The following article is a translation from a Chinese Blog post by EGA.

Momento and Its Creator TAKU: The Breakout Hit That Changed Murder Mystery Gaming

"You are dead — "

These are the very first words players encounter in the backstory of the murder mystery game Momento (记忆碎片). Unlike many script-based games, the world of Momento begins with players already outside the realm of the living. Their memories, identities, and even their names are vague and fragmented. 

Nicknamed "the script game without a script", Momento became an overnight success. As the debut title from Siren Murder Mystery Studio, it earned widespread acclaim within the script game community. Its innovative mechanics and approachable design also attracted many newcomers and players with little prior experience. 

When EGA Immersive Entertainment and Escape Room Hunter sat down with Siren Studio creator TAKU, he was still travelling across the country for the nationwide tour of Black Hearts & Diamonds. Looking back, the success of Momento was hardly accidental. By lowering the barrier to entry, the game may well have become one of the keys to expanding the audience for murder mystery experiences.

A Game Built from Fragments

Many escape room venues and players describe Momento as "a script game with no script".

TAKU disagrees.

"Momento absolutely has scripts," he explains. "They're simply divided into personal scripts and public scripts."

Personal items still serve the purpose of evidence gathering, but are presented as clue cards.

Because the game begins with no script at all and drastically reduces the amount of reading and memorisation required, players can immerse themselves almost immediately.

Speaking to EGA, TAKU explained that the fragmented structure of Momento made it unsuitable for an overly complicated narrative. As a result, the characters themselves are relatively straightforward, with dialogue used to deliver condensed information efficiently.

Interestingly, every soul in Momento has lost its memories of life. Not only do players inhabit distinct personalities, but even the game master is given an in-universe role: the Grim Reaper.

This makes the distribution of memories feel natural and turns the act of handing out scripts into an open-ended experience.

Murder Mysteries with Escape Room Logic

Not long after Momento launched, Siren Studio released its second title, Soul Bell (蛊魂铃).

Although Soul Bell contains slightly more reading than its predecessor, TAKU sees both games as experiences built around what he calls "escape room logic".

"Whether it's Momento or Soul Bell, they're cooperative games that require players to work together to clear them. In that sense, they're very similar to escape rooms."

So when he learned that both titles had become popular among escape room enthusiasts, he was delighted.

Although murder mystery games are Siren Studio's main focus, TAKU himself is an avid escape room player. And with the rise of multi-threaded narrative rooms and live-action investigation experiences, the line between escape rooms and script games has become increasingly blurred.

Quoting a friend from Lanzhou Honkaku Mystery House, he says:

"In the future, offline script games will become Westworld, while online script games will become Ready Player One. As AI technology becomes involved, the boundaries will only continue to expand rather than remain clearly separated."

When asked whether he planned to combine script games with escape rooms, TAKU revealed that Siren does indeed have ambitions to create live-action investigative experiences, though details remain under wraps.

Delivering Clues with Magic: Black Hearts & Diamonds

Black Hearts & Diamonds (黑红梅方) is Siren Studio's third release and their first exclusive title.

To match the game's theme of stage magic, TAKU jokingly announced during promotional livestreams that game masters would even be taught how to distribute clues through magic tricks.

Unlike the studio's earlier works, Black Hearts & Diamonds demands a higher level of experience from players.

Participants must unravel not only human motivations and story logic, but also opposing perspectives and hidden truths. Character scripts are no longer just viewpoints—they require genuine role-playing and immersion to fully reconstruct the story.

As TAKU puts it:

"Compared with a game, Black Hearts & Diamonds is closer to a play."

He elaborates:

"If ordinary immersive escape rooms are like being given a script and performing a story, with puzzles acting as individual set pieces, then a play demands that you truly understand the character. Faced with a mechanism, you solve it according to the character's personality, which leads to entirely different paths."

He continues:

"Choices based on human nature determine fate; choices based on logic determine business. Black Hearts & Diamonds isn't a game where you can ignore the characters and story and simply brute-force the solution. For players who only enjoy solving puzzles, it can be quite demanding."

His assessment proved accurate.

Following its tour, Black Hearts & Diamonds received even stronger praise within the script gaming community than Siren's previous works.

And although the standard version doesn't require game masters to perform magic, many hosts adopted the idea anyway—much to the delight of players.

Great Stories Are Finite

The name "Siren" is not translated from Chinese. It comes from TAKU's nickname for his girlfriend, Xuan.

"When we were young, she once told me she wanted to stay beautiful forever—to become the kind of woman people describe as dangerously beautiful. So I've called her 'Siren' ever since. When I started the studio, I simply kept the name."

But with the explosive popularity of Momento came trouble.

Not long after release, pirated versions began circulating in illegal compilation packs, highlighting one of the greatest frustrations shared by murder mystery creators.

Script games themselves are also inherently unpredictable. The same script can produce vastly different experiences depending on the venue, the host, and the players involved. For creators, this unpredictability is both a challenge and part of the art.

When EGA asked what advice he would offer newcomers to the hobby, TAKU emphasised one word above all:

Respect.

"When we gather together and spend precious hours of our lives experiencing a story, respect for the work, respect for the creator, respect for the organiser, respect for every player, and respect for your own character are all fundamental."

Then he added a sentiment that resonates deeply with many veterans of the hobby:

"You can never play a script for the first time again."

Perhaps, as TAKU suggests, the "missions" and "victories" within a game are merely tools to guide players through the experience.

Real life offers far fewer clearly defined objectives and winners.

In the end, perhaps the only thing that matters is to immerse ourselves fully, enjoy the journey wholeheartedly, and leave with no regrets.