Idea Factory Announces IFChronicle and Crime Thriller ICONOLOGY for Switch and PC

Idea Factory, the Japanese publisher behind the Otomate and Compile Heart brands, has a new brand for story-driven games, and its first title comes with an unusual hook: players solve crimes by reading paintings pulled from suspects’ minds.

The brand is IFChronicle. The game is ICONOLOGY, a crime thriller headed to Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam. Idea Factory unveiled both on September 30 in Japan, alongside a teaser trailer, in a release on PR TIMES. A release date and price have not been set.

A new brand with a global aim

IFChronicle is a new brand launched by Idea Factory. The company says it wants the brand to bring conversation-driven adventure games, including visual novels and other narrative games, to players around the world, not only in Japan.

Even the name points that way. “IF” is Idea Factory’s abbreviation, and the company says it also nods to the many what-ifs in a branching story. “Chronicle” completes it.

Solving crimes through cognitive paintings

The game is set in the near future. Crime has grown so complex and brutal that Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department has formed a secret unit to deal with it, the Experimental Task Force. Its secret weapon is the White Cube, a device that turns a suspect’s thoughts into abstract images the game calls cognitive paintings.

Someone has to read those images, and that is where Haruho Tsubakiya comes in. She is an art university student with a painful past: her parents were murdered ten years ago, and the case was never solved. The task force recruits her as a special investigator for her talent at reading the paintings, and she signs on with a goal of her own, to find the killer and take revenge.

Her work may bring her closer to that goal. According to the game’s Steam page, a serial killer who has been at large for a decade may be connected to her parents’ deaths.

Idea Factory says players study each painting and use their knowledge of art to work out a suspect’s motives and trauma. They then take what they learn into interrogations, where the aim is to push the suspect toward a partial confession that leads to evidence.

Partners, choices and bad endings

Haruho does not work alone. The publisher says players can team up with other investigators and grow closer to them over time, and the choices players make decide which of the game’s multiple endings they reach.

Mistakes can be costly. Idea Factory warns that misreading a painting or making the wrong decision can leave a case unsolved or lead to a bad ending.

Who is making it, and where to play it

Behind the story is scenario writer Makoto Fukami, whose credits include the PSYCHO-PASS anime series, Resident Evil: Vendetta and Resident Evil: Death Island. Teita, known for work on Fate/Grand Order and CharadeManiacs, handles the character designs and illustrations, and Asami Saito is directing.

• Platforms: Nintendo Switch, including Switch Lite, and PC via Steam
• Languages: English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese for the interface and subtitles, with full audio in Japanese only, according to Steam
• Developers: Idea Factory and DOKIDOKI GROOVEWORKS, with Idea Factory (IFChronicle) as publisher
• Release date and price: not yet announced; Japan’s CERO age rating is still pending

Fans can get a first taste of ICONOLOGY’s world before the game arrives. A manga adaptation drawn by Ichi Sayo begins on October 14 in comic HOWL, a web magazine from Japanese publisher Ichijinsha. That date is for the manga only; the game still has no release date. More details are on the official ICONOLOGY site.

Featured image: ICONOLOGY key art. Image: Idea Factory