The 3 Types of Detective Game

[@GMTK]

You can now follow GMTK on Substack! Get an email whenever there's a new video. Read the script as a fancy article. Get recommended articles and videos (paid) - gmtk.substack.com

[@DOOF1]

ace attorney dog

[@jakub5]

Have you heard of game A Hand With Many Fingers. Would love to hear your thoughts about it.

[@TheMaskedDonut]

The only downside with the substack is that when I got the e-mail, I didn't realize it was for a new video (I thought it was its own thing) and accidentally read the transcript before seeing the video pop up in my KZbin feed. Anyhoo, excellent work! Keep it up!

[@Jigsawn2]

@@jakub5 it's literally shown in the video, so presumably he has played it! Would you recommend it?

[@jakub5]

@@Jigsawn2 must have missed it, yes i would recomend it , its interesting and really cheap

[@hassanshaikh3451]

I really like Ace Attorney as it stands out for one thing: You're not the only one pointing out contradictions. In other detective games the primary antagonist is probably the perpetrator, but for Ace Attorney the primary antagonist is the prosecution, and in them pointing out the flaw in the players logic it can completely flip the case on its head.

[@Jigsawn2]

Yeah there are some great moments in Ace Attourney where you think a case is in the bag, but then the prosecutor points out some flaw you probably overlooked. Unfortunately this can also mean that if you did notice the flaw in advance, it's forcing you into being 'stupid' for the sake of the plot. Danganronpa is also really bad for this, where you can be forced to submit 'facts' you know are wrong if you have cracked the case already.

[@ThrowawayGFLGMod]

@@Jigsawn2 yeah that is one of the other major issue with contradiction style games. They tend to be super 'tunneling' in your thought progress via the questions they ask, but can also sometimes be infuriating if you know the answer and are just trying to guess what it wants you to use it on

[@nyarlathoteppol2177]

​@@Jigsawn2 It's true, but I think that this problem is alleviated by the fact that the player character is much more of a "character" in those game than it is in games like Obra dinn for exemple. You may spot that Phoenix's logic is flawed before the game reveal it, but it doesn't feel that bad because phoenix isn't just an avatar to project yourself onto, he hae a personality and a role in the story. It's like reading a detective novel and understanding that the detective is following a red herring before him, in a way it feel pretty good, because it feel like you have outsmarted the plot itself. The real problem of these kind of game IMO is when you know of a contradiction, you know you have what you need to point it out, but you can't because the game want you to point something else first. Having your character make wrong assumption in the story is more than fine, being forced to make one yourself throught gameplay feel pretty bad.

[@sid98geek]

Yeah, that is a good point. You have one more person pointing out contradictions, i.e. the prosecutor, and all of the supporting cast, including the judge, voices their opinions. This can be interesting in cases where the prosecutors themselves are the perpetrators.

[@Archipelagoes]

Ace attorney and Danganronpa are kinda basic with the detective thingy.. We play them for their cool and fun story/characters.. It's pretty linear also..

[@zzache]

The best part of a GMTK video is seeing a game that you love playing get described by someone who can write way better than you.

[@woutervanduin7415]

Yes. Relatable.

[@dcta51]

All these KZbin video game channels write better than us 😭

[@andrewdennehy8170]

The best part of reading the comments section is seeing what you’re thinking described by someone who can write better than you

[@jacktheripper4731]

I mean he didn't really say anything special, he played a bunch of investigation type games and then described the most basic aspects of them. let's if a developer was watching this, what could they actually learn?

[@jp9707]

​​@@jacktheripper4731 at the beginning of the video he describes how in 2017 he made a video lamenting the lack of actual, organic investigation in detective games, and then said that at least one of the games featured in this new video was made as a response to that first video. So his videos do inspire developers in how to make their games. GMT doesn't describe the literal coding or software needed to make games. Instead he talks about game mechanics, and how to make them interesting and fun. It's a well-known fact that many, many professional game developers are subscribed to his channel and use his videos as inspiration for their games. Heck, many successful games have even started out as submissions for his annual game jam, in which people who watch his videos put the techniques they have learned from him to the test. Making a game is more than about writing code, it's about having a fun central game mechanic. GMK videos explore how these mechanics work, and explore the overriding themes that connect these mechanics, enabling people to work out ways of designing a new mechanic for their own game.

[@TheBirdSolution]

First time seeing a game I've worked on in a GMTK video - so cool to see Shadows of Doubt on your radar Mark!

[@DjokovicIsOurLordAndSaviour]

It looks incredible, congrats!

[@R3TR0J4N]

True Shadow of doubt and Battlebit were the indie games I recommend my friends during the month of release

[@ranchonbread4905]

I had the game on my wishlist, but seeing it in action has already made me put it in my cart. (Also mark streamed it not too long ago, so shoutout to that!)

[@danielgrezda3339]

As an aspiring game developer, the first time I heard about shadows of doubt I thought the person was joking. How you guys built an interesting and massive generated detective game that can run on when most developers can't get basic works generation right boggles my mind. I hope more games are made with this good procedural generation!

