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I loved Paranormasight and would recommend it! It's a supernatural light horror mystery visual novel. I talked about it more in the horror thread but I really liked it.
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May 2, 2023 23:15
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weekly font posted:Other than Hotel Dusk I’ve never been able to get into a visual novel but I might check out this one with nuns or whatever. Seems like a good double feature with Pentiment. Even Phoenix Wright was a too little gameplay/detective work/too much anime for me. You might already know this but, kinetic means you straight up read it, no choices or interactivity like Hotel Dusk. Totally a good double feature, though note that dialogue is done in a much more modern style. There is still good attention to historical accuracy but not to the extent as Pentiment. weekly font posted:Also, I’ll be a dissenter and say I think that I think Contradiction sucked. It’s mostly navigating through screens of the town, the mystery stinks, and there were multiple times I caught contradictions that weren’t the one the game wanted so I ended up having to just mix and match evidence until the game allowed me to proceed. Reminded me of the worst moments of LA Noire. This does remind me, however, that I’m yet to play Her Story and its spiritual sequel about the old Hollywood actress, both of which have been sitting untouched in my library forever. Yeah that is all fair. Its a problem that comes up in other games as well (Ace Attorney) but it was more frustrating overall in Contradiction. I like Her Story. People complain about the twists or whatever but I really like the central mechanic and it led to some more naturally "detective moments" than you get in other games. Snooze Cruise fucked around with this message at 23:25 on May 2, 2023 |
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May 2, 2023 23:18
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How about the Sherlock Holmes games? Crimes and Punishments, and to a lesser extent The Devil's Daughter, have pretty good deduction gameplay, anyone know how the newer ones compare?
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May 2, 2023 23:48
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Please do not in any way mention The Devil's Daughter in a sentence without saying it's poo poo. It was a baffling, obviously thrown-together piece of crap with barely any detective-work. There are obvious scenes missing everywhere. At one point Holmes imagines that he's inside an Aztec pyramid full of death-traps. He has to evade the likes of spike traps and rolling boulders. If Holmes get's killed, then it's game over. That's right, you can get a game-over by dying in an imaginary Aztec pyramid that exists solely in your player character's head.
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May 2, 2023 23:56
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So you're saying it's better than BBC Sherlock?
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May 3, 2023 00:02
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Gaius Marius posted:So you're saying it's better than BBC Sherlock? This is an aside but it looking from the outside in it is astounding seeing the arc of it going from beloved to hated. Then the drat MIND PALACE scene was posted and I watch it and I think "Way back when, a lot of people thought this was unironically awesome"
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May 3, 2023 00:06
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I'll throw out another case of 'bookmarking the thread'. Really cool to see this. I got very interested in mysteries and detective stories at the start of last year and as an avid gamer I've since been trying to find the ~Perfect Mystery Game~. Here are some ones I've played that I haven't seen mentioned yet: Raging Loop - It's a VN with some minimal choices. Basically, the protagonist stumbles into a remote village right as the village is forced to play a real life game of Werewolf. The Wolves get to murder one person a night and the villagers get to hang one person a day and no-one can leave. You break the rules and you die. There's much more to the plot but I won't spoil anything more than that. I think the biggest draw of this game was the characters. The main characters are particularly excellent and the main character is probably my favorite VN protagonist ever. He is such an amazing scumbag. The greater mystery was pretty good but it does stumble at the end. Recommended Root Letter - Boring and bad. The MC is trying to work out what happened to their old penpal from 20 years ago. Mainly a VN with interrogation scenes. The various routes are mostly really dumb and the 'true end' is even dumber. The only real standout is that the MC is just actually a total dick. Just full-on harassing people for basically no reason. Who likewise refuse to tell you about your penpal for no loving reason. Not Recommended Gnosia - Another Werewolf game. This one is much more active on the players part, it's up to you to actually