Beginner guide
Expect a dialogue-heavy pixel horror RPG: work the PCD office, talk to everyone, follow Main Story objectives into the field, and keep E for interacting and TAB for menus.
What a shift at the PCD looks like
Project Jupiter is a dialogue-heavy pixel horror RPG with two gears: the office, where you are the newest officer at the national Plague Control Department, and the field, where cases turn into crime scenes, spores and things people would rather not explain. You investigate, talk, examine, and slowly assemble what the department already suspects.
One honest caveat up front: the game isn't out yet. This page is built from the store page, official screenshots and the studio's own statements — and it gets a full first-hour rewrite the week of launch.
The loop, in plain words
- Work the office. The opening scenes are conversations: the receptionist establishes the tone, and PCD researcher Lucia lays out what the department has been studying, whiteboard and all.
- Pick up objectives. The journal splits tasks into Main Story and Side Quests — at Early Access launch, only the main line of Chapter 1 is available.
- Go into the field. Objectives send you to locations like the photo store, where you investigate and find clues.
- Unlock the map as you learn. Locations get added to your map as the story mentions them, rather than being open from the start.
- Come back changed. Horror RPGs like this one pace their scares between cases — expect the office to get less comfortable as Chapter 1 goes on.
Controls and interface (so far)
The official screenshots show the core verbs, and they match the genre's conventions:
| Input | What it does |
|---|---|
E | Interact — doors, objects, people, evidence |
TAB | Opens the menu screens |
| Walk | Standard top-down movement; examinable spots are hinted, not highlighted |
Dialogue uses the classic boxed style — dark box, white text, and a name tag that changes color per speaker. All of this is pre-release footage, so treat specifics as "subject to change until launch."
Pre-launch checklist
- Wishlist it. Early Access releases can slip quietly onto the store; a wishlist is the reminder.
- Decide your horror settings. No difficulty or content toggles have been announced. If you play with headphones, know that this genre uses quiet-then-loud sound design.
- Set expectations for saves. The save system hasn't been detailed yet. Until then, the safe habit for any horror RPG is: save when you find something new, not when you think you need to.
- Play the visual novel or don't — both are fine. The story page explains what carries over from the 2023 VN.
What we don't know yet
Deliberately marked, so nobody mistakes guesses for facts: chapter length, save system, difficulty options, controller support, and whether deaths have punishments beyond a reload. All of it gets filled in once Chapter 1 is in our hands.