[@westofley]

i wonder how you felt about the ZP about it

[@smactork]

Shadows of Doubt, for what it is, is SO fun and gives you so much freedom. I am extremely excited to see where it goes

[@R3TR0J4N]

Agree, I'm seeing AI as a convenient way of putting dynamic writing

[@HonoraryAperture]

I love that dang game but it's so buggy, and development seems kind of slow, I'm assuming because of small dev team, if it is even a team. I'm here for it, though, as long as it takes. The atmosphere and lingering air of "No one knows there's a killer afoot but me, and I'm the only one who can solve it" because they're all mindless AI is extremely good.

[@smactork]

@@HonoraryAperture It is incredibly buggy, and there is a lot that can be changed and added, hopefully some day. But I think it's a great baseline for gameplay structure and atmosphere

[@targard.quantumfrack6854]

Tried 1h, fell in love and bought it ASAP, great base of a fantastic game

[@bubblemage]

@@HonoraryAperture but at least it's getting worked on and updated! so we can only wait until the full game releases with all of that fixed, they recently fixed a massive and annoying memory leak that caused the game to become laggy after X minutes of playing, there's that.

[@MadSwedishGamer]

I know you're not technically a detective in Ace Attorney, but it's still my favourite game series in this kind of genre.

[@noirscape_]

Ace Attorney definitely counts as one. IIRC the biggest inspiration for Ace Attorney is Columbo (it's why the series has a long-standing tradition of revealing the first two murders - it's so the first two cases follow the Columbo "whydunnit" format rather than the "whodunnit" format of the typical detective).

[@bobbitibob197]

I think most detective games can be summed up by "Create the plot twist" - games that feel like you worked hard to figure out whodunnit and it paid off. I'll argue that AA games due to being graphic novel is more of a "predict the plot twist", but due to how well-made the games are it still feels amazing and better than most "create the plot twist" games. To clarify the difference, in "create the plot twist", the questions would usually be more of a long-term thing. Like it could take you possibly hours to answer the leading questions. Whist in Ace Attorney, the questions more guided, short term things (but still often difficult).

[@Terranigma23]

Same. I also really liked Danganronpa, AI: The Somnium Files, and the recent RainCode. In the indie game style, I really liked Paradise Killer and Tangle Tower. 😁

[@ihaveagoddamnplanarthur]

i have played nearly every game on the game except for the great ace attorney and spirit of justice. I'd say that it contains both investigation and contradiction. I prefer the investigations spinoff since you have more freedom and aren't necessarily on court.

[@Terranigma23]

@@ihaveagoddamnplanarthur The Great Ace Attorney is so good!

[@haniyasu8236]

I feel like Outer Wilds was a little undersung here. I know it's not really a "detective game", but it is one of the few games I've found that have truly made me feel like I was in a mystery and made me feel clever by figuring something out. The way it used travel to locations and knowledge based puzzles to solve the "how do we ask the player the answer to the mystery" felt incredibly clever and novel.

[@DrEcho]

This is a wild take that I 100% agree with.

[@TheWarperbros]

Agreed. There’s something so gratifying about the way you feel when you are able to reach a new corner of the world using the knowledge you gain. So many moments in that game left me awestruck.

[@gnanay8555]

Yep, it's the king of detective games for me too. Outer wilds is a lot of things though

[@GeneralBolas]

I think games like The Outer Wilds, while being similar to detective games, would be better considered to just be exploration or adventure games. The core difference is intentionality. In a detective game, you're told very clearly and directly what you are looking for. Someone's dead and you need to find out who. Or whatever. They can be non-linear from that point forward, but they are looking for a specific answer to a question that's asked very early on. Outer Wilds just... throws you into exploration. You must not only uncover the answers, but also the *questions themselves.* And that gives them a different, more "aimless" (for want of a better term) feel to them.

[@sirprintalot]

one of the few games where I felt like I was on an adventure. Truly felt like a Doctor Who type story where I picked up all the leads, made mistakes, got myself out of trouble. Incredible experience I will never forget.

[@BritBox777]

Biggest "but" I can amend to this discussion is that Contradiction style games - and neither of the other two- can allow for very specific and narratively driven questions rather than a boiler plate answer that could potentially be applied to any of the possibilities. Finding out your client has actually been a ghost this entire time because of seemingly disconnected clues and dropping that bomb as your big conclusion just isn't possible in a game like Obra Din, because it's not built to facilitate anything that falls "outside the box". And outside the box thinking is what makes for the best detective stories.

[@mimolettemoon1790]

The fact that I know exactly what you're talking about by "your client's been a ghost the whole time".

[@ForgeofAule]

I love that Outer Wilds has sort of become an icon in the video game essay community to the point where it is mentioned in almost every video. I can't wait to see what Mobius makes next.

[@cachotognax3600]

I also love how, due to the nature of the game, it's impossible to do anything more than mention it, or risk spoiling part of the fun.

[@markai2002]

Morbius

[@DaShikuXI]

My favorite detective game is still "Hotel Dusk: Room 215". It was in a way a rather simple detective game for the DS, but the simple ability to manually take notes on the DS's touch screen (which you hold vertically like a notebook) just added a sense of immersion I've never had with any other detective game. Using the DS the way the game wants you to just makes you feel like you're the detective.

[@FinnBot_Technologia]

Detective games really need more recognition! I love the feeling of uncovering secrets and investigating! Devs should definitely create more games like these!

[@LoyalSage]

On it, just give me 6-10 years, lol.

