Return of the Obra Dinn
In “Return of the Obra Dinn” you’re an insurance investigator who is tasked with determining the fates of all 60 crewmembers aboard the Obra Dinn, a merchant ship that went missing in the early 19th century. Among your possessions is a pocketwatch that, when opened while standing nearby (the remains of) a corpse, shows you a glimpse of the deceased’s surroundings – and what they heard – at the moment of their death.
Furthermore, you have a book in which you keep a record of every crewmate’s death and disappearance. It also contains an artist’s rendition of the face of every crewmember and a list of the crewmember’s names, their occupation and their nationality. Your task is to assign a fate to everyone aboard the ship by using the 3D stills the pocketwatch provides you with. Some people’s fates are easier to determine than others, and the game will rely heavily on your deductive reasoning skills, since you’ll have to draw conclusions by narrowing down possibilities. Although sometimes conclusions based on guesswork and incomplete information were required too.
– Real player with 15.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Detective Puzzle Games.
TL;DR
People declaring Obra Dinn a prime example of games-as-art and a shining pinnacle of what games in general should strive to be, probably have little to no understanding of how games actually work and wouldn’t recognize a good game if it hit them in the forehead. The core puzzle is good, tho.
Longer version
It’s better to know one important thing before even considering buying The Return of Obra Dinn. This can make or break your experience with it.
The whole affair boils down to solving one big constraint satisfaction problem (think the famous Zebra, or Einstein’s, puzzle) uniquely presented as a series of “memories” (still 3d dioramas) accompanied by an interactive notebook instead of a usual cell table. There is nothing else to it, period.
– Real player with 15.6 hrs in game
The Painscreek Killings
Summary
Fantastic adventure game with only minor flaws. Play time for me was around 15 hours or so plus another couple of hours for finding the last few items that I had missed originally.
You are playing a journalist who investigates a series of murders that happened a few years back and were never solved. The majority of the game consists of searching through various locations for letters, notes and other clues that allow you to piece together the events that led to the murders and identify the killer. The game is fairly non-linear, most locations are available right from the start although there are quite a few rooms and a handful of areas that you first have to unlock (literally, i.e. you need to find a key/code).
– Real player with 17.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Detective Investigation Games.
Walking simulator that quickly evolves from liesurely exploration of an abandoned gated community into a full-blown murder mystery adventure game.
Every place has its secrets. Every suspect is hiding something. Look through drawers, cupboards, the homes and belongings of the persons you are investigating to lead you closer to truth.
You play as an investigative reporter with one simple objective: Solve a cold case file by determining who killed wealthy socialite philanthropist Vivian Roberts and provide a front page photo. Can you find the murder weapon? Can you learn the whole truth about what happened in the now vacant Painscreek?
– Real player with 15.9 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
Read More: Best Detective Female Protagonist Games.
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 Butler: Maiden Voyage Murder
Nice detective kinetic novel for one or two afternoons I guess (yeah, there are actually no choices at all) and one that is completely FREE at that. It’s full of overused tropes and it doesn’t take itself seriously at times but I certainly wouldn’t call it bad either as it leaves some food for the thought in the end, so it’s probably somewhere in between.
So yeah - it was enjoyable yet also flawed experience for me. Women characters here are mostly likeable and detailed but all man except captain and protagonist father would benefited from more developement. The pacing was actually pretty good but the mystery was maybe way too easy for me as I guessed the culprit and how everything happend right after the murder happened. Which is good and bad at the same time but thankfully the rest of the story was interesting to follow at least. But the main flaws were probably both main characters - detective Butler and main character (Golder’s son) unfortunately.
– Real player with 10.3 hrs in game
Excellent! A free murder mystery visual novel. It’s apparently the first part of Misadventures of Detective Butler series. Originally released in 2013 and then got onto Steam in 2017 with some edits and improvements. I liked this a lot. Has a lot of personal moments and mystery itself is fairly interesting. Albeit I really would like to force detective to grow some beard first. You don’t get to choose anything in a game, which is shame, as I think they could at least test us with picking a suspect at the end of a game. But hey, at least it gives enough clues to solve it fairly before the murderer is revealed.
– Real player with 7.2 hrs in game
Escape The Ordinary: Tales of Romina Manor
it was a great game. i like rpgmaker games so i enjoyed a lot.
Can be finished in one hour. Maybe 2 if u are an idiot cuz i am.
- i like the little detais in the game. They made me smile.
but there are something to fix:
1- u can get into house by window without needing a key.
2- stucks when you go back your home then the other pleace
3- stucks when you go to bathroom for the second time
4- Song stucks in your mind when you see “Mirror mirror on the wall”
There was a lot of item that we can collect but some of them (a lot of them) was not usefull. I guess they are for confuse the player. Not sure…
– Real player with 1.6 hrs in game
Cool Mystery game wrapped in an easy to play RPG format. Love exploring the map and seeing Easter eggs and fun comments left by the developer. This game also stood out in that not everything you pick up is useful. This is much more like the real world experience. Wish there is slightly more hint later on in the game, but overall a fun game.
