Contact Trace

Every jurisdiction has an owner now. Every death has a price tag before it has a cause.

Rook is a skin job — a synthetic contractor, indentured to Halcyon Vance, the corporation that owns the streets he investigates. His latest case: a maintenance tech, dead of "equipment malfunction, possible sabotage" — a category chosen for cost, not accuracy. He starts pulling the thread. More bodies turn up. A pattern starts to close in.

He is not ahead of it. He never was.

Contact Trace is a short, dialogue-driven investigation about corporate indifference, synthetic minds, and the difference between solving a case and being used to solve one. Point, click, and listen closely — the horror here isn't blood. It's the pause before someone finishes a sentence.

What to expect:

• A single, focused investigation across eleven chapters
• Branching dialogue that shapes how things happen, not what happens
• A flat, liability-driven corporate-noir voice throughout
• Dread through small wrongness rather than combat or gore

Playtime: roughly 20–30 minutes Content notes: thematic death (non-graphic), corporate/institutional menace, brief references to violence against a human victim, no explicit gore or sexual content

Credits

Written, designed, and directed by Julian Grant

Built with Kiosune Studio by MelloStudios — a no-code pixel-art visual novel engine. Character art built with the Kiosune Character Creator v2 (Neon Cyberpunk style).