Image: Sketchy Logic.
If the high school pigeon dating simulator Hatoful Boyfriend had you thinking that any game genre could be made better with birds, then a new Steam game ought to excite you. Successfully crowd-funded last year, Aviary Attorney takes the sleuthing visual novel mystery format, popularized by Capcom's wildly successful Ace Attorney series, and throws it to the birds. And the cats. And the hippos. And the rabbits. But moreover the birds. And most importantly: in funny Victorian hats.You are Jayjay Falcon, a bird lawyer (as in, a bird who is a lawyer, not a lawyer exclusively for birds), and you are given a high profile case: to prove the innocence of a bourgeois cat woman (as in, a woman who is a cat, not a woman who possesses many cats) in a murder most fowl. As Falcon digs his talons into this case, and three others, a larger sinister conspiracy appears, snaring the literal zoo of animal people you'll investigate and interrogate. If this somehow seems like a stretch, let's not forget that the first Ace Attorney game already had players ask a parrot to the stands.While the games Aviary Attorney is based on are known for their loud, colourful anime styles, Aviary goes for a much different, distinct atmosphere with illustrations pulled from the portfolio of 19th century caricaturist Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard.Aviary Attorney is available to play on December 21.