Visual Novel / No Case Should Remain Unsolved

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No Case Should Remain Unsolved (stylized as #No_Case_Should_Remain_Unsolved) is a Visual Novel developed by South Korean studio Somi Games and released in 2024.

In all her career as a policewoman, there is one case that Jeon Gyeong hasn't solved: the disappearance of a little girl named Seowon. She doesn't like thinking about that old case, still feeling guilty about never solving it.

One day, she is visited by... Seowon's ghost? Or another police officer? Or the Adjudicator who came to bring judgement upon her? Jeon Gyeong isn't really sure. She's not sure of many things: her memories are faulty and her mind is unravelling.

And yet, as the Adjudicator keeps pushing her to remember that old case, Jeon Gyeong sifts through her patchy memories discovering more and more lies and mysteries surrounding it. She needs to get to the bottom of this. Maybe then she would finally be able to lay to rest the one case that haunted her for years.

#No_Case_Should_Remain_Unsolved provides examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Seowon's father begged Jeon Gyeong to stop looking for his daughter and keep her out of her mother's reach, implying that something nefarious was going on and leading Jeon Gyeong to suspect that Seowon's mother was the reason for her disappearance. This ended up subverted, because Seowon died from natural causes, and her mother suffered a mental break, believing that her daughter is still alive. Her husband was merely trying to preserve the illusion to keep her from a complete breakdown.
• Accidental Kidnapping: Choi Seowon was kidnapped by a mentally ill woman not out of malice, but because she mistook the girl for her own daughter.
• Anachronic Order: The memories you uncover are linked thematically, not chronologically. You need to figure out yourself how they fit together.
• Bittersweet Ending: Kim Seowon is dead through no-one's fault, but Choi Seowon is perfectly fine. And while Song Minyeong spent years in a mental institution, there are people willing to help her and she does get better, eventually.
• Dead All Along: Kim Seowon died long ago, her death was just never reported, and her delusional mother has convinced herself that she is still alive.
• Dead Person Conversation: The protagonist at first thinks that she's talking to Seowon's ghost, though she quickly dismisses the idea.
• Death of a Child: Kim Seowon died in infancy, and the trauma causing her parents to divorce and her mother to suffer a mental breakdown.
• Fake Memories: Everything the protagonist remembers about the case is a mix of her own experiences and what the real Jeon Gyeong told her. The events themselves did happen, but she is not the police officer who lived through them.
• False Confession: The ex-teacher, aka the real Seowon's father, takes the fall for Seowon's abduction, both to protect his wife (the actual kidnapper) and out of a sense of guilt regarding what happened, since he went along with and fed into her delusions under the misguided belief that it'd be better for her in the long run, leading to the events of the story.
• Featureless Plane of Disembodied Dialogue: The visuals are few and far in-between and the gameplay revolves around piecing together scattered fragments of dialogue, figuring out where they fit on the timeline and who exactly was talking.
• Framing Device: You take the role of a police detective who is being asked about the events of an old unsolved case. A few scenes take place in the present time, but the bulk of the game has you sort through years-old memories. In truth, however, you're not the detective trying to resolve a years-old cold case — you're the culprit, piecing together your recollection of the events and coming to terms with your guilt.
• Golden Ending: Unlocking it requires having an extra two keys when you finish the game, meaning you not only have to answer every question, but also sort out the whole timeline. It reveals that the POV character is not Jeon Gyeong but Song Minyeong, who is interned in a mental hospital and deluded herself into thinking she was another person due to the trauma of her daughter's death, and the Adjudicator is the real Jeon Gyeong, who is walking her through the events of that day in order to get her to make peace with what happened.
• Grief-Induced Split: The ex-teacher and his wife divorced after their child died.