play against a cast of preset characters on a spaceship where some of the cast have been infected and are trying to kill everyone else as Gnosia. Every time the game of Werewolf ends you loop back and the variables like the roles and number of players change and eventually you can adjust the settings of the game yourself. All the characters have stats that help you figure out who's who and manipulate the game. The greater mystery involves figuring out why you're looping, unlocking the history of the various characters and working out how to resolve the plot. The actual gameplay is very engaging and figuring out the various 'tells' of the characters is highly rewarding. The mystery aspect isn't much but it was a very satisfying story. Recommended Hercule Poirot: The First Cases - A young Poirot trying to solve a crime in your typical manor in the middle of a snowstorm. Poirot is what got me into detective stories so naturally I was interested in this. Unfortunately, it's pretty mid. The mystery isn't anything to write home about, you can easily brute force all the deductions the game asks you to make and it kind of falls into the adventure game trap of making you walk around just trying everything until you progress. The best part is definitely this version of Poirot hating rich people and being kind of socialist, a pretty big contrast to how he is in the books. Not Recommended The Zero Escape Series - I'm sure people have heard of this series so I just wanted to throw this out there: The first game is outstanding. The second game is just ok. The third game is terrible. I will not elaborate. Recommend the 1st game only. Lucifer Within Us - People get possessed by demons and murder someone and its up to you to solve the crime and name which demon possessed the killer. A fairly short game, almost a demo for a sequel but I liked what I saw. You basically gather clues and talk to the suspects and their version of events are put next to each other and you have to find contradictions until you work out the real version of each persons story to find out the killer. It's worth an afternoon imo. Recommended The Council - A Council assembles on an island of discuss how to run the world, featuring George Washington, Napoleon Bonepart and others. And then some mystery poo poo happens and its up to your character to figure it out and investigate the mysterious host pulling the strings. An attempt to make a sort of detective RPG, this is kind of a janky mess that goes completely off the rails towards the end but I still had a lot of fun. I didn't hate the ending like it seems a lot of people did but your taste may vary. Recommended, if you can handle jank Kara no Shojo - A detective infiltrates an all-girls school to find a serial killer targeting the students. Another VN, this one is highly thought of as a mystery and detective visual novel and I see it recommended a lot and I do not agree. The mystery was pretty loving nonsensical and the game keeps throwing a bunch of creepy sex scenes at you. The game has different routes but it's blindingly obvious what the real one is and it involves romancing a teenager (the MC is like 35) so... Hard Pass The Sekimeiya: Spun Glass - A random group of people are trapped in a tower by an attempt to steal the new exhibit and then things start to get really weird. There is currently a Lets Play of this on the forum so if you want to see if you might be interested you can go take a look. It's definitely a much more cerebral and less character-focused work, which I liked personally. It's notable for having a simply amazing interface, allowing you to check the full games log and giving you a short summary of the scene that you can add notes to which is a huge quality-of-life feature and fun to use. I was disappointed that it focused less on the mystery and more on the... technical aspects of the plot but I did really enjoy the lightning round of deductions the game asks you to make at the end. Recommended If it's worth anything, the best mystery games I've played so far are Disco Elysium, Umineko and Paradise Killer. They're all so loving good. Nephthys fucked around with this message at 16:53 on May 3, 2023 |
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May 3, 2023 00:06
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painscreek killings was neat but had some nasty flaws. the biggest is that was set in an abandoned small town, emphasis on the town. so there were maybe a dozen buildings you could enter out of 100 or so in the area, several of which were just for flavor. but there was no indication of which buildings those were. some were obvious, like the hospital and the mansion. but one of the most important locations was a small house that looked identical to its surroundings. the finale sequence was also a bit goofy.
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May 3, 2023 00:36
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anilEhilated posted:How about the Sherlock Holmes games? Crimes and Punishments, and to a lesser extent The Devil's Daughter, have pretty good deduction gameplay, anyone know how the newer ones compare?
