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When a party for a wealthy family’s ten-year-old daughter ends with the birthday girl dead, her older sister missing, and the father refusing to call the police, the detective isn’t exactly conventional. She finds herself at the site of the crime – a rented out old mansion – without any trace of memory. It’s the landlady who tells her that she is a private investigator who’s been hired to catch the culprit and bring them to justice.

But how can she solve a murder when she can’t even deduce her own name? Was it one of the party-goers who did the young guest of honor in? …Or was it the ghost said to wander the haunted halls? Can she manage to find the missing girl before another tragedy takes place?

…And will she be able to sleuth out her own memories and the meaning behind their disappearance at the same time?


♦ Interview suspects, present items, and scour the mansion for clues!

♦ A story-driven title – solve a classic but tragic murder mystery

♦ Choose between two variations of the ending – decide the culprit’s fate!

♦ Atmospheric soundtrack

♦ A custom evented menu, lighting effects, and other enhancements

♦ Approximately 60 - 120 minutes of gameplay


More information is available at DawnSeeker Studio.

Latest Blog

Version 2.2 Update + Steam Workshop

Happy Birthday is now available on Ace's shiny new Steam Workshop!
I also took the opportunity to finally update the game to Version 2.2.

The overdo updates are mostly minor, consisting largely of fixes for bugs and typos that players pointed out or that I've noticed while watching Let's Plays, with just a little bit of general editing and polish thrown in. The most notable addition is some new optional dialogue shown when presenting certain important clues to NPCs, for instance:
you can get some new comments by passing around the Threatening Card, Landlady's Identity?, and Ghost Stories towards the end of the game.
There's nothing that would make it worth it for a previous player to give it another go, but hopefully the updates will offer future players a slightly more polished experience.

Full change list:
♦ Fixed various passability errors
♦ Fixed various typos
♦ Fixed a bug that forced clues to be selected in a specific order during a certain scene
♦ Fixed a bug that wouldn't let the player re-enter the 2nd Floor Bathroom
♦ Clarified the names and descriptions of some clues
♦ Made menu full-screen and fixed color artifact errors
♦ Shortened some pauses
♦ Changed or lowered the volume on some SEs.
♦ Added more optional, unique dialogue when presenting certain clues
♦ Slightly expanded the dialogue during the intro and a few other minor scenes
♦ Some very minor, miscellaneous text and dialogue edits

Baring some unexpected disaster, this is the final update. Any further improvements will have to wait on potential sequels.

With over 8,000 downloads across all its mirrors, lots of Let's Plays and videos, a handful of reviews, and tons of comments on various sites, Happy Birthday certainly ended up garnering far more attention than I ever expected. I'll definitely take the motivation and feedback with me to future projects. Heartfelt thanks to everyone who's played.

And to new players, enjoy!

Posts

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Complete playthrough: https://youtu.be/u0gzNIEGsmI
Took me about 2 and a half hours.
I submitted the same post twice on accident aaaa sorry, I didn't mean to spam^^. I'm a newbie here. Still though, great game! Sorry!
I really liked it! Short and sweet, and the story subverted my expectations in a nice way!
can't wait to play, love your icon ;)
I really enjoyed this game, I look forward to your next work!
I love this game so much! One of the best non-combat RPG game I have ever played. Looking forward for your next game.
This was just too perfect :D I wish there were more games as awesome and deep as this.
This game sounds right up my alley. Downloading :)
Dragnfly
Beta testers!? No, this game needs a goddamn exorcist!
1809
That was pretty good. It was fun to do all the sleuthing. I pace-palmed at the intro (amnesia, really?) but you really pulled it together. Nice red herring too.

I join the "no sequel" camp because the story closed well. But I'd totally like to play more of your games.
My head... all that problem solving... This was such a lovely game, though! Every time I'd talk to someone, I'd say, "They're the murderer!" and every time someone would give an alibi 'proving' someone innocent, I'd go, "What?! But... But they're the killer!" I never knew the end! And not knowing the end is the best part, of course!
I really enjoyed this game. It was short, but it was sweet. Really good job on it, the ending was very interesting. I hope to see more games like this.
This was fantastic. I'm looking forward to your other work!
Wow, the game was awesome, I was at the end and like: WOW...
I LOVED this game!! When I downloaded it, I played until I solved it :) Ive re-played it three times since then :P Great game!
Man this game is awsome thanks for sharing whit us :3
My Favorite game ! Love it , the style the character and the ending .. i really want to play a similar game
everyone should try it ;) and is there anyone know a game of this sort ? investigation or amnesia ?
I loved it! It was so amazing, I kind of figured it out right away, but I still really really like it.
Took me an hour to finish the game. What a moving story! And I liked Anna so much. She was a kindhearted girl and is now a merry ghost.
I haven't been very active here for a while (hopefully that should be changing soon), but thanks a ton for the comments, support, and reviews everyone! It's all really appreciated. It means a lot, despite the recent radio silence.

@JEStaff,
The final piece of evidence was one of the things I was least satisfied with - a bit too on the nose. That's something I want to plan out better if I make another game like this. As far as the killer's sprite goes, yeeaahh, if I'd played The Witch's House first I would've used a different sprite or at least changed the hair color or something :P

Sequel-wise, I actually agree with you. If I make a follow-up it would probably be one in gameplay only - I'd like to improve and add-on to the mechanics of this game, but I don't think these characters have any story left that would have the same level of involvement, so it would feature a different cast and plot all together. I would like to do this at some point, though yeah, right now I'm working on a full-length RPG. Maybe after that one gets a bit farther along.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback!
First, congratulations for this game. It manages to mess with the player without resorting to gore or laughable evil content, also i didn’t found any glitches.

The plot keeps the tension even if you guess the mystery and/or the twist before the end (in my case i found out the culprit first). Maybe the endings could have been more detailed, but my biggest complaint was the final proof, it felt a bit like a cheap shot, especially after you discover the real motive, and the cause, of the murder
By the way the killer’s sprite made the job easier for me (ok, I cheated)

This is probably an unpopular idea but I don’t know if I want a sequel, I think it will face very complicated issues. First the final decision in this game will be impossible to ignore, also, a saga of unrelated
ghost detetective Anna

cases won’t be able to match the involvement she (and the player) had in this one, other options like killing her father, or the murderer in this game killing someone else won't work imho.
Maybe the adult sister could become a detective (if she heard Anna and mom conversation in the past) and Anna helps her, for example: while the sister interrogates people, Anna is searching for clues, and this time preventing a murder instead of finding the killer.
OK, it’s a feeble premise but I love to see a non-battle Rpgmaker title that features teamwork

You don’t need to hurry anyways, I’ve seen your site and it looks like your next project looks like long game
Maybe I sounded harsh but I really loved this game, it’s the best detective game I’ve played in rpgmeker.net (there’s only a few I know) I rate it with 4-4.5 stars, I should write a review expanding my ideas, but I’ll need "training" reviewing worse games first ;). Sorry if the text was too long.
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