Stranded 2

Stranded 2

The absolute worst game I have ever played. Complete horse sh*t.

I grew up on text based games so real excited about this but wouldn’t recommend to my enemies.

For $3 I’ll keep just in case it is ever actually playable.

Real player with 6.1 hrs in game


Read More: Best Investigation 1980s Games.


Not just a text adventure. There’s art, sound and also has an advanced parser as you can see from the trailer. The puzzles are fun and challenging. Plus, as a bonus, you also get Zenobi Software’s Stranded 1 along with it (playable in the accompanied Spectrum emulator).

I do recommend reading the manual, even if you have played many text adventures before this one. It has tips and new features which you really don’t want to miss out on.

Real player with 5.4 hrs in game

Stranded 2 on Steam

Crossword City Chronicles

Crossword City Chronicles

Addiictive and not what I expected! Would recommend

Real player with 28.9 hrs in game


Read More: Best Investigation Mystery Games.


Very simple game - quite repetitive as well. Admired the difficulty curve but ultimately very easy to get all of the Achievements. The same characters keep popping up every so often so it lacks variety in that area as well. I give it a 6 / 10

Real player with 23.2 hrs in game

Crossword City Chronicles on Steam

Briddle

Briddle

For the price its a good riddle game, in 3 hours I managed to get to level 13, with some hints. I really liked how the art is all made by hand, gives a very cool look, in my opinion. The game has a very good price-quality, but sill has space to improve on UI, but overall until now I really enjoyed playing and would 100% recommend to someone who like riddles and puzzle games.

If I needed to rate this game 0/10, I would give it a 9/10, the only issue that I found is the UI honestly, apart from that really good game. Sry for my english :/

Real player with 3.4 hrs in game


Read More: Best Investigation Singleplayer Games.


Briddle on Steam

PCI Public Crime Investigation

PCI Public Crime Investigation

Excellent game with such a great style… been waiting for a game that plays as legit as this one! Everything in it is full of realism.

Full support!

Real player with 19.1 hrs in game

Really interesting concept and very well executed. PCI casts you as an armchair detective. The French police are asking for assistance with some of their cases. You must create an actual account in order to play online as a team or by yourself and accrue points after finishing up cases. There are 6 cases total ranging from around 30 minutes to 4 hours. The content is VERY dark in some cases and deals with some heavy realistic topics (I’ll list some TW’s at the end of this). While I felt uncomfortable during playing I was so hooked. The cases are riveting and the quizzes at the end really engage you actively with the material. The actors/actresses do a fantastic job of bringing the characters to life (even the worst ones) and not even making you realize they’re acting.

Real player with 8.4 hrs in game

PCI Public Crime Investigation on Steam

The Door Of Redemption

The Door Of Redemption

very poor english translation. many of the features that drew me to this arent implimented. and the syntax and command structure are counter intuitive. ive played many text adventures and this one just feels weird. i like the idea of using wasd for easy navigation but the commands for everything else just feels wrong, and isnt enjoyable for me. instead of “get box” or “look at picture” you have to type it out as ‘Get’ [enter] ‘Box] or ‘look’ [enter] ‘picture’. its an extra layer of tedium. and that coupled with the poor translation, and the use of characters that a pc anywhere out of japan wont have in the font banks, i just cant get my head around of it. having a map of the shape of the room is really what got me to buy this, but it uses messy characters, and no color variation between you, items and walls, so it just looks like nonsense.

Real player with 0.1 hrs in game

The Door Of Redemption on Steam

Her Story

Her Story

My rating: 8+/10

Based on: one thorough 100% investigation

Check out my other reviews

TL;DR: An interactive police procedural movie with purposely outdated mechanics, brilliantly written and well-acted, a slow burn and a time sink that offers an engaging story to be discovered bit by bit, an immersive, nostalgic experience of the times gone by, truly worthy of the awards it’s received.

Pros:

(+) a slow-paced, but enthralling open-ended story as told by Hannah Smith whose husband went missing, served up in a series of interviews with this unreliable narrator conducted by police detectives

Real player with 19.6 hrs in game

Her Story is a little bit of an oddity. It’s a FMV game where the player has access to a police database and needs to find out what happened.

It’s actually rather good. The whole game is limited to an old-style interface where you’re able to type in words and search for records. I’ve seen a few games that try to emulate old OSes and they lack a feeling of being a working interface. Her Story feels like a proper old computer you’re viewing. Though I immediately turned off the glare filter, it has a great old charm to the aesthetics with it on..

Real player with 9.7 hrs in game

Her Story on Steam

Ring of Fire

Ring of Fire

Ring of Fire is a detective noir puzzler set in the solarpunk utopia of New London.

You play as Detective Grosvenor, a jaded, middle-aged woman hunting through the still-dark corners of the city in pursuit of a radicalised serial killer.

Using your powers of deduction you must solve the brutally gruesome murders of the Ring of Fire killer. Examine clues, interrogate key suspects, and cross-reference your findings in the police database to uncover the mystery.