[@Mwrp86]

Here is a list of the games mentioned in the video: 1. L.A. Noire (2011) 2. The Wolf Among Us (2013) 3. Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments (2013) 4. Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective (1991) 5. The Blackwell Legacy (200) 6. Return Of The Obra Dinn (Demo) (2016) 7. Her Story (2015) 8. Return Of The Obra Dinn (2018) 9. Shadows of Doubt (In Early Access) 10. Lucifer Within Us (2020) 11. The Case of the Golden Idol (2022) 12. Scene Investigators (Unreleased) 13. Detective Grimoire (2014) 14. Telling Lies (2019) 15. Tangle Tower (2019) 16. Disco Elysium (2019) 17. Lost Judgment (2021) 18. Frog Detective 1: The Haunted Island (2018) 19. The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (2023) 20. Murder by Numbers (2020) 21. Murdered: Soul Suspect (2014) 22. Strange Horticulture (2022) 23. Riley & Rochelle (2022) 24. Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaire's Conspiracy (2017) 25. Contradiction: Spot the Liar! (2015) 26. The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (2021) 27. Papers, Please (2013) 28. A Hand With Many Fingers (2020) 29. Do Not Feed the Monkeys (2018) 30. Hypnospace Outlaw (2019) 31. Outer Wilds (2019) 32. Immortality (2022) 33. Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (2010) 34. Paradise Killer (2020) 35. Whispers in the West (2023) 36. Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter (2016) 37. Detroit: Become Human (2018) 38. Gotham Knights (2022) 39. Discworld Noir (1999) 40. Pentiment (2022) 41. Overboard! (2021) 42. Silicon Dreams (2021) 43. Among Us (2018) 44. Mind Diver (Unreleased) 45. AI Tech Preview: The Portopia Serial Murder Case (2023)

[@emmamiller8351]

Lifesaver

[@HerMi.T]

​@@emmamiller8351it is already present in the video's description.

[@garfreeek]

As a great detective game I'd add the AI: in somnia games. Visual novels with a lot of interrogation, choices and escape room like deductieve scenes.

[@jishan6992]

Forgot to mention judgment

[@jtbebop497]

Now there's no doubt in my mind that commentors with terminator pfps are just super helpful bots

[@seanmaclean1341]

I see Shadow of Doubt, I click Seriously, I get such enjoyment every time I load that game up and solve a new case. Even on a cold case, trying to step back and re-examine what you have can be extremely cool, because its never cold by design, just by happenstance/luck. I've had cases that I kept open for days while I tackled others only to come across the missing link, and feel like a damn genius when I'm able to connect it together.

[@ungabunga7879]

Oh the shame of thinking you've got a killer or a target in a side case nailed down, you break into their house, beat them, and try and find the evidence, to discover, you've just robbed and beaten a totally innocent NPC

[@scarletice]

I just kinda felt like pointing out another fun part of investigation style games that obscure the correct answer through sheer volume. With a large enough player base, sheer statistics all but guarantees that a player WILL occasionally just bump face first into the answer by complete chance. And while that might sound like a bad thing, it can actually be really fun in it's own way if it's clear to the player just how unlikely it was for that to happen.

[@TTarragon]

I don't know... I disagree. It's a bit funny to think that you were a lucky son of a gun, but if it makes you skip part, or the whole game, then that's unacceptable to me. Imagine paying some money just for that!

[@nahometesfay1112]

​@@TTarragonThe magic of procedural generation is you can just play again and have a whole new case

[@Kithara1117]

Since Overboard is on here (and since it's one of my very favorite games) I feel like making mention of Heaven's Vault, which is an archaeology game that involves decoding an ancient language in a search for a missing person. So much of it isn't like a traditional detective game, but it has so many of the elements you discuss (and comes as no surprise that Jon Ingold is a huge detective enthusiast). The game constructs a timeline for you, basically, but it will only put in new information when you solve a language puzzle, and like many detective games Mark described, the game doesn't tell you whether you are right or wrong until later, so you can wind up making red herrings for yourself if you are just treating the language as a multiple choice game. Rather, the best way is to use context clues and logic to really understand how the language works. Both the best and worst aspect of the game is that it's completable without really figuring it out (the game progresses, even to the end, whether your deductions are right or wrong). On the one hand, this means the player is never forced to prove they understand what's happening, but it also means you don't get stuck, and encourages NG+ (with harder, but more informative language puzzles) to try another hand at it.

[@essneyallen6777]

Heaven's Vault is excellent and it really needs to be talked about more!

[@LucyTheBox]

Didn't expect to find a mention of heaven's vault in this comment section, but I'm so glad it's here! Figuring out the ancient language was such a treat! If only the traversal of the game world was more interesting... I feel like that's the main thing that held the game back, a lot of traveling with very little to do in the meantime. But only Return of the Obra Dinn has given me the same satisfaction of figuring things out on my own. "Huh, this symbol is used a lot in relation to holy things, so this word must mean... heaven... this is heaven's vault!!"

[@palebluenarratives]

What a great game :)

[@CreatrixTiara]

oooh yes Heaven's Vault is great!

[@piyam5000]

Agree Heavens vault doesn't get enough love. The freedom of exploration and story choices that changes the investigation was really good

[@jalapenoofjustice4682]

A Normal Lost Phone and its sequel are good examples of detective games that don't revolve around an actual crime. The premise of these games is that you have found a phone lying around and by looking through old chatlogs & the like you gradually unravel the story of the person the phone belonged to and why you found it lying around somewhere.

