Ring of Fire Prologue
A downloadable detective simulator for Windows and macOS
Scour police records.
Antagonize your suspects.
Comb through a disturbing crime scene.
You'll stop at nothing to discover the true identity of the Ring of Fire killer.
Ring of Fire is a detective noir puzzler set in the solarpunk utopia of New London. You play as Detective Grosvenor, a jaded, middle-aged woman hunting through the still-dark corners of the city in pursuit of a radicalised serial killer.
Using your powers of deduction you must solve the brutally gruesome murders of the Ring of Fire killer. Examine clues, interrogate key suspects, and cross-reference your findings in the police database to uncover the mystery.
SEARCH
Solve the case using text entry, you can’t brute force the puzzle.
INTERVIEW
Push your suspects to the brink through branching cinematic conversations with meaningful consequences.
EXAMINE
Explore the crime scene to examine evidence both visually & textually.
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Extended demo + macOS support!Jun 17, 2020
Comments
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Just played through what's available in about 30min, very interesting so far! The experience of searching through the database for addresses and such was really cool. Looking forward to more.
ooh i really liked this
Well I know what I'm wishlisting tonight
just played the prologue for the first time and holy shit this is one of the best IF/VN games I've played in awhile. It's so refreshing to actually have the challenge of "playing" detective instead of just being guided through the plot. I have so many unanswered questions that just doubled with each morsel of info that was provided. If y'all ever decide to finish/continue working on the game, I will be eagerly waiting to play. <33
I am so interested to see the final product. The visual style is so cool and interesting. I'm a sucker for mystery-solving games, in general, but I loved playing this demo. I was really interested in the sprinkles of character details for the protag. Can't wait to see more!
Played the demo and really liked the pen & paper aspect. Is the development still on hold? Is this game actually planned to be released?
Is this still in active dev?
It's on hold at the moment
Amazing !
i tried opening the game but it was too wide for my screen and i'm not sure how to fix that
I'm not sure if you're describing the black bars that we have at the top and bottom of the screen for text. Or whether you're saying it stretches off the side of the screen? The game was designed for 16:9 / 1920x1080 resolution screens. Sorry if that's a problem!
Ah, I guess my screen's just not the right size. I'll figure something out, I suppose. Thank you!
Sorry, we didn't know about adaptive UI stuff back then, if the full version ever comes out it'll be fully adaptive!
well, hopefully, i'll get to give that version a go! or just find another computer. whichever. thanks!
I was so excited when it said I'd need a pen and paper to keep track of clues, I absolutely love those kinds of games. After finishing the prologue, I am super invested in this game now, it looks so promising. Can't wait to play the full thing!
Great to hear thank you so much!
great mystery game with great writing. i was invested in the story and wish it had kept going. looking up information in the database was cool; felt like real detective work. only disappointment was the large amount of story conveyed through text. given the brilliant aesthetic and how cinematic the opening's camerawork was, it would have been nice to see more told visually instead of through the messenger app
I played this demo on steam last summer I think. I found the page here right now and I just want to say how much I enjoyed the experience.
Wishing you all the best with development :)
thank you very much!
Nice work! loved the narrative and the gameplay. I've also made a game that its main gameplay is using search bar, but you guys' work has a different charm.
Ah I see you are a man of culture as well! Drop us a link?
I'm really impressed. The game has fantastic graphics, unique atmosphere and plot, and at the same time is quite difficult and requires attention and thoughtful choices as well as very meticulous choices of options. This is a big plus, but also the degree of difficulty can discourage causal players who are used to simple visual novels like kinetic. To sum up, the game is great and for every player who likes challenges and attention in many choices that require taking notes and in order to solve difficult puzzles. I sincerely recommend.
artstation.com/artwork/dObzre
I tried to make one of those before Ring of Fire and it was such a big job that I quickly gave up due to the complexities of building a convincing forest. I used Quixels megascans to populate the scene on my ArtStation but nowadays I'd grab a couple pre-existing forest packs from the unity asset store to get started, and cultivate your own rendering style, then teach yourself to make your own foliage to build hero-pieces.
