if you choose to have a romantic partner—speculate and discuss your findings with your customizable partner during your calls.
To end the loop, find and accuse the true culprit, the one who first murdered you. Or is remaining in the time-loop forever better than escaping? Some secrets are best kept hidden.
Choose wisely.
genre: progression fantasy, mystery, psychological thriller, romance
similar to: Knives Out, Nancy Drew games, Slay the Princess, Clue the Movie
total word count: 74000 words
total word count without code: 46000 words
average playthrough word count: 9800 words
end your doomed day here
at CoGDemos* | at itch.io**
*cogdemos glitches for me if i update the files too quickly.
**itch.io looks the same as the preview photos.
**you can also view game code on itch.
last updated: 18 December 2025
changelog
- v1.0.0 - 18 dec 2025
IMPORTANT: i’m partially blind; if you submit photos using white/sepia mode with small fonts, i will download all photos every week or two… to edit them inverse and zoomed in. if you’d like to help me fix errors quickly, i can mostly see on night/dark mode. (NOTE: i can see the colors just fine on itch
(if you would be so kind to make the font really big, that helps a lot. if you think the font is too big, then go a little bigger!)
what you can do in the game so far
- Customize yourself and your optional romantic partner.
- Interact with all of your family members in a way that suits you best. From sharing a drink and chilling, a tarot reading, and even flipping off your cousin while you have a dance battle… to name a few options.
- Talk to your optional romantic partner about your family members and the choices you made.
- Complete level one of an optional minigame to earn clues. Alternatively, doomscroll.
- Complete dinner introduction.
- View a memory of your father and your cousin when you were younger.
- Complete 2/3s of the dinner phase.
start here
features (quick read)
- Play as male/female, nonbinary (AMAB/AFAB), or trans. NB and trans characters can change their birth gender. All can change their pronouns.
- Have an optional romantic partner. Customize your partner’s name, personality, gender, pet names (or lack thereof), and more. Call up your partner to discuss clues, get help, or chat to help calm down.
- Collect clues by talking to your family or by performing tasks. Or by investigating family secrets or your past deaths. Gain allies, make enemies.
- Customize your character. Have your choices have re-occurring impacts on the narrative. Have characters react to you and your actions.
- Experience returning home to an unhealthy family. Will they be able to love you for who you are?
- Gameplay difficulty. Play on guided mode: the game keeps track of what notes and clues you have and when new options are unlocked related to what you know. Play on detective mode: no clues, no notes, no choice guidance, but an interactive scene post-scene after you accuse the true culprit.
ro (romantic option)
- Have an optional romantic partner.
- Customize your partner’s name, personality, gender, pet names (or lack thereof), and more.
- Call up your partner to discuss clues, get help, or chat to help calm down. What you do in your family will play a heavy role in the content of your phone calls. Choose wisely.
- If you don’t want to chat about your family, you’ll be able to chat about calming topic, such as how you two first met, your first date, et cetera. There will be asexual, demisexual, aromantic, and aromantic asexual options as well. (Not yet implemented.)
- (Depending on the reception, I may remove this if no one really likes it.)
meet the family
Queenia
Grannie, the mother of your mother, is dying. She spends her days in her rocking chair, mumbling, staring out the window. Your family refuses to give her higher care. Whatever secrets your grandmother holds, whatever caused your family to be… this… have been lost to her failing mind
Cass
Your mother prides herself on being the perfect housewife—excellent at cleaning, cooking, and working. If she’s as good as mother as she tells you, why can’t you believe her?
Lay
You remember “Lay” is your father’s nickname. You remember him throwing cake at your mother during their wedding. You remember the scent of his morning woods cologne lingering in the home long after he’d left for work. But you do not remember your father.
Bruce
Uncle Bruce has always had a soft spot for you. He balances out his wife Lia well enough. Even though you warned him of your family, he still married into it. At least he isn’t hiding secrets like the rest of your family, right?
Lia
Auntie Lia is a romantic and charming. Whereas her brother Lay works hard, she’s content to find shortcuts whenever possible. Too bad her first marriage ended so poorly for the woman. She’s never been quite the same since.
Rom
Your cousin Rom is the child of your aunt’s first marriage. Rom and you have been historically friendly, often teasing and insulting one another. But your cousin has no intentions on breaking free from your family. Not like how you did.
even more information
features (longer read)
Choose your gender identity, pronouns, expression, and how supportive your family is about your gender identity. From very supportive to not supportive at all. Even if you chose not supportive, many family members are still supportive albeit quietly.
Play (eventually) four total time-loops: a tutorial loop and three full-length loops.
In the loops, you will arrive home, talk to your family, eat dinner (have it end good or very poorly), take a family photo, investigate, and then die. By who, with what, with how many accomplices… all depends on your choices. With each death, collect more evidence to determine the true culprit.
Planned endings: 15, including joke endings, deaths and death variations, a very bad ending, and a very good ending etc.
Completing the four total loops unlocks the ability to judge the true culprit.
minigame (optional)
There is an optional minigame to play to earn clues.
It’s an escape-the-room, murder mystery game the style of the 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors game. As such, this leans more mystery-horror, including body horror. Please note this is completely optional! There are no penalties for not completing.
If you play, I would love minigame feedback! I worry it’s too hard or too uninteresting.
notes from me
“Why are you making games if you can’t see?” I code and upload using several accommodations and time.
This is my first original game, so let me know if I’m doing things right/wrong!
I actually enjoy coding a bit more than writing. If you make suggestions but worry about it being too much coding for me, I suggest still submitting your comment.
To keep the word count as low as possible, the game uses multiple *gosub_scene (files containing repeated code to be called as many times as possible during any loop). At the time of writing, I have 63 files on my game version. Updating files on COGDemos too quickly causes the game to break. I usually roll out updates very slowly there.
I encourage code diving. I try to keep the code fairly organized and commented to help with reading. The code is partially obscured (meaning some, but not all variables are intentionally misleading or completely redacted). Keep this in mind when reading the code. I always love coding tips.
what feedback i’d like
Mid-level feedback: I have more experience coding than writing, so if I have typos, grammatical errors, etc, let me know. English is hard! Also, due to CoG’s statement about grammar checkers (Grammarly), I check all errors by hand.
Story elements: pacing, choices not mattering, feeling overwhelmed (!!!), mystery being unclear, etc.
Gameplay elements: more clarity in tutorials, unclear goals, feeling punished/rewarded, etc.
Customization: are customization choice consistent, ideas you have for customization, etc.
Misc: anything that doesn’t fall under here; would also love if it people tell whether or not the game is worth playing, so that i can focus on other games if this isn’t that interesting.
how to give constructive feedback
Mid-level feedback: I would love pictures/copy-paste! The more specific, the better.
Story elements: I felt confused about Queenia’s introduction being so dissimilar to the other family members. It felt jarring to be introduced to a completely different mechanic right after.
Gameplay elements: I don’t understand why we still talk when we select to do a task. I picked it to be silent.
Customization: I chose to have glasses, but it never gets mentioned in my playthrough. I feel like my choice doesn’t matter.
AI Disclosure
x No — This project does not contain the output of Generative AI
Yes — This project contains the output of Generative AI