[@Dashmaster305]

Sounds like a fun premise!

[@DrEcho]

I just named that among my favorites among the dozens of detective games I've played in my novel of a comment! I have Greyhat in particular to thank for my deep dive into that subgenre. It still remains the one to beat for me.

[@petrakat]

There's another game like that called "The USB Stick Found in the Grass," which I found pretty frustrating (I didn't get past the first lock) but is really cool. It spoofs an actual extra drive to your computer, so there's no game-y interface; you have to use your computer's file explorer and stuff.

[@SAmaryllis]

Oh hey! I was just thinking of this game, as you slowly scroll through texts and photos to figure out what happened. I haven't played the sequel Another Lost Phone yet, but it's in my Steam library :D

[@larastroud6644]

@@SAmaryllisthe first one is better in my opinion but the second is good too

[@ceanyflamingo5127]

Orwell is one of my FAVORITE "detective" games. It's an investigation game and nearly everything you do effects the story and it's such a cool game

[@casanovafunkenstein5090]

An interesting game to throw in with these would be "Who's Lila?" The game begins as a game where you play a socially challenged individual whose facial expressions you need to manipulate in order to best respond to the situations he finds himself in. Rather than selecting dialogue you're actually providing the emotional context to what is being said, influencing the reactions of the other characters to you. This guy may be a killer and over the course of several play throughs you use different responses to see alternate versions of how the events of the game play out, ultimately leading down a rabbit hole where the relationship the player has with the characters of the game is redefined several times as they work towards the goal of learning who or what Lila is and what its motivations are. I'm trying not to spoil it but it's very trippy. As a bit of a warning for people interested in the game: you will need to go outside of the game and engage with ARG content if you want to see everything, making for a relatively shallow game if you weren't aware that you'd need to do that.

[@XCM666]

I'm part of a team developing a detective game and Her Story and your video on it were among the most important inspirations. Stoked to watch this and discover if we think alike about what makes a great detective game. I hope we will be able to deliver on that premise.

[@XCM666]

So many great ideas and games shared in this video, my mind is racing. I hope we'll be able to add something to the book of great detective games and that I'll someday see a video mentioning the game on this channel.

[@Onionzure]

@@XCM666Good luck with the game! ^^

[@shawnheatherly]

Good luck with your game!

[@Galent41]

Nice! Good luck with the game. Do you have a page where we can follow?

[@hwkeyser]

I would love to see Mark's thoughts on Geoguessr. It's both a game and a quiz, but for the layperson and a gamer, I think it's the best detective game out there. Obviously you can educate or metagame to crazy levels of skill, but my wife and I just play it like a detective game and love it as such.

[@papa_NCF]

Definitely wasn't expecting to see GeoGuessr in the comments, but you're absolutely right. It's definitely about piecing together different bits of information you find combined with facts you already know about countries/regions!

[@LucyTheBox]

The main problem I have with seeing geoguesser as a good detective game, is that it requires too much out-of-game knowledge. You can't solve it with just information within the game. You'll always need out-of-game knowledge to find an answer.

[@TheCyanSqueegee]

@@LucyTheBox Fair, and I may be being pedantic, but Obra Dinn also requires a lot of out-of-game knowledge. For example, I find having it be an international crew with different languages and everything to be super cool, but someone with no or very little knowledge of different ethnicities and languages would have a *much* harder time with the game. Still one of my favorite games of all time though.

[@LucyTheBox]

@@TheCyanSqueegee While this is definitely true, it's not needed to solve the game, yeah, out of game knowledge can get you some fates faster, but the game gives you enough i formation to figure out the fates without that out-of-game knowledge

[@TheCyanSqueegee]

@@LucyTheBox ok yeah that's totally fair. I retract my statement that the game requires it. I think maybe the only fate I remember relying on outside knowledge was SPOILERS Maba the topman, but I suppose you can probably figure him out from elimination?

[@goldstarsupreme]

I especially love Paradise Killer because not telling you whether you were right about the killer is a big intentional thematic choice to it, the game plays a lot with what the difference between "a fact" and "the truth". When you arrive on the island from your exile, it is "the truth" that Henry is the murderer, it's a simple, quick & easy answer that isn't hard to swallow and if you just wanna get this case over and done with, you can immediately start the trial no questions asked (literally) and convict him with that. But, whatever you do decide on, whatever accusation you end up making, if you have enough evidence to back it up, that will become the new truth, even if you're totally off base.

[@ultrajari]

Pentiment does a similar thing. I'm surprised it wasn't given more of a spotlight in this video, it's a terrific game

[@raye-raphaelsashay8521]

My preferred way to play Paradise Killer is to uncover the two big [things] and their masterminds but not to implicate [redacted] and [redacted] because they're my friends and I like them. If they ever did anything wrong no they didn’t

[@toomanytabs]

I just wanna say thank you Mark. This video came at a perfect time for me. I've been working on an indie detective game for almost a year now, and I've recently hit what has been my biggest challenge yet - writing. It's SO hard to get out of my own head and I just don't feel like any of my puzzles are substantial and I find myself going back to your old detective game video for help unsticking myself. Hearing a fresh, updated take and getting to read the comments of this video gives me a huge mental push forward. Thank you Mark, and thank you to the GMTK community. I can't wait to make a DevLog when I finally just crack it and have a field day with puzzle writing, and this community is gonna get me there, I know it.