• Hard Truth Aesop: Sometimes, it's better to rip the proverbial bandaid off and accept reality. Seowon's father thought he was doing a good thing by not reporting his daughter's death and going along with his ex-wife's delusions that she was still alive, but while this saved her from breaking down right away, the fact that Seowon was still considered alive by the system meant that this solution would really only delay the inevitable, as proven when Minyeong snaps after recieving the notice that her daughter is due to start school soon. Confronting Kim Seowon's death head-on may have been harder to do in the moment, but it ultimately would've saved them from all the grief they, Minyeong's mother, and the Choi family went through as a result of the kidnapping.
• Hired Help as Family: A disabled single father hired a caregiver to help him look after his young children. His son calls her Auntie and she pretty much became a mother-figure to the kids.
• Holier Than Thou: Seowon's mother is convinced that her prayers blessed their family, and one of the grievances she levels against her ex-husband is that he refuses to pray when he's facing problems that he can't solve.
• Identity Amnesia: At the very end, it is revealed that the protagonist isn't Jeon Gyeong. She is actually Song Minyeong, who, due to an unspecified disassociative disorder, has deluded herself into thinking she's the detective working on her own case.
• I Have Many Names: The Adjudicator is also referred to as Seowon's Ghost, Janus, and Jigsaw Puzzle Master. She is actually the real Jeon Gyeong.
• I Miss Mom: It's been a few years since his mother died, but Myeongho is still clearly affected by it, always carrying around an umbrella as a Tragic Keepsake.
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: You must dig through the protagonist's faulty memories and find clues necessary to put them in order and figure out what happened to the little girl who went missing years ago.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Jeon Gyeong compares herself to a jellyfish that drifts through life stinging everyone who comes close. She is quite cynical but she has still spent many years helping people as a police detective.
• Legally Dead: Inverted. Kim Seowon is on the list of children stated to start school, even though she died as an infant. Seeing this is what finally pushes her mother to the breaking point.
• Meaningful Name: Seowon was born very small and fragile. Her mother gave her this name ("Seo" for "rhinoceros" and "Won" for "origin") hoping it would give Seowon the strength of a rhino. Her father thinks this name cursed her: Seowon charged forward like a rhino and left everyone behind.
• Mistaken for Afterlife: The protagonist isn't sure who she's talking to. She guesses that the Adjudicator is here to judge her at the end of her life. The Adjudicator is a normal human, and the protagonist isn't dead or dying, though she is mentally ill.
• Monkey Morality Pose: Seowon's brother was told not to say anything, "just like that monkey [they] saw at the temple". This snippet of dialogue is accompanied by a picture of three monkeys covering their ears, mouth, and eyes.
• My Greatest Second Chance: For years, Jeon Gyeong blamed herself for never solving the case of Seowon's disappearence. The Adjudicator pushes her to revisit the old memories and finally solve it.
• Mystical 108: Kim Seowon died as a baby. She only lived for 108 days.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Seowon's father never reported her death because he wanted to keep up the illusion that she's still alive for his wife's sake. Unfortunately, this only worsened his wife's mental state and led her to kidnap an innocent little girl in her delusion.
• Once More, with Clarity: The plot revolves around piecing together the protagonist's faulty memories. She remembers snippets of conversations, but she often doesn't remember who she was talking to and when exactly it happened. Putting those memories in context slowly but steadily clarifies the Jigsaw Puzzle Plot.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Kim Seowon died when she was just a baby, and her mother suffered a mental breakdown. Her father handled it better, but he's still grieving.
• One-Steve Limit: One of the major plot points subverts this. There are two little girls with the given name "Seowon": Kim Seowon, who died as an infant but was never marked as such for the sake of her mother's sanity, and Choi Seowon, the girl who got abducted by the former's mother, who believed Choi Seowon was her long-dead child.
• Parental Substitute: A caregiver hired to look after two young children is treated like a family member and a mother-figure by them. Seowon outright calls her "mom".
• Plot-Triggering Death: The death of Kim Seowon, which years later spurs her distraught mother to abduct Choi Seowon.
• Restoration of Sanity: The entire game turns out to be Jeon Gyeong's attempt to help mentally ill Song Minyeong regain lucidity.
