Methods: The Detective Competition
This game is so charming and wonderful, it’s quickly become one of my favourite games ever! If you like mystery stories and fun characters, I highly recommend you pick it up. And if anything seems interesting, don’t be afraid to try out the demo!
On to the (spoiler free) review! (I’ve never written a review before, so apologies if it reads oddly at all.)
The gist of the story is that, 100 of America’s greatest detectives and 100 of its worst criminals are pit in a battle royale against each other to win a million dollars. (And parole, if they’re a criminal.) You play through the stories of several participants as they advance through the competition, meeting new faces at every turn. The game is split into 100 chapters, and it took me personally about 7.5 hours to play through them all on my first playthrough.
– Real player with 51.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Cartoon Visual Novel Games.
This is probably one of my top ten games I have ever played, in part because I love solving locked room mysteries so much. I do realize it will not be everyone’s cup of tea, however. Here are (in my opinion) the main downsides of this game: 1. character art is a little lackluster, but you can see that for yourself on the steam page. You do get used to it though, and the character designs do have a lot of personality. 2. The pacing is a little weird. Sometimes you will go through long-ish periods of cutscenes back to back or mysteries back to back. 3. Finally, the ending does leave some loose ends, which could maybe have been intended to pave the way for a sequel (or maybe the game designers just couldn’t decide how to wrap them up, I don’t know). With those downsides out of the way, here are the things I love: 1. mysteries upon mysteries upon mysteries. Both little murder scenes you have to solve and some big over-arching mysteries within the game. 2. The characters are really fun. Both detectives and criminals all have a special method they use to do what they do, and it is very fun to see all of the varieties of detectives and murderers they came up with. You also get to play as different detectives and use their methods of solving mysteries, which is cool. You also get to briefly step into playing as a criminal as well. Again, I’ve never met a game with so many mysteries to solve, so this game was lots of fun for me. To me this game is very worth the $20 it normally costs (so I’d say to definitely get it if it sounds interesting, especially if it goes on sale).
– Real player with 13.0 hrs in game
Peekazoo
The luxury cruise liner Animals Star just set off on its first voyage and all of the animals are having a great time. However, the crewmates have no idea that there is a conspiracy afoot.
The animals invited aboard by the scientists have no idea that they’re about to become guinea pigs for a new experimental serum. The scientists take the first subjects through a tunnel and into the lab, inject them with the serum, and write down their reactions: “Increased physical function, slightly increased intelligence, decreased eye sight, gradual increase in irritability, increased aggression… the first experiment’s failed! The subjects are out of control!” After losing their minds, the subjects break through the observation chamber, kill the scientists, and take over the ship’s remote control and the keys to the tunnel.
Read More: Best Cartoon Multiplayer Games.
Sketchy Fables
Sketchy Fables is a first-person exploration adventure and can be described as a comic-book that has broken up over a landscape. The story begins with the search for an mysterious child who influences Your reality. Can You still find the child in You?
Features:
*** Fully Hand-drawn & animated game world consisting of about 8000 unique artworks, designed by award-winning artist Alle Jong.**
*** Plays like an interactive cartoon slash artgame/comicbook/Interactive Visual-novel. Sketchy Fables is an personal artistic expression full of poetry & art**
*** There is an Main storyline, but nothing is what it seems..**
*** 3 open save slots**
*** An diverse game environment to explore full of villages and rural landscapes.**
*** Focused on personal exploration with many random encounters & discoveries**
Read More: Best Cartoon Cartoony Games.
Detective Boiled-Hard / Case File - Death of the Space Dino Hunter
when I started uploading screenshots of this game, I realized there’ll be screenshots of every f****** minute of it. And I want more, honestly. Buy, giggle & enjoy!
– Real player with 3.1 hrs in game
I really enjoyed Trials and Traces: The Tomb of Thomas Tew, an earlier game by this developer, Because Because. It’s not available on Steam as of the writing of this review, but it is available over on itch.io. It was a nice little gem within a collection of other independent adventure games, with turned out to be a great purchase, because it put games like Death Has a Million Stomping Boots and Beard in the Mirror on my radar.
When Because Because released Detective Boiled-Hard, I jumped on it right away. This game is a bit on the shorter side, clocking in at about 90 minutes of play – but it’s a solid and enjoyable (and fully voice-acted!) 90 minutes. Detective Boiled-Hard never once pretends to be a serious game of any sort. It fully embraces bad jokes, self-referential humor, so-bad-they’re-amazing celebrity impersonations, and insane situations.
– Real player with 2.7 hrs in game
Just Take Your Left
I super wanted to give this game a positive review, but it’s not quite ready for prime time yet. Even though I ultimately felt I had to give this game a thumbs down, please still consider supporting the developer by picking it up, perhaps on sale, especially if it looks like the kind of game you might be into.
Just take your left is a very short mouse-driven game by Mehrdad Rezaei, who seems to be a solo Iranian developer. Your character is an agent of some sort who is sent to steal a diamond from a castle, but is antagonized along the way by a small mouse who is determined to stop him.