[@XCM666]

Also working on a detective game and man, I feel this comment. I don't consider myself a writer and writing an interactive detective story is no easy feat!

[@skkkylord]

If you both need some feedback I'd spare some of my free time. I'd like to see how you are progressing, maybe I even get some ideas to help you out.

[@toomanytabs]

@@skkkylord I hope you don't mind if I keep that in mind, I will definitely be looking for early feedback in the coming months once I have a playable demo :)

[@skkkylord]

@@toomanytabs Yes, good luck in any case :D

[@papa_NCF]

Count me in too, if you need any help play testing!

[@HateSonneillon]

That original video got me to play Return of the Obra Dinn and I absolutely loved that game. I'm a huge fan of the detective genre of games provided they require some tricky reasoning to solve. Hearing that it spurred the development of more games is awesome! So outdated or not it was a great video.

[@JR-pf9in]

I was going to finally download it today after this video, but alas, the internet is down in my area. It looks like such a 'me' game.

[@HateSonneillon]

@@JR-pf9in I hope that you're able to download and enjoy it soon. When you finish, come back and let me know what you think about it.

[@robertmcabee8016]

If you enjoyed it, make sure you play Case of the Golden Idol! It’s so good.

[@naplockblubba5369]

@@robertmcabee8016 Golden Idol and Obra Dinn are some of my favorite games tbh.

[@LucyTheBox]

@@JR-pf9in Just placing a comment here in the hopes that I get notified when you finally share your experience of the game

[@Coffeepanda294]

Oh, and can I just say I _love_ that one of the games never tells you if your accusation was correct or not? That's a great touch, forcing you to live with your decision without knowing if it was correct or not, as you say.

[@TheNeonCaster]

Paradise Killer is a phenomenal game, in that it will never outlast its welcome by design. Note that you ARE shut down if you accuse someone without enough valid evidence, but that could mean both "you're accusing the wrong person" OR "You haven't searched thorougly enough for the right evidence", and it's not always clear what side of the coin you're falling on. Very cool.

[@TheSemiAngryGamer]

one great detective game that I really rarely hear about is "Unheard - Voices of Crime", great game focusing on dialogue and audio to deduct who is who and what happened

[@Posby95]

Her Story and Return of the Obra Dinn are the best "detective" games I've played. Her Story is a really short game - only lasts like a couple hours - but it made me think about the case in a way I didn't really think before in any other game. I even used pen and paper to keep track of keywords and relevant info mentioned by the woman. It was electrifying to think about the case, come up with a non-obvious lead word, and finding a good clip that progressed the story, especially later on. Return of the Obra Dinn was also fantastic. It was hard as balls, too, but very rewarding. There's nothing quite like it out there. Not only was it absolutely electrifying to figure out someone's identity by linking several clues, but the time travel mechanic that let you chain up several corpses one after the other in reverse chronology to find out the cause of everything felt thrilling. Reverse chronology is a tricky "trope" to do well, but Lucas Pope pulled it off. I'm a bit sad that he'll always be known as "the guy that made Papers Please" instead of "the guy that made Return of the Obra Dinn", because I think it's a much better game (I love Papers Please too, but they're on different levels). Also, I wouldn't say your first video is outdated. I think it still applies today. It was interesting, though, to see this new classification of detective games into Deduction, Contradiction and Investigation styles.

[@LucyTheBox]

One other game that managed to scratch that same itch Return of the Obra Dinn and Her Story scratched, is Heaven's Vault. I will say that the game had it's fair shares of flaws in my eyes, however, the feature that I liked the most was unaffected by these flaws: Uncovering an ancient language. Your knowledge of the language is very limited, whenever you find some text in this language, you get to assign your own meaning to the words. You get very little confirmation on whether your guess is correct or not, you might get some confirmation later down the line, but you'll mainly have to rely on the knowledge that you yourself have gathered about the language. Over time, you start recognising patterns and understand how the language works, and it makes you feel like a genius when you feel confident about your guess, even if the game doesn't confirm whether it's correct (yet). It's a very unique experience and I have a feeling you'd enjoy it.

[@panampace]

My only problem with Her Story is I didn’t realize there technically isn’t an end answer. You’re meant to finish whenever you “feel” finished and the true story is a little open to interpretation. My only problem with Obra Dinn was that you could brute force the last 12 or so identities because you’ve eliminated most combinations. I suppose that’s intended but it did make me feel I missed out on how I was “supposed” to solve them.

[@LucyTheBox]

@@panampace For Obra Dinn, I think it's important you set a personal rule of "no filling in a person's entry until I think I know the actual answer" That way, the fate validation is there so you know when you made a mistake, instead of a tool used to force the correct answer. One thing that annoyed me for example, is that most people I've seen play this game, didn't actually figure out which of the brothers was which. They just brute forced it until the game told em they had the correct answer. A similar thing happens with the carpenter & carpenter's mate, and with the chinese topmen. There are enough clues to solve those situations, but most people seem to use the fate validation system to figure those things out.

