Second Secret: BL Novel App Game

Official website: https://secondsecret.bluelupinus.jp/

Business x Detective
Boy’s love novel game where you “read about love”.
When you two overcome your secret, this love will accelerate…
In a small detective office in the corner district of Shibuya. Chitose Chika is shown three photos. All of them are businessmen dressed nicely. “I want you to be in charge of my case.”
The chosen targets, reported by the boss. It was supposed to be just work, but….

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a decent BL app game so this one interested me a lot when I first saw it pop up in Twitter. I was following one of the voice actors who tweeted about it and so I didn’t hesitate to try out the game.

Gameplay

As stated in the official synopsis, Second Secret 「セカクレ」(sekakure in Japanese) is basically a BL visual novel where it’s mainly reading and choosing options which will ultimately lead you to your love interest.

There are two main components in the game, WORK and STORY.  Since the app was only released recently, things like EVENT and EXTRA are empty at the moment.

STORY is pretty straight forward like every other novel game, you read through the ‘episodes’ and work your way through the story towards the character of your choice.The prologue is completely free for you to read, but as soon as you start episodes from Chapter 1, it will cost you keys to unlock and ONE ticket to read it. You get a maximum of 5 tickets a day which regenerate at 4AM JST daily. Mini episodes however do not require tickets but only keys.

It’s somewhat voiced as well which is a plus, and the art looks pretty good! It reminds me of the Voltage app games haha! You can easily tap to skip the dialogue, leave it on auto or go back to the log in case you want to read back. There is no option however, to quick save or go back to a particular dialogue but I don’t find it a problem since the episodes aren’t long. There are also CGs you can unlock!

As you go through the story, you will have a bar that has [SAD] [GOOD] and [TRUE] which indicates your relationship with your love interest. Depending on the options you choose and your relationship, you will either get the sad, good or true ending.

There are two small features the game has which initially confused me. The first is that after every episode you read, a LIKE button will appear. It does not do anything other than the fact that it’s there for you to freely mash the button as much as you like until you feel ‘satisfied’?  Interesting…

The second is that if you tap the penguin icon on the bottom right of the screen, it camouflages the characters! At first I thought my game was lagging and so it was screwing up the characters, but I figured out that you can actually turn the camouflage mode on and off. Apparently, it’s so you can ‘hide’ the characters and be able to read your BL novel game ‘anywhere’ without drawing unwanted attention ;)

LIEN is the messaging app you and the characters use in the game to communicate. It’s pretty obvious that it’s a rip-off of the LINE app, but it’s still really cute that the game uses it! And yes, your boss is actually a penguin.

WORK is where you play the puzzle game to earn yourself items and experience to rank up. Playing costs you ONE stamina bar and the gameplay is similar to Bejewelled where you swap two adjacent pieces to connect 3 or more of the same piece to make it disappear. The higher you score within the time limit, the more experience you get and the more keys you earn! You can also use support items to help you earn higher points and more keys. As you play WORK more, you increase your level making it easier to earn keys and support items!

The rainbow star piece destroys all of ONE piece, pieces that glow destroy 8 pieces and pieces that glow and spin destroy horizontal and vertical pieces. If you get the pieces with the LETTER (which stands for the love target you’ve chosen) to the bottom, it will trigger special effects.

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Characters

Cool x Serious x Detective
“To stir danger and people’s resentment is a part of this job.”

Chitose Chika (name is changeable) (CV. Nakazawa Masatomo) is the main protagonist of the game. He is an investigator from the SS detective office. He has a cool way of thinking, however he does not hold any sympathy towards investigations at all. He’s secretive and is poor at being mindful of others.

Airhead x Earnest x Gentleman
“I pride myself in waiting, however if possible I want to keep important things close at hand.”

Hanasaki Haruhito (CV. Takai Shuuhei) is in charge of IT consulting at NiS Cooperation. He is quarter English. Although he’s straightforward and friendly to anyone, he’s casually pushy. He has not forgotten his first love that he met when he was a child.

Oresama (pompous) x Sinister x Son of a Distinguished Family
“Just admit it already. That you like me.”

Mononobe Mafuyu (CV. Mochizuki Ei) is the notable son of the large company Mononobe Group. He’s able to do anything without failing the expectations of those around him. He has a polite and smiley appearance but the truth is…?

Adult x Loose x Boss
“If it’s wounds you caused, I’ll love every one of them. Let it all out and be spoiled.”

Kanamori Kazuaki (CV. Onoda Ginshirou) is the director who put the entire business division together. He’s very loose when it comes to private matters, but he works fast and with care and is highly praised. He often hides his phone and appears like he has some kind of secret, but….

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Progressing through the story will take quite a while so I’m not sure whether I’ll be posting about this again unless they eventually start making events and other stuff in the future. Definitely check it out if you’re into BL novel games and don’t mind puzzles! I currently have a gazillion mobile games I’m playing and testing out at the moment but feel free to comment if you have any questions!