• The Reveal: You are trying to uncover what happened to Seowon, a little girl who went missing, but everything the protagonist remembers is inconsistent and contradictory. What really happened is that there were two girls named Seowon. Kim Seowon died as a baby and her mother Song Minyeong suffered a mental breakdown, convincing herself that her daughter was still alive. She kidnapped Choi Seowon in a delusional belief that this was her daughter. Her ex-husband returned the girl to her father and lied to the police, trying to take the blame for the kidnapping himself. Jeon Gyeong let him go, but left the case open so that Song Minyeong can still believe that her daughter is alive. Finally, the ending reveals that the protagonist is actually Song Minyeong and the Adjudicator is the real Jeon Gyeong, who's been trying to help her work through her addled memories and delusions.
• Revisiting the Cold Case: Jeon Gyeong never solved the case of Seowon's disapperance. Now she gets the chance to revisit it and finally solve the years-old mystery.
• Rousseau Was Right: Despite the fact that the plot revolves around the mysterious disappearence of a little girl that happened under very suspicious circumstances, the story is surprisingly idealistic. Song Minyeong didn't harm Seowon and only kidnapped her because she was suffering from a serious mental illness. Her ex-husband returned Seowon to her father and tried to take the blame himself to protect his wife, but the detective in charge of the case let him go. Seowon's father didn't even press charges, he was just grateful that his daughter was fine. And while Song Minyeong's mental state worsened and she was institutionalized, her ex-husband still cares about her and constantly visits her. Even Jeon Gyeong, who doesn't really have a stake in this anymore, spent months helping her recover.
• Sanity Slippage: When Song Minyeong lost her child, she suffered a mental breakdown, and despite therapy, she never became better. A certain incident fanned the flames, driving her to kidnap a child in a delusional belief that this was her daughter.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: Shin Hyejeong has a notably suspicious air about her for most of the story, with her lying about being at the playground when Seowon vanished and telling Myeongho not to say anything about what happened, and Donggeon saying that he made a mistake by trusting Hyejeong so much with his children. As it turns out, she's perfectly innocent in regards to the actual abduction — she's just mad at herself because Seowon was abducted while she was off taking a phone call, and thus feels personally responsible because, as the Choi family's caregiver, she has a duty to look after and protect them.
• Significant Name Overlap: A major plot point is that there were two girls named Seowon: the one who was abducted by Minyeong, and Minyeong's daughter who died in infancy.
• Speech-Centric Work: The game is very dialogue-heavy with very few visuals, which adds to the mystery since you need to figure out who you're speaking to and when it happened.
• Taking the Heat: The ex-teacher tries to take the blame for kidnapping Seowon to protect his mentally ill ex-wife.
• That One Case: Jeon Gyeong never found the little girl who went missing and the case remained unsolved, haunting her for years.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: The ex-teacher remembers his wife being completely empty-eyed and lacking any hope or drive to live when they visited the grave of their child. That's why he played along with her delusion that their daughter was still alive: so that she would have something to live for.
• Title Drop: One of the reasons the Adjudicator is pushing Jeon Gyeong to revisit this old case and finally solve it is because she believes that no case should remain unsolved.
• Tomato in the Mirror: The person we thought is Jeon Gyeong is actually Seowon's mother Song Minyeong. The real Jeon Gyeong is the Adjudicator.
• Tragic Keepsake: Ever since his mother died, Myeongho started to carry an umbrella with him everywhere. His mother had promised that she would watch over him from heaven and ask God to stop the rain if he ever forgot his umbrella, since she wouldn't be around to pick him up from school on rainy days. Myengho claims that he doesn't believe in heaven, but it's clear that on some level, he's still holding on to hope.
• Wham Shot: Jeon Gyeong got involved in this case because the city hall administration asked the police to check on the families of the kids who hadn't showed up on the first day of elementary school. When we finally see the list of absentees, it explains the many inconsistencies and contradictions that plagued this case. The girl who went missing is Choi Seowon. The name on the list is Kim Seowon. There were two different girls who shared the same name.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Myeongho acts very serious and mature for his age. It's mentioned that living through a tragedy forces children to grow up fast.