Dark Auction

STORY:
1981, Somewhere in Europe.

Eighteen-year-old Noah, who still carries the memory of being abandoned by his mother as a child, lives with his father Leonard, a struggling novelist obsessed with collecting items related to the mysterious “Dictator X.”
Although Noah wishes his father would give up this bizarre hobby, Leonard refuses to stop—no matter how dire their financial situation becomes.

One day, Leonard receives an invitation to an exclusive auction. Ignoring Noah’s protests, he leaves for the old castle where the event is to be held, promising, “I’ll tell you everything once I return.”
But the promised day comes and goes—Leonard never returns, and Noah cannot reach him. Worried, Noah sets out for the castle himself. There, he witnesses a shocking scene that changes everything.

Before long, Noah finds himself trapped inside the castle along with the other auction guests. At the auctioneer’s invitation, he is drawn into participating in this strange and sinister auction…

Characters:
Noah Crawford (VA: Kengo Kawanishi)
Leonard Crawford (VA: Rikiya Koyama)
Edgar Schulz (VA: Daisuke Namikawa)
Christoph Treheim von Berg (VA: Nobunaga Shimazaki)
Otto Klein (VA: Shunsuke Takeuchi)
Karla Becker (VA: Maaya Uchida)
Lorraine Klopp (VA: Yui Ishikawa)
Hell (VA: Akira Ishida)
Auctioneer (VA: Show Hayami)

Game features:
- Explore freely within an ancient castle rendered in 3D
- Use your reasoning skills to piece together clues from the Word Cloud system.
- Join an auction where the truth is revealed about the past

Information gathered during the exploration phase is stored in a feature called the “Word Cloud.”
These collected keywords can then be used during the auction phase to help solve its many mysteries.

In this world, what you need to bid on an item isn’t money—it’s memory.
Participants use a memory-reproduction device known as EPO, offering fragments of their own memories as payment to compete in the auction.

However, memories burdened by secrets or trauma are often distorted, blurred, or even rewritten into false versions of the past.
If the memories offered are incomplete or corrupted, the auction will fail.
Acting as a supporter, Noah must step in to restore each target’s memories to their true form.
When an auction succeeds, a hidden truth is revealed—and with it, the strange and fateful stories behind each auctioned item are set free.


Original story / scenario: Rika Suzuki
Character design: KOHSKE
Soundtrack: Yuko Komiyama, Tsukasa Masuko
Directed and produced: Shinsuke Umeda

*This game tells the story of a group of young people who resolve to pursue a peaceful future after learning the truth of the past. While historical, war-related recollections appear as motifs throughout the narrative, this game does not, in any way, seek to glorify or justify the crimes of war.