– Real player with 1.3 hrs in game
The Case of the Golden Idol
The Case of the Golden Idol is a wryly amusing detective game set in the 18th century, brought to life with striking hand-drawn artwork. The game tests your ability to piece together clues and reconstruct the events leading up to some mysterious deaths.
Investigate a series of mysterious deaths
Explore hand-drawn locations set in the 18th century, where some mysterious deaths have taken place.
Reconstruct the events with a unique drag-and-drop mechanic
Gather verbal evidence and visual clues, then apply your deduction skills to figure out what actually happened and how each victim died.
Explore a greater mystery that spans centuries
Start revealing a larger overarching story that connects all the individual tales.
The List
“The List” is a mystery game where you search and watch video clips from a police database in an attempt to solve a cold murder case.
The mechanics are very similar to “Her Story”. You have access to a database of video clips showing the answers of a crime victim during several interrogation sessions in a police department. You can search this database by entering single words, and the database will show you the first 5 clips in which the person uttered that word. Finding new clips gives you new ideas for search terns, such as the names of people or places. As you find more and more clips, your understanding of the case grows, though you still have to do a lot of interpretation and deductive reasoning (partly because you don’t have access to the policeman’s questions). What’s nice and really helpful, is that each clip you have viewed will automatically be added to a timeline, where you can rewatch clips in their correct chronological order.
– Real player with 10.8 hrs in game
The List is another addition to the FMV mystery search type, where the player has to piece together a set of clips to ultimately solve the mystery surrounding the main character. If you liked games like “Telling Lies” and “Her Story” this is for you.
The design of the game itself follows those games in which you have some limited case information, a database, a search function and a series of videos of a one sided interrogation to piece together. This was decently done, with a few hiccups in it’s search terms (There was a typo in one of the clips) or the general vagueness of terms, where words might have a tense that you must acknowledge otherwise no results can show. I felt that maybe the developer could have changed some of the terms for a few of the clips.
– Real player with 8.3 hrs in game
Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot: The First Cases
As a Poiort fan of nearly two decades I must say I’m extremely disappointed. If this is a game that has absolutely nothing to do with Poirot I would be fine with it; but since “Poirot” was what was advertised I must judge this game on that merit, and I must say it failed spectacularly.
First, the mystery itself was pretty bad; the blackmail plot was highly implausible and had set a certain admirable group back a thousand years (Why? What was the writer trying to accomplish?). The murder plot was…nothing at all like Christie’s, because it was not clever, or surprising, or even well-planned. Even a third-rate Golden Age writer would have been embarrassed to find their name attached to this drivel, let alone Christie’s.
– Real player with 36.1 hrs in game
I’ll cut to the chase - if you like either Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments or Blacksad, or both, then you will like this game too. If you are a fan of the Agatha Christie films that have been adapted for the big screen, such as Death on the Nile (the original one with Peter Ustinov of course), for example, or the TV series that starred David Suchet, you will love this game too.
The developers of the game have weaved a convoluted tale that is true to the spirit of the original Agatha Christie novels. It is so great that I am actually wondering if it is based on an unpublished work, or the idea for a novel that she never wrote.
– Real player with 14.7 hrs in game
Chicken Holmes - The Mystery of Bartolomeu
I liked the idea of the little chicken, with a humor, just stay tuned to the details and look for clues, in the classic point-click style.
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game
WHAT A STUPID GAME…. CLICKING CLICKING AND BUGS EVERYWHERE!!!! …. ONE LETTER COMES OUT ON THE NARRATIVES WHEN YOU CLICK ITEMS !!!!! lost 4$ for nothing !!!!!!
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
Detective Kobayashi - A Visual Novel
First of all, I am really fan of this type of games, for example Phoenix Wright, The Room, Danganronpa … So my review will have of some comparisons with those games.I will give my opinion about some themes that I consider important:
GRAPHICS:Anime style,they are good and you can remember many characters for having such a unique style.Maps are fine too. For me this is 7/10:They are Okey
MUSIC:This is not quite right for me.Some soundtracks listen when they finish and it is not very pleasant because it takes you a bit of experience to hear the same song starting, ending, empty space, starting …However the songs are not bad so 5/10
– Real player with 32.9 hrs in game
As a huge Phoenix Wright fan, I had craved a similar game in quite some time, and I had to play Detective Kobayashi. It looks good on a PC screen, the character designs and backgrounds are very pretty. The first stories are not too hard to figure out, but the main fun is the gags and dialogue. I play with the voice volume turned off, since I’m used to this type of game without voiceover, just with silly faces and upbeat music. And because I like to imagine what the characters sound like.
Apart from the detective main story, an extremely fun minigame is texting random people on the phone and talking to them about various topics. It does not influence the cases as far as I can tell, but it is neat world building and learning to know the main character. The conversations are different in each chapter, so I make sure to activate them all right at the beginning.
– Real player with 13.4 hrs in game