If this is your first game I would recommend starting on small indoor spaces like we have here in Ring of Fire, you can grab a bunch of free assets online and combine them relatively quickly or buy an existing scene.
https://twitter.com/animtree/status/1143230674100510728?s=19
The reason you probably haven't gotten around to it is the idea is too big, pick something smaller first that you don't care deeply about, and make that as a way to learn your tools.
We use Unity as our rendering engine, you can combine it with any number of plugins such as adventure game toolkit + fungus, ink or yarn as your narrative engine. It's not important what 3d package you use but I would recommend Blender 2.8. I use Photoshop for textures, concepts, and store art, but there are free alternatives like Krita.
I'd love to know how you get on, feel free to post about it in our community discord, happy to give you feedback and support!
Chard.
Is this an actual prologue, events happening outside of the full version of the game, or will this content be featured in the full game?
Hey Bryan, it's essentially the first case from the game
Thanks! I love your other works so far so I'll just wait for this to be fully released.
Cool cool, excited to see the finished product
i can't play this because my computer screen isn't wide enough :/
Sorry about that, you're right, and the reason is because the game UI is locked to 1920 x 1080, we're looking into it for a future patch.
thanks for replying and letting me know
Looking forward to a patch for resolution as well since I'm really curious to play this!
Hi there! I really want to play this game but my Mac is saying that it's broken or damaged. I've just downloaded it from Itch (website) and am trying to get it to work. Any tips? I'm running Catalina on a late 2013 Macbook Pro. Thank you!
Hi, we just updated the Mac build, let us know how it works for you!
Just got it to open- thanks for the update! Can't wait to play!
This game looks really great. Unfortunately, when I try to install it on my Mac, the file that is installed says that it is broken or incomplete. I have tried reinstalling a few times, but it does not help. Is anyone else having this issue?
Sorry you're dealing with this, a member of our team works on mac and tested it before publishing. Can you give us more information about your OS, any other specifics please?
Sure thing. I am running an older, upgraded mid-2012 MacBook Pro with Mojave version 10.14.6 (fully up-to-date). When I try to launch the game in the Itch app, I get the following error: "JSON-RPC conversation cancelled". When I look at the downloaded app, the icon has a 'no' symbol (circle with a stroke through it). When I click on it to launch directly from my computer, I get the error "You can't open the application "Ring of Fire Prologue" because it may be damaged or incomplete." I checked the file size and it says it's "481.3 mb on disk". I have tried to reinstall it via the Itch app. I have also uninstalled it via the Itch app and re-installed it. Neither worked.
I hope that helps. Thanks!
Thanks, sorry it's not working got you. We'll look into it first thing Monday morning.
Thanks. And, no worries at all. In case it helps, I tried to open it in Terminal and it said that it was missing and executable file.
that could be it ;) if you DM us on Twitter I'll send you a Steam key which shouldn't have that issue. @farfewgiants
Very interesting premise, stunning art-style, looking forward to seeing more! Like other people I noted down so much, I like the idea of needing to for the full game!
This demo had me absolutely hooked!
The writing is snappy and mature, without feeling excessive or out of place.
I'll admit, I was actually writing down notes of the state of the crime scene, complete with names and locations. It's been awhile since I've felt incentivized to not miss a single detail.
Atmosphere is something this game has in spades, and I'm very excited to see a full episode. It would also lend itself to multiple different cases and expanding the world!
Great work on the systems that control the game as it is.
Hey!
I played the game and I loved it! It's so satisfying to play, it shows that everything was made with good care. I would love to play the extended version.
I made a video, you can watch it here
Thank you so much for this experience!!
Hi!
I tried the Prologue and I love it! Really: thanks for the hard work! ✨
I don't know if this is the right place to ask, but, do you have any plans of translating the game into Spanish? I'm from Mexico and I have studies in Literature and linguistics, can I help?
Hey, glad you enjoyed it! Translation is a bit uncertain at the moment, the game uses a user-entered search database and some language-specific leaps of logic in order to solve the puzzles. If you'd like to talk about it some more drop us an email or DM on twitter!