Miss Bellevue Never Heard The Whistle
A downloadable game
Piper Lam (renameable) has always dreamed of being a journalist—being able to hone her fine storytelling skills and exposing secrets of the power brokers was all that motivated her. Such ambition brought her from San Francisco to the Atlantic Coast, only to find her assigned to the society columns. Opportunity presents itself in the most unusual of ways, though, such as a murder on the transnational express she's travelling on and an unexpected ally in a fellow passenger.
Piper Lam
22 | 158cm | April 12
Reporter, The Daily Sentinel
Piper moves cross-country to pursue journalism… only to end up stuck penning society columns. Writing tabloid gossip is no fun when she dreams of reporting on crimes and bringing powerful criminals to justice!
While traveling on the transnational express, a dead body causes quite a stir! When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade—or solve a murder. Playing Sherlock should be easy, right?
Julian Holland
21 | 188cm | September 9
(To be) Accountant, Holland-Melville Brothers, Pvt. Ltd
Introverted, prickly, rude — Julian's demeanor is more challenging than charming. If only he’d spend less time alone. He always prefers books and sketch pads over other people, except his older brother, Edward.
When Edward sends Julian on a business trip to America, Julian ends up on the transnational express… along with a murdered former acquaintance and an eternally curious young woman with a notebook always at the ready!
- A rich, immersive game experience consisting of 18,000+ words
- Renameable main character
- In-game tooltip dictionary
- Two endings and meaningful choice branches
- Partial voice acting (to be added in future update)
- 3 CGs (to be added in future update)
NARRATIVE:
Writer— illegalileo (itch.io) (bsky)
Editor— Jenna Rose (bsky) (website)
ART:
Sprite artist—inkcaparts (bsky) (x)
Background artists— Mari (itch.io) (carrd), Leyca (itch.io) (bsky)
UI— skai2blue4u (itch.io) (bsky)
AUDIO:
VA director— OD.MP3 (website) (itch.io)
Audio Engineer— lenned (instagram)
Music credits can be found here
CODING:
Coder— Sofia (itch.io)
Ren'Py Inline Tooltips— Naoimh Murchan (credit)
VOICE ACTING:
Piper— Rita Amparita (website) (x) (instagram)
Julian— Jason Daryl-Hall (website)
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Gaudy Night — Devlog #119 days ago
Comments
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The way I had to look up obtumescent too... my pride is wounded...
This was so fun!! Stylistically the vibes are very similar to the developer's previous title, Let's Misbehave, with its opulent UI, fashionably dapper characters, and stylishly slick prose. The concept of the game is exactly up my alley, and overall it's very well put together from the beautiful backgrounds/sprites/art to the music/VA to the spotlessly immersive script (and I'm always here for some Asian American rep!!! 🙌) (The tooltips were also very interesting!! I only knew a few of the words, and I picked up quite a bit of slang)
While the mystery itself is intriguing, the relationship between Piper and Julian is really the highlight here. Piper is a very fun and relatable MC to follow - a spunky and clever young woman who's trying to make her way up the ladder in a man's world. Julian is a perfect Watson for her - intelligent and blunt and level-headed. I really liked seeing their friendly teasing banter.
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The relationship between the two of them was also surprisingly heartfelt. I like how Julian supported Piper through her insecurities to have more confidence in herself and her abilities. It was very sweet and felt very mature as well. Even though this is a mystery/romance, the story also felt a lot like a coming of age tale for Piper.
I also appreciated the two endings! I like how neither felt significantly "worse" than the other - whether Piper and Julian start traveling together or just stay pen-pals, the time they spent together was worthwhile. I always appreciate when "friendship" endings feel satisfying like this (okay I write romance games too, but platonic friendships between men and women??? peak)
Overall the entire team did a great job, fantastic work!
Chatter, your commentary and thoughts always give me life!!! I cannot thank you enough for stopping by and giving it a try!
Please don't take 'obtumuscent' to heart LOL I really had to go out of my way to find the most obscure term I could 😂 I'm so glad that this game lives up to your expectations and fits in well with the universe we've been trying to create (and yay for tooltip dictionaries and Asian American rep! Fingers crossed I'll get out that dev log about it soon!).
I'm so glad you also enjoyed the relationship between Piper and Julian! Their relationship contains so much nuance and we tried our best to let multiple facets of it show during the time span of this game jam—thankfully, their journey can continue onwards and upwards! Once again, thank you so much for playing our game and letting us know your thoughts 💖
this was such a lovely read!!! i love julian and piper and their relationship sm like yes piper he is a total cutie <3 everyone did so great ahhhh!!!
wahhh, thank you so much for playing it!!!
we are slaying in the chat and we love to see it!!! julian and piper are so adorable i love them sm
the realest slay is the UI here queen 🙂↕️
weeee thank you for all your hard work!!! ilysm !!
ily2!!!!!! hard work only feels like hard work if you’re not having fun 😎
A great team! Excited for future updates!
Things can only go upwards with you on our team!
An impeccable team bringing the best vibes <3
We learn from the best (aka you) 💖🫶