Articles - The Chatbox Shamus: From Sloth to Sleuth

The Chatbox Shamus is a detective-themed visual novel, set in the mid-1980's on an ersatz West Coast US. It follows Bastion Crowley, a 25-year-old high school graduate and failed college student, as he takes up amateur investigation to pay the bills, advertising himself on a local BBS as "The Chatbox Shamus." My goal here is not just to write a convincing mystery full of intrigue and the usual noir trappings, it is to do so while providing a cast of characters that you will actually care about. The detective is not a shell for the player; he is his own character with his own agendas, biases, and thought processes, that the reader will be clued into through the text.