LogFAQs > #967121095

#19: Gnosia

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/9/6/AAA-H0AADiSw.jpg

If you haven't played Gnosia yet, then I need you understand that when I say Gnosia is a Mafia simulator, I mean that excruciatingly literally.

VNs that have vaguely Mafia-like aesthetics are in vogue lately, I guess. I mean, there's Danganronpa, which people often describe as being like Mafia. This is obviously wrong, of course. Sure, there's debate and an uninformed majority trying to capture an informed minority, but it's really just one person trying to kill someone and getting away with it; it's not Mafia. I've heard that Raging Loop has a more literal Mafia-like (well, Werewolf-like I suppose) setup, but it's still just part of the plot; the game is a VN, you don't have to literally play mafia.

You do have to literally play Mafia in Gnosia. There are VN vignettes sprinkled throughout, but basically the whole game is playing randomized Mafia games against the AI. That's the game.

If you think playing mafia against the AI sounds like a really terrible idea... well okay, it pretty much is, but you have to hear me out on this one. Give me a chance to build up Gnosia as a good game.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/9/7/AAA-H0AADiSx.jpg

Gnosia is a game that takes place on a spaceship with a cast of 15 people, including your faceless player character. The "Gnosia" are some kind of alien species that infect other players and make them try to murder everyone else. (Luckily, I already discussed Among Us, so I can just point out the obvious parallels and move on.) You are also stuck in a time loop, for story reasons. In order to defeat the Gnosia, you play mafia; voting on people to put into cold sleep, having people die one by one at night, and eventually trying to vote all of the Gnosia off. There's 'engineer' and 'guardian angel' roles that work like cop/doctor (or whatever werewolf equivalent you're more familiar with) as well as (confusingly) a 'doctor' role that can view alignments of dead players (game is flipless) and some other stuff like lost wolves (or whatever they're called in mafia) and third-party survivors. Of course, sometimes you're the Gnosia, and you need to avoid getting voted off. You're reading this on Board 8, so chances are I don't really need to re-explain Mafia to you. The rules are nearly identical.

There's rounds of debating where everyone decides who to vote for, but instead of, you know, talking it out like two actual humans, you instead have a list of actions you can perform that will influence the outcome of the voting in various ways. You gain more actions as the game progresses but you can really only start out with saying someone is suspicious, or saying someone is not suspicious. Which leads to fascinating conversations like:

"You said that A was suspicious."
B: "Hmmm... yeah, A seems pretty suspicious."
C: "I agree! A is suspicious!"
A: "What? Everyone thinks I'm suspicious?"
D: "I don't think there's anything suspicious about A."

Get used to this; this game is like 20 hours long and half of it is just this. I know, it sounds great.