Science Adventure


Science Adventure is a series of science fiction visual novel video games developed by 5pb., Nitroplus, and Chiyomaru Studio. The first entry in the series, Chaos;Head, was released in 2008, and is followed by Steins;Gate, Robotics;Notes, Chaos;Child, Steins;Gate 0, and Robotics;Notes DaSH. The series also includes the two Science Visual Novel games Occultic;Nine and Anonymous;Code, six spin-off games based on Chaos;Head, Steins;Gate, and Chaos;Child, and other media including anime, manga, light novels, audio dramas, and stage plays.
The main games and their spin-offs all take place in the same fictional universe. Chaos;Head and Chaos;Child focus on individuals with reality-altering powers, while the Steins;Gate games focus on time travel. The player can affect the course of the story by making certain choices: in Chaos;Head and Chaos;Child this is done by choosing what kind of delusions the player characters experience. The choices in the Steins;Gate games and Robotics;Notes are made via messages set by the player via an in-game cell phone and tablet computer, respectively.
The series is planned by Chiyomaru Shikura, the CEO of 5pb., composed by Takeshi Abo and Zizz Studio, written by Naotaka Hayashi along with other writers, and features character designs by artists including Mutsumi Sasaki, Huke, and Tomonori Fukuda. The developers aimed to make the series set within reality, as Shikura felt it made it more relatable and believable. The series has been commercially and critically successful both in Japan and internationally, selling more than expected for the genre and helping establishing 5pb. as a game developer.

Titles

The Science Adventure series consists of six core games, and six spin-off games: one based on Chaos;Head, four based on Steins;Gate, and one based on Chaos;Child. Two additional games – the game adaptation of the Occultic;Nine novel series, and Anonymous;Code – are part of a series referred to internally as Science Visual Novel, which was originally announced to be separate from Science Adventure, but which has since been incorporated into the series, with Occultic;Nine being updated with new story content tying them together. A new, unannounced game in the series is also in development as of 2019. Some of the games have received updated editions with added content, and there are compilations collecting several games, such as Chaos;Head Dual and Steins;Gate: Divergencies Assort.
The series is published by 5pb. and Nitroplus in Japan, and by JAST USA, PQube, 5pb., and Spike Chunsoft internationally. Steins;Gate, Steins;Gate 0, Chaos;Child, Steins;Gate Elite, Steins;Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram, 8-bit ADV Steins;Gate, and Steins;Gate: My Darling's Embrace have been released officially in English, and there are plans to localize Robotics;Notes Elite and Robotics;Notes DaSH.

Main games

The Science Adventure games all feature stories in the science fiction genre. They make use of real scientific concepts and theories, but also cross over into fictional territory, using inaccurate science and urban legends. Chaos;Head and Chaos;Child focus on individuals with the power to alter reality, and discuss topics such as perception, reality, and antimatter, while Steins;Gate and Steins;Gate 0 focus on time travel. The main games and their spin-offs are all set in the same world, and although playable on their own, are tied together through the use of the Committee of 300 as the antagonist. The Committee, based on the real conspiracy theory, seeks world domination, and is portrayed as very powerful, having control over corporations, politicians, and religions, and being seemingly impossible to beat even with time travel and superpowers.
The games are visual novels, in which the player can affect the outcome of the story through choices. In Chaos;Head and Chaos;Child, the player does this by controlling what types of delusions the player characters experience: the player can make them experience positive or negative delusions, or alternatively choose to let them stay in reality. Chaos;Child Love Chu Chu!! additionally uses a "yes/no" questionnaire the player character takes in in-game magazines to determine the plot's direction. In Steins;Gate and Steins;Gate 0, the player affects the outcome by using the player character's cell phone: in Steins;Gate, it is done by choosing to respond to certain messages, make phone calls, or taking out the phone at specific times, as this affects what information the player character learns and how he interacts with other characters; and in Steins;Gate 0, it is done by deciding whether or not to answer the phone at certain times. Robotics;Notes works similarly to Steins;Gate, but with the player using a tablet computer and its apps instead of a cell phone.