[@Kumagoro42]

Although Her Story, conceptually, is an anti-detective game. Its core statement is that the truth cannot be established. There are several conflicting narratives in the game, and each of them is equally valid.

[@armaggedon390]

Recently I've played Gamedec, a Polish game about a cyberpunk detective. You can get clues in different ways, sometimes different clues, and at many points are forced to make a deduction to proceed. You need to form your own idea of what happened during the case, with the clues provided for you. Bruteforcing is not an option (unless you abuse saves)

[@sinisterdesign]

I tried that game recently, but got softlocked because the game didn't account for certain choices I made. Sent a bug report to the devs and no reply. A shame, really--I was enjoying it until that

[@armaggedon390]

@@sinisterdesign And that's why I save all the time. It's not a very long game though, so I hope you'll give it a go again in the future. Really like the later part of the story, changed everything I saw from the start.

[@vizthex]

i think both Orwell games do this quite well. you work as an investigator trying to find out what caused a bombing in the first game, and try to investigate a suspicious family in the second game. you have to find little datachunks that can progress the story - and while the game does kinda give them to you, they're fairly well hidden (and sometimes contradict each other, or are useless information). The real detective work is trying to weed out useless information from what's actually relevant.

[@Ashtarte3D]

Glad to see Paradise Killer mentioned in this game. The legwork of investigation is kind of mundane but putting all the pieces together for the final trial was so goddam fun. Also the game is completely bananas in the best way.

[@Blue-gp3vn]

Wish Disco Elysium had been discussed more, given that footage from it was shown in the opening segment. But good video!

[@tritonis54]

Well, I'd say that Disco ELysium is not a detective game but more a game about a detective. Like, the gameplay is not at all detective related while the story totally is.

[@sewerentropy5217]

​@@tritonis54 there is a ton of investigation in Disco Elysium. yeah you're trying to figure out who you are but you're also supposed to find who killed the man behind the hotel and how everyone connects to it. you get witness statements, do crime scene investigation, and follow leads. it is 100% a detective game. just an incredibly well-written and quirky one.

[@U.Inferno]

​@@sewerentropy5217Agreed. Disco Elysium itself is pretty interesting as it's an RPG, so unlike the other examples shown here, from what I can tell, you have multiple routes of pursuing the mystery. For example I built HDB around Visual Calculus and Reaction Speed, and so the interrogation on the morning of Day 2 had me size up my opponents and immediately latch on to any tick they may give me. It truly felt like I was backing them into a corner throughout it.

[@moonlitxangel5771]

@@tritonis54 Sounds like you need to actually play Disco Elysium. It literally just throws you into a scenario and you have to do all the leg work to figure out who killed the guy behind the hotel. And that leads you into having to figure out other things and how to handle different people in order to get information out of them. It is 100% a detective game.

[@hugofontes5708]

​@@moonlitxangel5771you do play as a detective who has a crime to solve, do have to interrogate witnesses and suspects and collect evidence But I guess that disco Elysium is just so much freaking more than that, people don't see it as a detective game. The fact you don't remember literally anything makes it quite unusual, even though it has amazing mechanics and writing to support great detective gameplay. I guess it sort of reminds me of What Remains of Edith Finch? Kinda like saying Zelda is a metroidvania or something

[@lukemoonwalker8444]

I wish Pentiment and its open ended mysteries were discussed more but I can't complain because this gave me plenty of new game suggestios

[@moooseman3]

I'd categorize it as an investigation type game. The accusations are definitely brutal in that game though, both because of the punishments and the uncertainty due to the time limit.

[@Magrior]

I feel Pentiment is less of a detective game than any of the games mentioned in the video. While you do investigate crimes, the game is not really about the investigation or really about finding "the criminal". It is, in my eyes, more of a meta commentary about how stories are remembered and told. I'd say Pentiment is almost entirely narrative-focused while Return of the Obra Dinn or Shadow of Doubt are almost entirely gameplay-focused.

[@unadulterated]

@@Magriori disagree. the overarching narrative doesn't change the fact that you are performing detective work - collecting evidence, interrogating suspects and witnesses, drawing conclusions.

[@Exarian]

I really like the way hints in Golden Idol work tbh. The tedious minigame alone is a great way to jog your memory of who's who from people you already know and the hints themselves are written so personably like a letter that doesn't directly give anything away.

[@sinisterdesign]

I adore Paradise Killer, but moreso for the truly strange and imaginative setting than for the mechanics that underlie the game's detective work. I'd love to see that dev team make a second detective game in that same universe that's less straightforward in terms of the deductions you're asked to make.

[@TheCalComics]

I played the demo for Shadows of Doubt during one of the recent Steam Next Fests and immediately thought “Oh this is primed for a GMTK episode. Mark’s going to love this.”

[@DumbMuscle]

17:40 Another thing Obra Dinn does is to ask you questions before you could figure out the answer - meaning there's often no way to know whether you *could* determine a particular fate at this point in the game. This firstly means that the player feels less completely stuck - there's always the option that they can't figure it out because it's not possible yet - and also means that there's no ability to limit the search for clues to a particular fate to only what's come before the question was asked, leaving them all open ended.

[@keir_ks9753]

Watching the video I was thinking about Paradise Killer and was excited when you brought it up. I like that the gameplay is very simple so it puts all the actual thinking and detective work onto the player. It was also extreme satisfying when I had a eureka moment and deduced the answer to a problem that I had been stuck on.

