The prequel to the award-winning 2012 mystery adventure title Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, Aksys Games announced that they will be releasing Chunsoft's 999: Zero Escape, Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors as a "traditional" visual novel on the iOS on March 17th for $4.99.

Taking advantage of the iPhone's, iPad's and iPod Touch's touch functionality, the port will feature enhanced graphics for character art, background art as well as story sequences. In addition, escape puzzles from the DS game have been removed to allow more focus on the story. The novel will also feature comic book-style voice balloons during conversations and a flowchart to help people jump around story sequences.

For those unfamiliar with the Zero Escape series, 999 tells the story about nine characters who find themselves stranded aboard a ship against their will wearing mysteriously numbered bracelets. They suddenly find themselves playing the "Nonary Game" where they can only escape from the sinking ship by finding a door marked with the number "9." As with the original game, players will be able to change the story by choosing which doors to go through throughout the course of the game leading to one of the game's many endings.

For more information on the release, please visit the official 999: Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors the Novel website.