Paramedium Infuses Ghostbusting With Visual Novel Sensibilities
Snatchin' makes me feel good
Paramedium [official site] looks exactly like the kind of visual novel I'd make if I had any sort of artistic talent. Actually, it'd probably look a lot more like Space Funeral. But it would definitely have colorful, unique characters and bizarre one-liners. I really like the dialogue in the screenshot I chose for this post, in fact.
You take on the role of a police office who handles ghost-hunting duties, and it's your job to capture a pesky spirit and bring it in (for questioning?) after you receive a call at the station about it. Ghosts really are delinquents, you see.
What's really interesting about Paramedium, however, is its uncanny resemblance to the classic Snatcher (which you should have played by now, no excuses) where you've got to take aim and shoot at enemies. So normally you're cruising around chatting with characters (as you do in visual novels) but those segments really give the game a familiar yet unique lilt. Yeah. I really dig it. In fact, I want to see more of it made.
If you're sufficiently spooked, you can download Paramedium on Itch.io right now for Windows and Mac. You can pay what you want, but if you decide you really don't dig it you don't have to be out that much the first time around.