– Real player with 1.7 hrs in game
this game has nice artwork and great character animation, a lot of though has gone into how the character reacts to objects, which is great to see.
I managed to get stuck a few times but not so stuck you’d give up or start hunting down a tutorial,
A little moan is quality control and grammar but English isn’t the guys first language, and considering its the cost of a burger the character animation is so much nicer than some dearer games, no aimless wandering about and dodgy “use” animation here!
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game
Occult Crime Police
Personally I don’t know the “Phoenix Wright” game(s) that many reviewers are referring to.
I just think that this game was fun. It has amusing animations, some good dialogue and funny moments.
This game’s basically a visual novel-type with a few “puzzles” that involve presenting evidence to contradict vitness statements.
Playing time’s around 5 hours.
It’s a free game, try it!
Thanks devs!
– Real player with 5.6 hrs in game
It’s criminal that this game is free. It’s basically an indie take on Phoenix Wright, done really well. It took me 5 hours to play (and I was streaming and reading the dialogue aloud, so a normal play would probably be shorter), but it was a memorable experience. Great writing, interesting characters, notable plot twists, and great animation and sound.
It’s clearly the setup for a full-length series, so I am eager to see that manifest. I’ll happily toss a few dollars to the devs via their optional cosmetic DLC too; they earned it with this.
– Real player with 5.4 hrs in game
Singled Out
This game is the perfect arcade game. I haven’t gotten to a boss so I can’t comment about that. It’s also really easy to get onto the leader board. There’s not much to the game but I think that’s how most arcade games are. For it being made in a game jam its great! I didn’t even realize it was made for a game jam at first. It want more games like this! It doesn’t require to much thought so its easy to watch a movie and play it at the same time.
– Real player with 4.8 hrs in game
This is a simple and fun little game with a distinctive pixel art style, that’s best enjoyed with a few friends, especially if you’re all a little drunk. You’re given three clues as to what the target galactic super-criminal looks like, and a crowd of faces milling around. You need to identify the criminal and shoot them to get points and move to the next round. If you shoot an innocent bystander by mistake then it’s game over, and you start again from the first round.
It starts out simple, with the target criminal usually being easily spotted at a glance, but quickly starts to build up in difficulty as the faces in the crowd all start to share similar looking features that forces you to start to check and double-check and even triple-check before you pull the trigger. The ten second time limit for each round is accompanied by the ticking of the clock which only adds to the pressure. Taking turns playing it with friends and trying to talk them into shooting the wrong target so they don’t beat your score is almost the best part.
– Real player with 3.5 hrs in game
Who is the Liar?
I loved the art direction chosen for this game. It combines pieces that look like they came out of the board game Clue with beautiful, more realistic 3D scenarios and comics iconographies. The game also has an engaging story and charming characters.
With all of these elements at the developer’s disposal, the game practically begs for more content. Since it is still in early access, it is sure to develop into a great game.
Very promising!
– Real player with 9.8 hrs in game
A fun game, very well produced. The visuals are incredible, combining cartoon 2D and stunning 3D. A humorous narrative, it reminds me of the movie Knives Out with its crazy eccentric family. Looking forward to play the next stories in the final version.
– Real player with 8.3 hrs in game
Jenny LeClue - Detectivu
Note: When I wrote this review, Jenny LeClue had no voice acting, which is why the review doesn’t mention it. The game recently updated with the voice acting. It is extremely good, and on this replay, I can’t imagine going back to no voices. It turned a great game into an exceptional one.
Jenny LeClue is positively adorable. The eponymous hero, yes- exceedingly so- but also the game itself is just overall incredibly charming.
As far as gameplay goes, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before. There’s a lot of conversations between Jenny and the various residents of Arthurton, as she walks about a 2d world, flicking switches and pushing boxes. There’s some neat investigation sections that will feel very familiar to fans of Danganronpa or Phoenix Wright.
– Real player with 22.5 hrs in game
I first learned about Jenny LeClue a few years ago through Adventuregamers, after it had already been funded on Kickstarter. I followed the progression of the game through the developer’s page and eagerly awaited the arrival of this beautifully animated detective game, led by a young girl no less!
I regret to say that even though the developers obviously put a lot of effort in this game, it’s poorly constructed in terms of gameplay, plot and pace. After spending 21 hours of my life on it, which I’m never getting back, I feel a bit outraged – so forgive my long review and negative rant. I really regret being a completionist since I otherwise would have deserted the game maybe an hour after trying it.
– Real player with 21.7 hrs in game
Detective March Forward - The Missing Will
The game is a bit glitchy and if you get stuck you are pretty much screwed because there are no hints and no one really responds to the discussion board. With that being said it is very challenging and worth giving a chance.
– Real player with 20.5 hrs in game
Fun point and click game. I am not deriding the length of the game when I state I wish it would have lasted a bit longer. Recommended.
– Real player with 7.6 hrs in game