SEARCH

Solve the case using text entry, meaning you can’t brute force the puzzle.

INTERVIEW

Push your suspects to the brink through branching cinematic conversations with meaningful consequences.

INVESTIGATE

Explore the 3D crime scene to examine evidence both visually and textually.

Ring of Fire on Steam

Tell Me Everything

Tell Me Everything

I enjoy this game, still haven’t solved any of the variations.

There is however a lot of unnecessary clunk when picking words, for example, you have to manually click the words you already chose to un-select them, I think making Backspace undo it would be much better.

Also perhaps some better layout for the words, or what would make me even happier would be an “available” word search, type in a word and have it pop up some words that match the letters you’ve already typed in. This would really make this a lot more enjoyable for me as I find myself spending 80% of my time searching to even see if the words I want can even be used.

Real player with 9.3 hrs in game

Tell Me Everything is a detective simulator where you are questioning 3 suspects in order to solve a murder. You basically make sentences from a word bank based on the clues that you collected. I was admittedly a little confused with the gameplay, mostly because your choices are very limited to a specific subject. So far I find that playing with hints (on) makes the experience more enjoyable. You still have to decide which suspect is guilty so having hints does not completely ruin the game, it just makes it a lot faster. If you blame the wrong character the game is over, plus you need enough evidence to support your claims or the murderer will get away. I like that uncertainty aspect, it is hard to tell if you have reached the conclusion.

Real player with 6.9 hrs in game

Tell Me Everything on Steam

Midnight Protocol

Midnight Protocol

I don’t have many games in my library - I’m quite picky in my tastes. I’m not usually one for hacking games but the Demo left me wanting more. After 22 enjoyable hours, I’m evidently happy to have added this game in my library. I waited to give this revieuw untill I finished the story for the first time - It will certainly not be the last. I’ll take some time to revieuw a few aspects of the game that might interest you most:

Gameplay/Mechanics: 8/10

A game is nothing without gameplay, and a hacking game sets a promise: it will not be just ‘a game’ - but one with depth, complexity, and decision making. To achieve this, Midnight protocol structures its gameplay around levels that feel like a labyrinth or puzzle. A Digital dungeon, if you will. To get around the various obstacles such as firewalls, encrypted nodes and ‘antagonistic’ system operators that chase you down you get access to hardware you can tailor to your playstyle, as well as a host of programs each with their own up- and downsides. You quickly learn how to balance them carefully, using fairly easy commands to allocate memory to the programs you need in order to finish the level. Suffice to say, Midnight protocol nails the hacker-feel you’ll expect. It is not all roses and sunshine of course - there is quite a reliance on RNG to many of the mechanics of the game that can make you second guess your decisions while they are actually fine, or save you when you know you had no right to make it. Aside from that, i found myself at times trying a level, finding where the hidden obstacles were, and avoiding them alltogether once I got to reload the level. This was- at times-unavoidable, and felt wrong. I’ve since noticed that these hidden obstacles are slightly randomized, at least in some levels, which alleviated this somewhat. Perhaps the developers could not just list potential ICE, but also include a map at the beginning of the mission (once you enter a mission you see the layout anyway, except in rare instances), that does not show the obstacles, but layout of the nodes beforehand. With this information I feel I personally would not have had to reload to adapt my strategy as much as I did.

Real player with 41.0 hrs in game

| 🔵 POI | ✔️ Pos | ❌ Neg | 💡 Ideas | 🍿 Video | ⭐ STAR |

FINAL REVIEW

🔵Ultimately MP is a puzzle game running under the guise of a hacker game.

🔵Each Network is a puzzle, and you must defeat the puzzle using commands & tools.

🔵MP could be considered a Lightweight Hacker game which introduces turn-based gameplay

🔵Has some additional unique and impressive gameplay mechanics.

🔵I was instantly Immersed by the story and the characters.

Real player with 29.2 hrs in game

Midnight Protocol on Steam

The Crimson Diamond

The Crimson Diamond

The Crimson Diamond is an EGA text parser mystery adventure game where you play as amateur geologist and reluctant detective Nancy Maple. Nancy is born and raised in Toronto, Canada, where she works as a clerk for the Royal Canadian Museum. She dreams of attending university to study geology and mineralogy, and she’s prepared to venture into the unknown to achieve her goals!

Follow Nancy as she travels north to the ghost town of Crimson, Ontario to investigate the discovery of a massive diamond in the area. Eavesdrop on conversations to learn more about the eccentric cast of characters who find themselves gathered at Crimson Lodge. Explore the lodge and its environs to evaluate the diamond claim, and maybe solve a mystery or two along the way! The Crimson Diamond is a cozy mystery that encourages reading and engaging in the story over devious arcade challenges.

  • Explore Crimson Lodge and the surrounding wilderness

  • Listen and talk to a cast of characters with different personalities and motivations.

  • Uncover secrets, discover hidden areas, solve mysteries!

The Crimson Diamond on Steam