The story focuses on a group of eighteen people on a secluded island for a period of two days, and the mysterious murders that befall them.

Square Enix, Ichijinsha, Kadokawa Shoten, and ASCII Media Works all published various manga adaptations of the series.

It is described as a "sound novel" by 07th Expansion, due to the game's greater focus on creating atmosphere through audio elements rather than visual aspects.

Umineko is almost entirely linear and contains no interactive gameplay elements, with the exception of small portions of its final entry, Twilight of the Golden Witch.

Besides advancing text, players may also access the Tips Mode, allowing them to read various supplementary information regarding the characters and story.

Despite the lack of interactive gameplay elements, Umineko is framed as a game between the author and the reader, with difficulty ratings given in the descriptions for each episode.

A typhoon traps the eighteen people on the island, and occult-like murders occur in accordance with the epitaph, often in ways that seem impossible for a human.

Refusing to acknowledge the existence of magic, Battler is seemingly sent to the parallel dimension of Purgatorio, from which events on Rokkenjima can be seen as a "game board".

Subsequent episodes show events on Rokkenjima arranged in various different ways each time, while Battler discusses them with Beatrice and other magical entities in Purgatorio.

Ange, who has hateful relationship with Eva and is bullied by her classmates, can't accept the death of her family and tries to reach the truth on her own.

As the story goes on, Battler at first is filled with hatred for Beatrice, but then trying to understand her true motives, he teams up with her and opposes Erika Furudo, a new character put on the "game board" by the witches Bernkastel and Lambdadelta, and who serves as the detective.

The child grows up known as Yasu in an orphanage funded by Kinzo and begins working for the Ushiromiya family at the age of nine, but is ostracized by the older servants.

Yasu solves the mystery of the epitaph and takes possession of legendary gold and a massive number of explosives, both remnants of World War II military base.

He takes on a new identity named Toya Hachijo, and his attempts to piece together the truth of the incident, represented by his battles with Beatrice in Purgatorio, lead him to pen the tales of subsequent arcs.

In the finale, Ange manages to learn the truth about her parents through Eva's hidden diary, and despite having a difficult life gets over it and moves on to meet Toya many years later.

When the Seagulls Cry Scattering) tells the second half of the story, delving deeper into the core of the mystery while providing more clues towards the truth of Rokkenjima.

When the Seagulls Cry Wings) (2010) is a compilation of short stories written by Ryukishi07 outside of the games, released on December 31, 2010 alongside Twilight of the Golden Witch.

When the Seagulls Cry Feathers) (2011) consists of two additional short stories written by Ryukishi07: Jessica and the Killer Electric Fan and Forgery no.XXX.

When the Seagulls Cry Bloom) (2019) is a collection of all previous official visual novel content for the series along with two additional scenarios.

[5] The first game of the Umineko When They Cry visual novel series, titled Legend of the Golden Witch, was first released on August 17, 2007 at Comiket 72.

[6] The first game in the Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru series, entitled End of the Golden Witch, was first released on August 15, 2009 at Comiket 76.

[16] In addition, an Xbox 360 port of the original game developed by Alchemist was released on October 6, 2011 under the title Golden Fantasia X.

[17] On November 3, 2018, developer Catbox Creative announced they would be launching a Kickstarter campaign for an updated version called Umineko When They Cry: Gold Edition, with an English dub.

[19] A compilation of all previous official visual novel content for the series along with two additional scenarios titled Umineko no Naku Koro ni Saku (lit.

An adaptation of Turn of the Golden Witch drawn by Jirō Suzuki began serialization in the August 2008 issue of Square Enix's GFantasy.

The manga adaptation of Banquet of the Golden Witch began serialization in the October 2009 issue of Gangan Joker and is illustrated by Kei Natsumi.

Sōichirō draws the adaptation of Alliance of the Golden Witch, which began serialization in Square Enix's Internet-based magazine Gangan Online on October 1, 2009.

The first bound volume for Legend of the Golden Witch was released in Japan on June 21, 2008 under Square Enix's Gangan Comics imprint.

[20] Notably, the manga adaptation includes certain departures from the original visual novel narrative, such as solutions to the gameboard mysteries previously only alluded to with riddles.

Frontier Works began to produce a set of drama CDs for Umineko starting with the first volume Ōgon no Kakeratachi (黄金のカケラたち, lit.