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May 3, 2023 02:18
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bookmarking this because my mother is into this poo poo but can't compute to save her life so she relies on me to gift her steam games what's the latest hotness for sleuth type games that aren't too grotesque
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May 3, 2023 03:53
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One detective game I haven’t seen come up that I quite enjoyed is The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story. It’s an FMV detective game broken into a sequence of five cases (six, technically, but one diverts into a light escape room) and an epilogue case. Each case involves a linear sequence of short vignettes leading up to the murder followed by a deduction phase where you piece together the clues and finally a denouement where the MC lays out her theory and you’re tested on your conclusions. Mystery difficulty is moderately gentle - the deduction sections offer generous hints and it’s easy to brute force all possible answers, but the conclusion often raises at least one question not offered during the deduction phase. Nevertheless, the deduction phase does a good job of shaping your thoughts in the right direction and allowing you to develop a theory before heading into the conclusion, and in all cases the game lays its cards on the table - when I got blindsided, I was able to look back each time and realise I’d missed the implications of some of the clues presented to me. Acting is decent, though some of the cast are clearly stronger than others - a fact that sometimes detracts from the game when a supporting cast member is forced to carry a scene. Japanese audio a must on this one, by all reports the english dub isn’t very good. Overall an enjoyable experience though, and provided a good 20-ish hours of mystery nights. Definitely one of the better detective games I’ve played
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May 3, 2023 04:01
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weekly font posted:
Immortality is excellent but don't play it anywhere near public. actual sex scene jumpscares
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May 3, 2023 04:11
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Has anyone played The Centennial Case, a Japanese fmv detective game? It was featured in this video and I was wondering how good it is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfAVuXlK6dY
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May 3, 2023 05:23
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Look up
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May 3, 2023 05:26
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Pingcode posted:One detective game I haven’t seen come up that I quite enjoyed is The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story. I had this on my wishlist for a long time but never really heard anyone talk about it so I was gun shy about picking it up. I'll pick it up next steam sale because this all sounds good.
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May 3, 2023 06:04
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Gaius Marius posted:Look up That'll teach me to pay without checking if there's a second page lol
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May 3, 2023 06:11
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I've also played it and it's a fun lil experience. Mostly very softball mysteries but the overarching story is one you can feel good about calling in advance once you start putting all the pieces together. It's sad that it doesn't let you replay things because some of the wrong-answer videos are extremely funny, there's one for every step in the investigation.
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May 3, 2023 06:54
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Awesome thread, seeing some fun examples in here that I'll likely give a try. One game I recently played is called Eternal Threads. While not a detective game per se, I really dug its open-ended nature and had a notepad with me at all times. The game takes place in a building that was burned down years ago, and you're investigating to see what happened. Using sci-fi tech, you're able to view certain moments from the past and slowly clue together what happened. However, you're also able to change decisions that they made which will then alter the timeline, often in surprising results. The goal is to figure out which decisions can lead to the least amount of casualties. It took me about 4-5 evenings to go fully through the game and I really dug it. The first two evenings were mostly spent on just cataloguing what happened without my interference, and then I started playing around with time. There's an almost intimidating number of different scenes in there, so you'll definitely need to take your time for it. In-game, it does help with cataloguing on which scenes are available and what impact certain choices have, so you do get some help there. And speaking of Sherlock Holmes, has anyone played the Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective games? While old, I have been meaning to give them a try. I'm assuming they're practically the same as the Consulting Detective board games which are easily one of my favourite games.
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May 3, 2023 08:59
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Baron von der Loon posted:And speaking of Sherlock Holmes, has anyone played the Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective games? While old, I have been meaning to give them a try. I'm assuming they're practically the same as the Consulting Detective board games which are easily one of my favourite games. I was eying up the boardgame for this but didn't want to commit because I was unsure how good it would be to play solo. I might well give this a shot over the weekend given how cheap this is. Thanks for the mention!
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May 3, 2023 15:33
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I have that boardgame. It’s fine. I find I tend to overthink most of the mysteries because they’re maybe a bit too straight forward. On that note, has anyone dipped into those Catch a Killer games I see advertised on youtube?
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May 3, 2023 15:48
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I can recommend the Sherlock Holmes Consulting detective Boardgame to every Mystery Game liker. It is playable solo, but discussing cases with 2 or 3 people is so fun that I never bothered to.
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May 3, 2023 17:22
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I've played the original set and half of the Jack the Ripper set. Be prepared to miss some clues just for not thinking two steps ahead like actual Sherlock. If you've run out of those, there's also a Cthulhu version which is an interesting variant because it's less about pure Sherlock style deduction and more about 'figuring out what the monster is and how to stop it' - while avoiding penalties from running INTO the thing yourself, since there's a time limit system.
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May 3, 2023 17:27
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428 Shibuya Scramble is currently on sale at 80% off. It's a live-action VN where you jump between multiple protagonists to piece together the truth behind a kidnapping from various angles. I don't know if I'd recommend it at full price, but at  I think it's worth a shot if you're interested.
