Star Apprentice: Magical Murder Mystery
Star Apprentice: Magical Murder Mystery is an award winning danmaku-detective game that combines the point-and-click style deduction gameplay of Danganronpa and Ace Attorney with the high octane bullet hell gameplay of the Touhou Project franchise. You play as the Star Apprentice, a fledgling sleuth studying under her mentor, the world renowned Detective Lasnam.
Throughout the game, you'll grapple with a colourful cast of mysterious magical suspects, including an obsessed fangirl, an alcoholic, and a business tycoon. Will the Star Apprentice be able to rise up to the challenge and find the culprit behind the mystery, or will she be stuck in her mentor’s shadow forever?
Term Project for CMPUT 250 at the University of Alberta
Winner of the CMPUT 250 Game of the Year Award 2020/2021
Join our Will-o-Works Community Discord for future updates!
Gameplay
As the titular Star Apprentice Minnie, you will traverse a magical train, collecting evidence and confronting suspects. Uncover clues that will allow you to confront the quirky cast of characters in chaotic bullet hell Confrontation scenes. Blast away the enemy's contradictions, and discover the truth behind the mystery aboard the Scarlet Express!
Controls
Controls can be rebinded from the Options menu!
Investigation Controls (Overworld):
Movement - Arrow Keys, hold Z to run
Confirm / Interact / Talk - Z
Cancel - X
Open Menu - Escape
Confrontation Controls (Bullet Hell):
Movement - Arrow Keys
- note that you can move in any direction
Focus Mode (Slower Movement for Precision with Keyboard) - Z
Shoot - X
Justice Bomb - C
Will-o-Works is
Emily Halina - Producer & Audio
Jamie Powers - Art & Lead Developer
Ohi Ahimie - Writing
Ravyn Hardcastle - Design & Programming
Vivian Liang - Bullet Hell Design & Programming
Yalmaz Abdullah - Bullet Hell Design & Programming
Hope Docking - Executive Producer & Anime Expert
Voice Actors:
Amy Bazin - Minnie
Jarin Ten Hove - Detective
Keisha Wong - Charlotte
Mihaela Vasileva - Roxy
Sophie May Healey - Victoria
Elizabeth Chamberlain - Lily
Shania Lehmann - Iris
Follow Us
FAQ
Hey Willow - workings!!! ! I love Star Apprentice: Magical Murder Mystery!!! How do I pay you money for this game?!?!?
First, thank you so much for your support and for enjoying the game! This game was a student project, so we are going to keep it indefinitely as a free download. However, if you're still aching to give back to us, you can donate to us through our Ko-Fi:
https://ko-fi.com/willoworksgames
Alternatively we would really appreciate if you donated to these charities:
University Hospital Foundation - Our University's Hospital
Shades of Colour YEG - Edmonton-based QTBIPOC Charity
Hiya Silly Willies!!! I'm getting this weird bug where the first letters of sentences are disappearing? Are you aware of this?!
Unfortunately, this is a loading bug related to RPG Maker that occurs more often with slower computers & internet connections (for web deploy). We are aware of the issue, and it is currently unfixable without changing engines!
New: In version 2.0 this should be fixed, so please download the latest version if you haven't already!
Hi Wallyworks, I would love to get in contact with you!! How would I do that?!
Our email is will.o.works.games@gmail.com if you'd like to get in touch with us!
Helo Willy Wonkers, the text in the game is all garbled up!! Did you invent a language for this game?!?
If you are using Brave browser or a similar browser with protective features, you may experience issues with the text in the web deploy. Switching to Chrome / Firefox, or going "Shields Down" should help!
Hihi Well Washers! I like the music of the game and I want to listen to it outside of the game!!! Where do I do that?!?!?
https://will-o-works.bandcamp.com/album/star-apprentice-magical-murder-mystery-soundtrack
Hello William Worker. This game is great and all, but I think it's too short. When is the FuLl VeRsIoN coming out?????
New game coming: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2388860?utm_source=itch
Download
Install instructions
Note: Highly recommend to play version 2.x (ver 1.x only maintained for archival purposes)
Web Deploy:
1. The game is found directly above!
Windows:
1. Download the Windows. zip folder containing the project. 2. Unzip the .zip folder. 3. Run the executable inside of the folder.