Development

The series is planned by 5pb.'s CEO Chiyomaru Shikura, and is developed by 5pb., Nitroplus, and Shikura's multimedia concept studio Chiyomaru Studio, the latter of which owns the copyright to the series. Naotaka Hayashi has worked on the series writing, both in the role as a scenario writer and as a scenario supervisor. Recurring character designers include Mutsumi Sasaki, Huke, and Tomonori Fukuda. The games' soundtracks are composed by Takeshi Abo and Zizz Studio.
Shikura aimed for the series to be set in reality, feeling that it made the stories more relatable and believable; he said that he personally found it difficult to "buy into" fantasy, and that he was not convinced that people could get excited for "exaggerated fantasy stories". For Steins;Gate, the development team aimed for a rate of "99% science and 1% fantasy"; Shikura called the 1989 film Back to the Future Part II a direct influence on Steins;Gate, citing how it is just believable enough to feel real. For Robotics;Notes, 5pb. cooperated with JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, to bring further realism to the story. Due to the series' use of worldlines – alternative worlds – the developers make use of a correlation chart to track the events in the games' stories, which is updated whenever they create new entries in the series.
Abo noted that while all the games are part of one series, their sound have different images; comparing them to weather, he called Chaos;Head rainy, Steins;Gate cloudy, Robotics;Notes clear weather, and Chaos;Child stormy. He used the same process for all of them when composing the music: he started by reading the story, to understand the setting and characters as well as possible, and writing down notes about the games' emotional flow and the situations that occur throughout the stories. Using these notes, he constructed musical worldviews for the games, with a lot of weight on his first impressions. This approach, while slower than just designating songs to different areas of a game, allowed him to compose higher-quality songs with a better relationship to the games' worldviews. He was given a lot of freedom when working on the series, and was able to make the music he wanted to make for it, something he enjoyed greatly. Abo also got to compose each game's theme song, and was especially happy with Steins;Gate theme song, "Gate of Steiner", which he aimed to represent the entirety of the game with.

Reception

The games have also received generally positive reviews, both in Japan and the West. Critics have enjoyed the story, the music and visuals, and the implementation of the gameplay elements within the visual novel presentation, although some have noted how it is complicated and difficult to unlock certain routes. Anime News Network wrote that the series has well-paced mysteries and uses creative concepts, but that the conclusions often are not as good as the set-ups.
In 2009, Steins;Gate won Famitsu annual Game of Excellence award. RPGFan included Steins;Gate on a list over the 30 essential role-playing games of 2010–2015, calling it one of the best visual novels on the market. It was also nominated for the Golden Joystick Awards, for best handheld/mobile game of 2015.

Sales

The Science Adventure series has been a commercial success for Mages, with the release of Chaos;Head and Steins;Gate helping establishing them as a game developer. In June 2011, Steins;Gate sales passed 300,000 copies sold, something Shikura noted as an achievement for its genre. A year later, he revealed that there had been more than 80,000 preorders for Robotics;Notes, which was a large improvement compared to Steins;Gate original release. Steins;Gate 0 similarly did well commercially, selling 100,000 copies during its first day, bringing the combined sales of all Steins;Gate games past one million copies. Chaos;Child original release, however, failed to chart on Media Create's weekly top 50 sales list in Japan, selling an estimated 1,415 copies.
The English console releases of Steins;Gate performed "phenomenally" well, with a large majority of the sold copies being of the PlayStation Vita version; according to PQube's head of marketing, Geraint Evans, it was the game that made PQube break through and get noticed as a publisher. Steins;Gate Elite international PC release was among the best-selling new releases of the month on Steam.

Related media and other appearances

In addition to the games, the series has seen adaptations and spin-offs in several types of media, such as audio dramas, stage plays, light novels, and manga. There are also anime adaptations of the first five main series games – Chaos;Head, Steins;Gate, Robotics;Notes, Chaos;Child, and Steins;Gate 0 – and of Occultic;Nine. The Steins;Gate anime series received an anime film sequel, ', which premiered in 2013. A live action Steins;Gate television series is also in production by Skydance Television. There are several music albums featuring the games' original soundtracks, as well as albums featuring new arrangements.
The Steins;Gate characters Kurisu Makise and Mayuri Shiina appear in the 2012 role-playing video game Nendoroid Generation. Kurisu also appears as a playable character along with the Chaos;Head character Rimi Sakihata in the 2011 fighting game Phantom Breaker, and along with the Robotics;Notes character Frau Koujiro in the 2013 game '. Multiple Steins;Gate characters also appear as bosses in the 2013 role-playing game Divine Gate.