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May 3, 2023 17:40
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Misericorde: Uh oh, I think we really hosed up with Flora (the youngest nun). Earlier, we blurt out to the Superior that Flora drunkenly confessed to planning to run away...then later, when hanging out with Flora, we tell her "I can keep a secret" in response to her asking us to not tell anyone about the cat, and she got REALLY mad.  Also, who gifted Moira those nice boots? 
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May 3, 2023 20:39
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The Case of the Golden Idol: The Spider of Lanka out now.
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May 4, 2023 18:04
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It's pretty good and also just about the relatively short length you'd expect, about 2 hours for 3 cases. Leaves me wanting for more.
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May 4, 2023 21:57
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Inadequately posted:428 Shibuya Scramble is currently on sale at 80% off. It's a live-action VN where you jump between multiple protagonists to piece together the truth behind a kidnapping from various angles. I don't know if I'd recommend it at full price, but at A pro buy for the fans of 999/zero escape games since there's a lot of staff shared between them, and very similar vibes with the timeline-jumping and general sense of non-sequitur humor/high conspiracy plotting.
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May 4, 2023 22:34
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Golden Idol really has a thing about making the smartest plotters get iced like total chumps, huh?
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May 4, 2023 23:51
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The story benefits if you don't fully remember what happened in the base game.
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May 5, 2023 00:05
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So I finished chapter one of Sherlock Holmes. here are my thoughts. The open world Sherlock Holmes game is an interesting idea, but I don't think it quite worked. The side cases weren't bad, but I think if the game had a more focused experience. Maybe if the game had a wider range of gameplay it would have worked better. There wasn't any incentive to explore the map, Cordona looks nice, but at the end of the day its just an island under the control of colonial Britain and there isn't anything neat to find. The game has combat, but its extremely repetitive and plays out the same way every time except for minor cosmetic and layout changes for the environment. You can buy furniture to decorate your mansion but you only return once every case and it will still look a mansion that has been neglected for years, so there isn't really a reason to do so. Still, I am least intrigued by the idea. It wasn't that much of detriment. I wonder if Frogwares or another game developer could pull it off in the future. The core detective mechanics are mostly solid. The archives lookup mechanics could probably be refined. Either they are braindead simple or an infuriating guessing game. I also feel like the scene reconstructions sometimes have 1 or 2 options that both could be valid. I'd say in general the puzzles are all very logical though. One thing I dislike is that the game continues to use the gimmick from Crimes & Punishments where you don't get a definitive answer if your deduction is correct or not. This happens for 3 of the 5 main cases. In order to remain ambiguous there isn't enough clues to actually conclude who committed it. That might be realistic but not very satisfying. However, it fits very well thematically for the final case that you don't get a definitive answer. The other cases might have been a set-up for that. Overall, I enjoyed it, even if I think some of the design decisions didn't work.
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May 5, 2023 05:59
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Inspector Gesicht posted:The story benefits if you don't fully remember what happened in the base game. Unfortunately I still do because it's really funny
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May 5, 2023 06:01
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weekly font posted:That said, while googling it I accidentally discovered this which might lean a bit more towards horror but I feel like investigative walking sims dip one foot into this thread. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1432340/Loveland/ wait i somehow missed this earlier, someone is making a loveland frog horror game????? oh my god lmao e: This is not the purview of the thread but I need people to know that the game linked here is based on the following cryptid.  
Snooze Cruise fucked around with this message at 08:01 on May 5, 2023 |
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May 5, 2023 07:55
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Discendo Vox posted:Golden Idol really has a thing about making the smartest plotters get iced like total chumps, huh?