Mac (v1.1 only):
1. Download the Mac .zip folder containing the project 2. Unzip the .zip folder 3. Open the folder and drag the executable into your applications, or run it from directly in the folder.
Note that there is a bug with RPG Maker that can sometimes make it difficult to open games on Mac based on your security settings. In order to rectify this, go to your System Preferences application and change your Security setting to allow it to open the executable.
Development log
- Version 2.0 Released on Itch!Mar 18, 2023
- Major Update Soon - Looking for TestersFeb 11, 2023
- Star Apprentice: Magical Murder Mystery LaunchDec 07, 2020
Comments
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made an account just to say that i really enjoyed this game!!!! the bullet hell sections were really challenging, but not to the point of rage quitting lol. my friend who watched me play it is convinced the cat did it
The interrogations are gonna crash my game 😭😭😭
good game
So I decided to finally revist this game and install it, but it's saying Mircosoft Defender SmartScreen prevented from running? It's safe to run right?
Fantatstic game btw. It's a brillant love letter to ace attorney and touhou games.
Thanks for playing!
Windows Defender being overly cautious is a sign it's doing its job! If it does get something wrong, you'd want it to block a safe app over letting a malicious app run. This is normal behaviour. Downloading any executable off the internet is always a risk. The 2.x version of the game is built on the open-source Godot game engine, which has functionality for things like file access or opening the URL to our discord server that Windows Defender may be reacting to. These are normal parts of games, but could be used maliciously if someone intentionally did so. Star Apprentice only accesses its own appdata folder. The exact same build is on Steam as well, and they do malware checks on everything on their platform. I'm confident our own game is safe, but be sure to use your best judgment whenever downloading anything off the internet, including here on itch.
Great stuff! I struggled a lot with the "mental space" gameplay so I had to turn on infinite lives really quickly lol. Really fun mystery, though!
awwww man! im gonna miss playing thius game and raging too 😅😅😅
The mystery was so good and the minigames, wow slay, bu that last one had be stumped for a week, but it felt awesome beating it!
so yeah 8.5/10 im gonna miss this, so excited for yall other projects ^^
Fun game, neat design space. A bit more mystery-solving-ness would be nice, but it's still fun. Totally called the killer as soon as they showed up, but that's probably just because tropes.
Thank you for playing! We agree that there should be more mystery solving, so we're changing that for the sequel.
Woo, sequel!
awesome game
I finish the game and damn I LOVE IT.
things i have to say
rip that lansam ayyy(minnie would hate me lol)Great game, liked their designs, voice acting fits them and was amazing, gameplay was difficult and enraging, but not "i want to break everything" enraging, more like "*sharp inhale*" kind of enraging
(im using enraging too much lololol). And great mystery too! Amazing job! ^^Good, very Touhou-like gameplay!
Super cute and fun!! Appreciate that you added an "infinite lives/health" accessibility option as well ^_^
I was surprised when i saw i could play on my phone, at least in the browser version, the game really made my day. :)
glad you enjoyed :)
Heya! Just wanted to let you guys know that I really liked this game, it has a very interesting twist of genres I've never seen before. I'm completely horrible at the actual danmaku sections, but I can appreciate the creativity put into the mechanics. The gameplay, art, and story are well done.
If you don't mind, I also recorded my playthrough here:
The only pieces of feedback I have is:
Anyways, I might be biased because I love Phoenix Wright/Danganronpa, but I still highly rate this project because of how unique the premise is. I wish you all the best of luck for any future plans!
Thanks so much for playing our game :)
Love the game so much so far -- really nice art and story! There is no way I am going to beat that battle though, and I forgot to save before, so maybe I'll try again another day lol
thanks so much for playing our game, you got this!! :)
My game encountered a bug :( its getting so good so far. I know this is not your fault but ya...
sorry to hear that :( yeah, the web-deploy of the game specifically is a bit buggy, hopefully you were able to save and resume your progress! thank you for playing our game regardless!!
lovely game! thanks