Review: Gnosia Is Compelling Even When Going in Circles

Social deduction games aren’t new. They’ve been around since Mafia in the late 1980s. But in recent years, card games like Werewolf and video games like Among Us introduced the concept to a larger audience. Gnosia, like Raging Loop before it, takes the concept and turns it into a visual novel with stats and skills. There are lots of things it does well. Sometimes, it even feels like it does something new! But some of its decisions can also sends players in circles.

Gnosia is set in the far future. Humans have colonized space. There are intelligent, talking dolphins. You might even meet someone who looks like a traditional “alien.” But things aren’t peaceful. One lifeform, known as Gnos, can infect people (and apparently…