Liminal Border Part I

About

Liminal Border Part I is a visual novel with role-playing elements that follows Itsuki Ninomae, a socially awkward student who stumbles into a dangerous secret. After accidentally creating a video capable of inducing trances, Itsuki uses it on a classmate, uncovering a hidden underworld tied to academic perfection and moral compromise. The story unfolds through dialogue choices and branching paths, blending schoolyard tensions with darker themes of manipulation and exploitation. Players navigate Itsuki’s descent into a gray-market scheme as he grapples with guilt and ambition, all while uncovering layers of deception among those around him. The game’s strength lies in its twisting narrative and morally ambiguous decisions. With over 10 distinct endings reported by early playthroughs, player actions shape relationships and outcomes in ways that feel consequential. While the art style leans anime-inspired and the pacing occasionally lags during exposition, the central mystery and character dynamics hold steady momentum. As part one of a planned quartet, it ends on a cliffhanger that sets up broader conflicts, making it a slow-burn pick for fans of story-driven games with ethical complexity.

Storyline

No one cares if a geeky loser like me exists or not... Itsuki Ninomae spends his time creating tacky fan videos that require no particular skill to make. One day, through a combination of coincidences, he accidentally creates a “digital hypnotism movie,” which has the power to send anyone who watches it into a trance. I wonder what’d happen if I showed it to the one who always looked down on me? A malicious urge possesses Itsuki. Itsuki succeeds in showing his video to Rin Akinashi, a girl he has known since his childhood. However, he also learns the secret hidden behind the straight-A student’s mask. Rin puts forward a proposal: “A lucrative business using digital hypnotism.” Wading into murky legal waters, Itsuki finds himself being swept away into an underworld that should have had nothing to do with him...