[@birdboys1877]

Previous video was my favorite of yours, go back to watch it frequently. So hype to see you revisit this topic.

[@LoneNightquill]

One of the games that got my brain feeling smart is the ARG game The Black Watchmen, where the gameplay takes place on your browser and stuff where you have to wiki dive Google Maps around the place to try and find the answers

[@MarkusAndersen96]

The puzzle at a certain door-lock in Dishonored 2 was very fun and reminded me of this video! It's a deduction-style puzzle where you're given information about attendees at a party. You have to find out which items belongs to which guest by deducting their placement in the chair, their clothing colors etc. Incredibly fun!

[@MrCovi2955]

Shadows of Doubt has blown my mind, and its still in early access with a lot of planned work to be done. As long as they don't mess the game up by making it too easy or too formulaic with an easy tool or synth upgrade, I believe that it will become the gold standard for detective simulation.

[@mirfalltnixein.1]

One game I love that’s not a detective game, but still feels related is Heaven‘s Vault. In it, you are an archeologist deciphering an ancient unknown language. You learn some basic words, and as you travel the world you find more untranslated texts, you look for similarities, figure out the meanings of words and still get that Eureka moment when you finally understand what that sign in front of a statue means, what that tells you about the lost civilization and which older texts you might now be able to figure out. Also made by the people who made Overboard, which I was happy to see mentioned towards the end here.

[@RoozenB]

@GMTK, I don't expect you'll do a third video on detective games but I can highly recommend Rusty Lake Paradox, a point and click game about a detective, only watch their short movie after you've played through both chapters. Oh and there's a small bit of hope that you actually get to make a third video at some point, because your analysis of games surely will impact the future direction of game development. Love your work!

[@dizzyhungry]

I really appreciate you crediting the music used, not many people do that for some reason.

[@laurengrinder6719]

I am always surprised that the Nancy Drew games aren't on your list of detective games. They are also puzzle games so I guess it makes sense, but they are always centered around a mystery.

[@josephkeen7224]

One game that might be a good example is Orwell:Keeping An Eye On You, which feels like it fits some of your points, in particular for deduction style games (although keep in mind I only recently started playing, so there might be flaws I’m not seeing). You operate a computer software to look through peoples online history, and send them through an interpreter. The program the character is using highlights important information to keep you from having to scrub every bit of information, but some information contradicts other pieces of info, so you have to think of what’s the right info to send to the interpreter, who feels like a good in story reason to help nudge the player along, the possible concern is that you could just shove all info and brute force, but from what I’ve played the way the game is written and designed seems to make it so that would just make the player go in circles.

[@Kithara1117]

Orwell (there are 2 of them, yeah?) was really fun, seconding this, and importantly I think it adds an element of moral doubt where you sometimes feel the need to withhold information from the interpreter.

[@shrimpboom8]

That one did come to mind while he was listing off games, though I personally found it underwhelming, particularly after having played hypnospace outlaw. The one moment that really grabbed me was when the highlight system misinterpreted something (in universe) and I uploaded it anyway. In hindsight, it was likely intended to foreshadow a later part of the game, where your choice of whether to upload something has an impact on the story, but the lack of negative consequences directed at the player (not that there's much they could punish you with) meant that I still didn't feel particularly clever clicking through blue text.

[@careless_daughter]

⁠​⁠​⁠@@shrimpboom8Agree, personally I enjoyed it and think it’s worth playing but it does feel like the Great Value version of Hypnospace Outlaw. The web interface setting really does the heavy lifting in terms of immersion for a game that’s much less choice/consequence-based than is implied.

[@Table53]

4:07 I'm glad Strange Horticulture managed to appear in the video (if only as a clip). Who knew looking at flowers could make you feel like Columbo..

[@mimolettemoon1790]

Same here! The plant aspect was what drew me in, but I never actually thought of it as a detective game until I noticed that familiar book and Simone's familiar face on screen here!

[@Powder-Point]

I think Ghost Trick would be right up your alley. You manipulate objects with your Ghost Tricks to prevent people from passing away. The main objective is how to use these several objects to allow these characters to survive, 4 minutes before they experience their imminent demise. As such you figure out how you can prevent it. You experience the plot twists alongside the narrative. Also it has the best narrative and dog in all of the video game industry. It is on Steam, Switch, Xbox and PS4. Would recommend!

[@kadethecat6273]

Yesss I love Ghost Trick! So sad it wasn't mentioned.

[@sillygoobersupersilly]

hey, you’re the guy who always comments on ghost trick things!!

[@Powder-Point]

@@sillygoobersupersilly I never knew that I was that famous. Thanks though!

[@ErzengelDesLichtes]

“In Shadows of Doubt it’s near impossible to just stumble upon the right person by chance.” Heh, I did once. The last case had led me to an office where I looked at the employee files to find my guy. This case, I scanned the crumpled note that said “let’s play a game” and the killer’s name scrambled, and the scan came back with a name: another employee. So much for playing a game!

