Lemma Soft Forums

I've discovered that I really like playing detective games, and I'm looking for more examples of them.

To avoid confusion, I've listed some of the elements that I identify as making a game a "detective" game:

- Look for clues.
- Use clues as evidence.
- Question suspects.
- Figuring out if a person is lying.
- Choose which suspect is guilty.
- Reconstructing the crime scene (figuring out exactly what happened).
- Forensics (Player has to take photos of the crime scene, dust for fingerprints, and look for inconsistences in photos).
- How skilled you were at solving the crime/mystery impacts the game's ending. You can "make mistakes," and/or an objective can be accomplished in multiple ways.
A detective game can have some or all of the above game mechanics.

I'm NOT looking for games where you just happen to be playing a detective, or adventure games that ONLY include inventory puzzles, hidden object puzzles, and/or puzzlebox puzzles. The Nancy Drew game series being an example of this--although you can mentally guess who the guilty suspect is as you play, you cannot "chose" who you think is guilty in such a way that it impacts the game: You are simply guided from puzzle to puzzle until you complete the game's storyline.

Games I know that use the detective game elements I'm looking for:

- LA Noire
- Ace Attorney
- Sherlock Holmes Crimes and Punishments
- The Wolf Among Us
- Agatha's Christie's ABC Murders
- Still Life
- The TKKG Series

I'm looking for more examples. Anyone know of ones I've missed?

The Danganronpa series, available on Steam, has all the elements you listed.

There are a bunch of Sherlock Holmes games. I played Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper not that long ago. I'd look into that company and track down the rest of the Sherlock Holmes games.

Also, Still Life has a sequel: Still Life 2.

You could try out Quantic Dream's Indigo Prophesy. I haven't played their Heavy Rain, but you could try that out as well.

I'm thinking you'll want to be looking in the Adventure genre for most of what you want.

I haven't played it myself, but I think that Selenon Rising hits a few of those points. Figuring out whether people are lying seems to be the one that it most focuses on.

Did you ever play Hotel Dusk on the DS, or its follow-up Last Window (the second one was only released in Japan and Europe)? They're quite old now, and were a bit niche, so they're not the easiest or cheapest to track down, but they're great games and definitely feature some of the elements you listed.

It doesn't fit all your criteria, but Her Story has the most interesting structure of any mystery game I've played. The whole game is basically one "question the suspect" scene, except instead of doing it in person, you're searching through a computer database of pre-recorded interviews. You can't change the story, but since it's completely nonlinear, every player will piece together the clues differently -- and you really do feel like a detective while playing it.

I think Shinrai has the features you described, plus it was made by a fellow LSF member. Looks like it's also on sale for 20% off right now if you want to check it out.

Aviary Attorney (I highly recommend it and if you want a more in-depth opinion there's also a VNsNow review)

If you like Ace Attorney and Danganronpa, it might also be worthwhile to check out Root Letter. Like Danganronpa (haven't played Ace Attorney), there is only one "correct" way to solve each investigation, but it has a lot of the other things on your list. Basically, the main character is trying to find someone they wrote letters to, and has to force the people mentioned in the letters to admit who they are to try to find this person.

I enjoyed Layton Brothers for mobile!

You can try Black Closet, made with renpy:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=32168
http://www.hanakogames.com/closet.shtml

I'd second Aviary Attorney. It's very "punny" and gives a decent amount of challenge!