All in Abyss: Judge the Fake — Everything We Know

All in Abyss: Judge the Fake is a new indie game that was announced with a short Steam page and trailer. The game follows the classic visual novel formula with a few twists thrown in the mix to freshen things up  a bit. If you've never played a visual novel type game, then the gameplay may look a bit confusing. Below we take a look at everything we know about All in Abyss: Judge the Fake.

What is All in Abyss: Judge the Fake

All in Abyss: Judge the Fake is a unique mash-up that combines a visual novel with poker. The game looms to be very narrative-heavy and a mash-up between the anime Kakegurui and something in the vein of the Danganronpa games evidence system. The game looks stylish and seems to have a serious tone with a quirky main character. Players should think of it as a mix between a casino game and a visual novel that has a dark undertone.

Story

You take up the role of a young girl named Asuha Senahara. Ashuha is noted as being an incredible gambler who makes her way from place to place. Her newest venture is the Gambling Ward, where fates are decided by games of luck. The ward is ruled by the Witches, a group of affluent gamblers who will stop at nothing to win. In most cases, this seems to mean that they will cheat in order to keep their status. Asuha is intrigued by this challenge and sets you to beat each and every one of them. As fate would have it, she loses, and thus begins the game where you must battle your way back up to the top. The ultimate goal is to make your way to riches.

So far, only three main characters have been revealed, including Ashuha herself. The Steam page also lists the first witch, Uru, and a young girl who helped Ashuha named Mina. The game seems like it will have voice acting and parts of the story will be animated, but it's not clear how much or if it will just be for major witch fights. It's not yet clear how many chapters there will be or if the story will keep a serious tone all the way through. Currently, we only have a trailer and the bits of information that the developer has given out about the project.

Gameplay

The gameplay revolves around two main aspects, exploration and Texas Hold'em. This is a form of poker where you are given two cards at once. A pull of five community cards is available and you will need to combine them to make the best hand. If you've ever played the game in real life when, you should already understand All in Abyss's base rules. The matches are 1V1, so you won't need to worry about dealing with multiple opponents at once.

Ashuha needs to be able to beat the witches, and to do this, she needs evidence of their cheating. She can find it by exploring the areas in each chapter to find clues and then bring their methods to life. While you're doing this, you can win money by challenging residents of the city to gambling matches. All of the matches have what appears to be the same layout, and Asuha has special abilities that can help you win a match. There is also an icon for thinking and using an item, but it's not yet clear how it will influence the game.

The most interesting of the skills is the All-in. This apparently puts Ashuha's life on the line but allows you to pull off astonishing feats. What exactly that means in terms of gameplay isn't yet clear, but from the sounds of it, the skill won't always be available. Once you've gathered your evidence, you can progress the story by taking on the witch of the chapter. Players should note that there are also some visual novel aspects, and screenshots seem to point to different routes.

Development

All in Abyss: Judge the Fake is being developed by ACQUIRE Corp. and WSS playground. WSS playground has developed several other indie games including strategy game The Great Villainess: Strategy of Lily, Boyhood's End, and the upcoming Blade Chimera. ACQUIRE corp. has made the Way of the Samurai 3 games and Tenchu Shadows Assassin. It's not yet determined which studio is working on which parts of  the game. All in Abyss: Judge the Fake is in the hands of two talented teams, and while it seems like it will be a new type of game for both of them, the storytelling and gameplay talent is already here.

Trailer

The All in Abyss: Judge the Fake trailer is short and a bit cryptic in its dialogue. It shows off some artwork and voice acting from the game before going into a spiffy but short animation. Some of the poker and visual novel segments are shown, along with a few of the characters. The most notable thing is the unique art style shown during the animation and visual novel segments. It has a quirky modern look that's not often seen in many video games.

Platforms and Editions

As of right now, there is very little information on what platforms we can expect All in Abyss: Judge the Fake. The game also doesn't have a projected release date. It's already confirmed that the game will be launching on PC using Steam. Some other games from the companies have had multi-platform launches. While it will likely depend on the success of the game. It does look possible for All in Abyss to make its way over to consoles like the Nintendo Switch at some point. Additionally, there are no special editions of the game. Based on past releases from WSS playground, it doesn't seem likely that it will get one.