MURDER AT HOMECOMING

"When the police refuse to investigate a grisly murder, it's time to take matters into your own hands."

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Murder at Homecoming is a standalone visual novel published in Pixelberry's Choices: Stories You Play. It was my first and (so far) only book written for Pixelberry Studios as an external writer after leaving the internal team because the remote writer program ended. Before that happened, though, I had the opportunity to work with the internal team on what my vision for the book was, and created the plot and characters with them. Once external, and working in a freelance capacity, I was responsible for creating a detailed outline for the game, and then writing the scripts for all sixteen chapters, and making revisions as requested.

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As the title implies, Murder at Homecoming is a high school murder mystery. Players step into the shoes of Valentine Stone, a young but savvy private investigator, determined to discover the truth about popular classmate Gabbie Navarro, who has been found dead in the school gym's pool on the night she was supposed to be crowned homecoming queen. Inspired by teen crime dramas such as Veronica Mars and Riverdale, it's a story that combines all the thrill and suspense of a mystery with the drama and angst of high school. 

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Murder at Homecoming featured a much darker take on high school than my previous work, partly because of the violence and drug references, but also because of the overall tone of the work. Struggles with bullying, mental health, and sexuality are a fact of life here, rather than special topics to be addressed, and the line between good and bad isn't always easy to determine. The team also took special care when developing the plot of this book so that the mystery was neither too easy or too hard to solve, with just the right amount of red herrings. Judging by online reactions, we got it just right; by the final act, about half of fans had figured out the culprit, and the other half hadn't.

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Murder at Homecoming can be played for free in the app Choices: Stories You Play, available for iOS and Android.