About This Game

A surreal, short-form puzzle adventure / horror game built for the GameBoy, POCKET MYSTERY EP DX updates the original POCKET MYSTERY EP with full color graphics, re-designed puzzles, updated music and sound effects, and additional content.

FEATURES

• A STRANGE MURDER: As Detective Walker Rylance, explore the mysterious Minerva’s Nocturne hotel, investigating the locked-room murder of four colleagues. Nothing is quite as it seems, however.

• A COLORFUL CAST OF CHARACTERS: Interview the colorful staff of the hotel - from the sophisticated concierge to the hyper-anxious cleaning staff and beyond. Relive the final moments of the victims and learn about who they are and their relations to each other.

• DESIGNED FOR THE GAMEBOY: Built in GameBoy Studio, POCKET MYSTERY EP DX was originally built for, and is playable on, Game Boy Color. We’re not just riffing on the aesthetics of GameBoy games, this is built for the actual hardware.

• ESCAPE A LIMINAL SPACE: Solve puzzles in a mysterious place seemingly inside the hotel, pushing blocks, activating switches, and more to escape a mysterious killer.

DEVELOPMENT HISTORY

Development of POCKET MYSTERY EP began in summer 2022 in Game Boy Studio and released about a year and a half later on Itch in December 2023. Its development was honestly frustrating and didn’t quite go as planned. Rather than giving up, the game was re-configured to try and acknowledge the difficult development. 

In August 2024, with a variety of improvements and updates to Game Boy Studio, the idea to update the game, replete with GameBoy Color support, was sparked. This deluxe, or DX, re-release doesn’t aim to fully deliver on the game’s original vision, but it does seek to fix bugs, update the music and sounds, and add some additional content hinting at what might’ve been.

This isn’t the end for POCKET MYSTERY EP either. A full remake, titled Nocturne: A POCKET MYSTERY Remix, is in development targeting a 2025 release.

Mature Content Description

The developers describe the content like this:

POCKET MYSTERY EP DX features prevalent swearing and foul language.