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
Read More: Best Detective Supernatural Games.
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
Tangle Tower
What a charming little game Tangle Tower is!
I feel like describing it as a puzzle or detective game is too narrow, it’s definitely more of an adventure game with lots of dialogue and lots of clicking on everything you want to click on, without any cursor prompting you (I loved this, as well as the fact you get unique flavour text for pretty much every little detail you interact with). There is a lot of creative freedom at work here, and as an aside, this is a game that has massively improved upon literally every aspect from its predecessor (not mandatory to understand what goes on in Tangle Tower at all, but nice if you want to get more lore), Detective Grimoire.
– Real player with 15.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Detective Exploration Games.
While point-and-click adventures normally aren’t really my thing (with a few exceptions here and there), the accessible Tangle Tower managed to grab my attention almost immediately. Unfortunately it took me a while to actually start it. Tangle Tower mixes a murder story with some amazing graphics and good comedic moments.
As detective Grimoire and his assistant Sally you’re tasked to solve a weird murder. Along the way you’ll meet the people living and working in Tangle Tower and each one of them has their own agenda.
– Real player with 13.3 hrs in game
Fingered
✿ my gameplay experience ✿
✿ first five minutes: was mildly disconcerted at executing people at the fingering of a switch, stubbornly refusing to back down from my strong personal support of the death sentence yet (something like 90% of us singaporeans support it!), questioning the mental states of my witnesses, cursing the deliberately vague artwork, briefly contemplated thronging through the game files to delete the screaming audio files to distance myself on one dimension. even though the visuals and audio are already pretty vanilla in terms of graphic violence, and you know, it’s meant to get you to think. so i soldiered on with the spirit and the glory of arstotzka. slay on!
– Real player with 31.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Detective Indie Games.
The issue with a game like this where it relies on randomized pool of clues to find a suspect is that if no effort has been made by the developers, they can sometimes make it extremely vague or visually overlap crucial clues on top of each other. This has been the biggest issue as the player has to get lucky to get a good set of clues. However, they even added a clue system that it’s only right 60% of the time, making this confusing game even more random.
Players are only given four clues which then sometimes could be wrong (purely by chance with no hints to tell whether they are right or wrong). Two hints can often mean the same thing, and sometimes they are exclusive to the character giving the clue, forcing you to play this repetitive game over and over by trial and error to understand what they mean. On top of that, as clues are extremely vague and mostly unhelpful (e.g. bald guy having hair, people with freaky or ugly features being considered normal, “hip” that could mean hippy/poor or hipster etc.).
– Real player with 25.5 hrs in game
Kid Detective
ABOUT THIS GAME
Kid Detective is an Open-World Murder Mystery Role-Playing Game where the player can prove any suspect guilty in a Court of Law. Designed to fit the parameters of Game Maker’s Toolkit’s video on “What Makes a Good Detective Game”, Kid Detective aims to make the Story and the Mechanics indistinguishable from one another. Inspired by narrative driven games like “Undertale” and “Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney”, detective games like “The Return of the Obra Dinn” and “Outer Wilds”, Kid Detective aims to take discovery, mystery, and that Eureka! feeling to the next level.
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.
The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game
Words can’t describe how much of a masterpiece this “game” is, but I’ll give it shot.
I put game in quotes, because you can’t really call this a game, its more of a vivid memory of your distant self who is a frog detective. The instant I clicked on the “New Game” button I became Frog Detective.
Thanks to the innovative key bindings my keyboard and mouse could truly become an extension of my body, which only resulted in letting this experience become more real. Even though I only have 50 min in this “game” it felt like I went through an entire life of pure joy.
– Real player with 83.0 hrs in game
Short game and with childish art style but somehow unique and charming!
Developed by Grace Bruxner and Thomas Bowke, The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game is a short (~1h) by enjoyable adventure that puts you in the role of a lovely froggy detective, who is phoned by his supervisor to investigate a strange case. On an island ruled by Martin, a sloth who crowned himself king, unexplained noises can be heard from crevices. The sloth’s first reaction is to call in a group of ghost scientists, who spend the next two weeks trying to figure out what is going on. Trying, but certainly not succeeding. That is where the Frog Detective, come in.
– Real player with 1.9 hrs in game
Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6hkJGDzOUA
First Impressions
Having recently played and reviewed the first game, which really disappointed me, I’m not at all looking forward to Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard (FD2). Considering how well received the first game was, I don’t see the developers changing up what they did the first time, as there’s no reason to fix something that’s not broken. Knowing I’d knock it out quickly enough, I decided to play it sooner than later to find out whether I was right or wrong. To spare any potential mystery, I wasn’t off the mark in my prediction.
– Real player with 2.7 hrs in game
Frog Detective is back! A delightful sequel to the original game
Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard picks up right after the events of the original game, The Haunted Island: A Frog Detective Game. In a lot of ways, the games are very similar, both are a short and easy point & click adventure game, where you play as the titular Frog Detective, who need to gather clues and figure out who the culprit is within the case. This time, you are aimed to solve a new mystery. You need to figure out who wrecked the parade the townsfolk of Warlock Woods were preparing to surprise their new neighbor, an invisible wizard?!
– Real player with 2.6 hrs in game
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
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
Nancy Drew®: The Deadly Device
It was a good Nancy Drew game but I thought a few of the puzzles required a big leap to make connections between materials/clues. i.e. certain machines are available for the entire game - some are used eventually, some aren’t and sometimes it’s a stretch to figure out the next step so you’re left wandering and re-exploring. But good story, good dialogue, and the logic puzzles in this one were the best I’ve played in a long time.
– Real player with 17.1 hrs in game
This ND game was different to others I have played, i enjoyed the science-theme and the fact that it was a murder case. The pace was good and the characters keep you guessing till the end. I must admit that I found some puzzles very difficult on Master Sleuth! If you’re up for a challenge I would give it a try :)
– Real player with 15.4 hrs in game
Nancy Drew®: The Shattered Medallion
I don’t really get why the reviews on this weren’t great. There was lots of puzzles and gorgeous art. I thought the reality show setting was a plausible explanation for needing to do a puzzle for every mundane task (other Her games are…a little less plausible). There was some re-use of puzzles and mini-games from previous Nancy Drew games, but that’s not the worst thing in the world. After all, there’s only so many good puzzles, and it’s much better than having barely any puzzles at all (looking at you, Midnight in Salem). Only three things bugged me. First, some of the activities were a bit repetitive (the submarine, the dial at the end). Second, a whole lot of the dialog was inscrutable. I know that it’s part of Sonny’s and Patrick’s characters to be goofballs, but it was a little too disorienting. Third, I wish there had been a Maori character, and more background on Maori culture.
– Real player with 13.2 hrs in game
I personally enjoyed this game for all of the puzzles. They come one after another, so be prepared to do a lot of puzzle-solving and exploration. Even though I played on the Master level, the puzzles aren’t too crazy. I did notice that most of the puzzles don’t necessarily fit in the theme of a reality show (which is the game’s main plot line), but they fit in the traditional “educational” angle of the Nancy Drew games.
There are some kooky conversations with the characters and a lot of references to past games. If you’re new to Nancy Drew, all of the references may sound strange. If you don’t take the story or characters too seriously, and just in it for the puzzles, I would recommend this game (especially over Midnight in Salem).
– Real player with 9.6 hrs in game