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May 5, 2023 10:11
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I have two recommendations, though they're both quick hits, and could be considered kind of glorified or enhanced versions of Clue. However, they're both great fun. 1. Sleuth (DOS, 1983) - a murder has been committed and you've been called to the mansion to solve it. Inexplicably, you're the only person of authority involved. And guess what? The murderer is stalking you at the same time! You move about the mansion, in one of two randomly-chosen layouts, and have to find the murder weapon, the room the murder occurred in, as well as the murderer themselves obviously. Every room has an item that you can examine once you find the magnifying glass (what detective has two thumbs and arrives on the scene without a magnifying glass?). If you see someone staring at the floor you can see what they're looking at. If there's blood on the ground, you've found the murder room! This all sounds very basic and it is. What makes Sleuth fun is the ability, from the main menu, to customize the names. I don't even think there's a word filter, honestly. "You sidle up next to Fuckstick McGee. 'I spent the entire evening with Doja Cat last night in the bedroom', he says. 'And frankly, I don't appreciate the accusation. There were a lot of people who wanted Big Mclargehuge dead, and personally, I'd put my money on Farts Aplenty. Good day, inspector.'" Every move you make is counted, and after a certain number, the murderer grows more and more suspicious. If you take too long (make too many moves before solving the case), they'll trap you in a room and kill you. This game has like two sound effects, one of which being some sort of Psycho-esque sting when the murderer traps you. Playing this game with the PC speaker at its default FULL VOLUME was a trip, man. Fuckin' jumpscare if you weren't good enough. Anyway, good, quick game, I recommend it. 2. Noir Syndrome (Steam and Android, 2014) - this is sort of the same deal, but way, way more fleshed out. Randomly generated murder mystery, but you have to go around a town, you have a gun, some doors and locations are locked away from you, you need to find various clues, and unlike Sleuth, there's music and colour! I'd have more to say, but while I genuinely did enjoy it a lot, it's been a while since I've played it, and I didn't play it for hours and hours and hours like I did Sleuth in my childhood. Still, highly recommended if you want a quick (like 30-ish minute long) murder mystery to solve. It's nice that it's also available through the Google Play store for Android phones There's also a secondary mode called Dinner Party which I think is a more frantic, action-oriented mini game based on the main game mechanics, but like I said, it's been a while since I've played it. I should fix that.
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May 5, 2023 11:18
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Unlucky7 posted:This is an aside but it looking from the outside in it is astounding seeing the arc of it going from beloved to hated. Then the drat MIND PALACE scene was posted and I watch it and I think "Way back when, a lot of people thought this was unironically awesome" FWIW, even as someone who as on board for the first two series, that episode stuck out as being the worst (admittedly with competition) and it turned out to contain all of the key problems that would plague the rest of the show - uncomfortable amounts of antagonism between the leads, ridiculous and cheap looking "cool" effects, and trashy knock-off X-Files plots. Also just so I'm not invoking stale Sherlock discourse and nothing else, I'm surprised nobody has mentioned a game that lives in my head rent free for some reason: Sid Meier's Covert Action Take on the role of Max (or Maxine!) Remington, top agent, and dismantle all manner of 80s-flavored terrorist organizations and get into all manner of spy intrigue along the way. Each case will see you tracking down and arresting a whole cast of conspirators, though the main goal is to take out unique adversaries one by one until you reach the top of the food chain, not wholly unlike Carmen Sandiego. But doing so will require everything from cryptography, to tailing cars, to sneaking through enemy bases to photograph evidence while avoiding unwanted attention, to explosive shootouts with pursuers. At the start of the game you can customize your skills a bit, though they're more like difficulty sliders for each of the main minigames - Cryptography, Hacking, Driving, and Combat. But as you move up the ranks, so too does the difficulty... A lot of the ideas at play should be very familiar to Shadows of Doubt fans, with lots of cross-referencing names, places, locations, and faces. Conspiracies even play out on a time limit (half turn-based-ish, half real time depending on what you're doing) and you can make more work for yourself if you short circuit the crime too quickly - the bad guys are smart enough to give up and go into hiding if you lack a deft touch! Sid himself somewhat famously said he didn't think this game really worked, and I always thought it was ripe for a remake. Shadows of Doubt certainly comes close, but Covert Action still has its own charms.
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May 5, 2023 23:41
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Scene Investigators delayed until Q3 sadface
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May 5, 2023 23:43
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Golden Idol DLC was really rad. I hope they keep doing more "Golden Idol Mysteries", because I'll buy those day 1.
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May 6, 2023 12:54
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Elswyyr posted:Golden Idol DLC was really rad. I hope they keep doing more "Golden Idol Mysteries", because I'll buy those day 1. Yeah I really enjoyed it, I want to see more of this ridiculous world and all the weird puzzles they create for themselves
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May 6, 2023 13:00
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i like how there's no player character or intervention or anything. you, the player, figure out what is going on and that's all.
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May 6, 2023 13:04
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Just played the original Golden Idol scenario, it was fun but it was short at under 5 hours. The gameplay reminds me of Obra Dinn with more of a direct mystery focus which was neat.
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May 6, 2023 22:29
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