A story-driven puzzle game where you intercept contracts and pretend to be a hitman while trying to talk the client down from going through with it

Details:

• Genre: Visual Novel Style Story-Driven Puzzle Game
• Setting: Modern
• Inspiration: Ace Attorney Series

Story:

Your job is to intercept contracts on the dark web and get the job as the hitman. Rather than killing the target, you work through the client's issues and find a way to resolve things peacefully.

Contracts can range anywhere from:

• "The client is paying 500k to get a target dead for the murder of his wife"
• To "1 billion dollars for the target bumping into the client in the hallway and saying 'Excuse me, bro' before moving on"

There will be clients with legitimate grievances as well as clients that have as much money as they have anger management issues.

Mechanics:

Each story is episodic, though there can be bleed-in between episodes to suit the overarching story.

The average story starts out in a chat window where you initially interview the client and then go through an online research phase to determine the kind of appearance and mannerisms a typical hitman would have according to the client's world view.

The challenge is to take this information and then change your appearance in such a way that has the highest probability of convincing the client.

When you manage to get the client's trust via the dark net, you then organize an in-person meeting, in which you must then visit the client X amount of times to discuss the hit.

During these conversations, you use what you've learned via online research as well as in previous conversations and the current one to deduce what options continue to make you sound convincing as well as come up with a plan to dissuade the client from going through with it.

If you make too many wrong decisions, the client catches on to your act and fires you. An actual hitman is hired and someone dies because of your failure.