Enjoyable VN Thriller about programming

Seeing as this visual novel never got much interest in the years after it came out, I figured I should bright light to a hidden gem.

The premise is this: You play as a dude who works for a cybersecurity firm. Someone leaked the code of one of the MC’s clients, and the boss wants the MC to figure out whodunnit.

The premise comes off as a mystery, but I find it’s more of a thriller. There’s a lot of action, gunfights, and hostage taking. There are also a good number of real programming concepts mentioned, which are used to perform hacks and make viruses. The 9ish hours I spent on it were quite enjoyable.

The game is set in the early summer of 2016, before certain…events happened in our timeline. Of particular note is that the game is set before the mass proliferation of AI and LLMs in the present day. There’s one character who is determined to make this proliferation happen even sooner than our reality. You’re given the option to support or oppose this character; I naturally chose to oppose. The likes of Claude and Stable Diffusion from our time appearing in the summer of 2016 would be disastrous, at least in my opinion.

I advise at least giving it a look if that interests you. I had fun with it.