[@LucyTheBox]

I just need to comment on Return of the Obra Dinn. Learned of the game a few years ago, thanks to you, and its cemented itself as one of my favorite games of all time. Just hearing the game's music in this video made me emotional. Truly a masterpiece

[@okbutwhatif9905]

My favorite detwctive game was dishonored 2. And you don't even play a detective. But in dishonored you get clues, find texts, you have to go into the menus to look at the map, loom where you are to identify the area you're in (no pointers in the menu). They tell you about x or x and you have to find it through the map, while still being stealthy and moving around carefully. It makes it feel like you're really gathering clue and trying to understand your environment and where the items you're looking for would be. The clue as to how you can take your revenge. Who is who. Etc. great game I recommend it warmly.

[@Jigsawn2]

Good to see Paradise Killer mentioned here, it's criminally overlooked as one of the best detective games out there. I urge anyone who likes these kind of games to give it a go!

[@MaverickMyth]

And the soundtrack slaps!

[@Badabooom163]

highly agree

[@CogsofCogitation]

Definitely the first time I've played a detective game and really felt like I was solving the mystery, without it ever fully becoming clear how the crime transpired until near the end. Not to mention how strong the game was in world building and atmosphere

[@PCgameandgamer]

You have no idea how happy this video makes me. The old one was my all time favorite video of this channel and kick-started my game design journey

[@lynchie2073]

i know the contradiction style is pretty linear, but i do really like how helpful it is. with how often im stumped playing them already, i think id be way in over my head with a detective game that gives you more free reign. i also think it allows for more crazy plots. theres loads of crazy stunts people pull in ace attorney and danganronpa games that are so ridiculous i think you kind of need to be led to it a little bit or youd never consider it otherwise

[@hellothere9520]

Ok but I'd honestly argue that if a player has no way to think of the twists on their own, without the developers leading them there, whatever they're playing just... isn't a good detective game; it's essentially rigged against you. The later entries in the DR series especially suffer from this problem, with a lot of information just straight up being withheld from the player until the middle of the trial because the developers don't trust their ability to write non-obvious plot twists otherwise.

[@ardynamberglow3124]

I think what makes a good detective game goes beyond the core concepts of Deduction, Contradiction, and Investigation, and mixes a bit of all three. Disco Elysium, for example, while it only has 1 ending with the case, the lengths and flow of deducing who might have killed the guy, Listening to the witness statements and pointing out inconsistantencies, and investigating the leads you are given all lead to a tight feeling of being a proper detective. When you find a piece of evidence, or a discrepancy in a suspect's statement, and you figure it out on your own, it feels rewarding, and satisfying because you made the connection. As someone who has pretty good deductive and analytical skills, I ALWAYS take notes in detective games because I like to try and solve it for myself and see what bits of information I can learn. Sure the case might solve itself, but seeing where I was right, and where I was wrong is part of the fun.

[@scootmaloot4583]

I’d be pretty impressed if u predicted the deserter on the island was the killer before the tribunal

[@ardynamberglow3124]

@@scootmaloot4583 While I didn't guess the Deserter as the culprit right off the bat I was able to narrow the murder weapon and location with just my own knowledge of firearms, and understanding of ballistics. Which was further solidified by witness statements, because _that bullet_ is essentially an Ace up your sleeve. When Titus Hardy says "Oh yeah, we took him out back and hung him up, and watched." You know he's full of shit because you quite literally have the smoking gun, and it makes you _Feel_ like a detective when you present the slug and say "aha! No you didn't!"

[@snm_dyxtra]

Detective Grimoire and Tangle Tower were 2 detective game that I absolutely enjoyed after a long time, they're a must try

[@Manachi93]

I second that! the atmosphere is amazing on both games, apart from the godlike voice acting in tangle tower (first time ever in a game where i never skipped any dialogue's voice)

[@Terranigma23]

Someome know if they are working on another "grimoire" game ? ,😁

[@TrickyNick79]

They announced it in 2020 but no news yet@@Terranigma23

[@essneyallen6777]

@@Terranigma23I'm following them on steam and hoping for the best. Tangle Tower was so much fun and had such an amazing ending.

[@CrowJoestar]

They’re super great! Loved them

[@SilentRuth10]

I think one last big part of a good detection game is that there must be a solution, whether or not it's emotionally satisfying. As hbomberguy put it, the fun of watching someone smart is that "aha, of course!" moment when every clue falls into place in a way you couldn't figure out on your own. I could try my hardest, but at some point, it's just a game I want to see the end to. That game with randomly generated suspects makes me less interested because I know that if I can't solve the murder, no one will and it will be left forever unsolved. More realistic, sure, but not as fun for a game, and it wouldn't teach me what clues to look for next time.

[@thegreatapathetic9836]

GMTK always uploads right after I think they haven’t in a while.

[@Chessete]

Love detective games one of my favorite video game genres! (The Disco Elysium soundtrack at the beginning always brings back great memories)

[@8stormy5]

Fallout 1 actually has a good first quest for this. You're asked to find a new water purification chip for your vault, and are told you'd likely find one in Vault 15 nearby. You go to Vault 15 and stumble across Shady Sands, a tiny desert town, and they have no idea what you're talking about. So you go to Vault 15, and it's a complete dead end with not even a hint of where you might actually find one. The only lead you have now is to go back to Shady Sands, who tell you the small trading town of Junktown could help... but they also have no clue what you're talking about. If you ask about other traders though, You get pointed to the main trading hub, literally called The Hub. Almost nobody knows what you're talking about there either, but will figure that you must mean the water merchants in the town. The water merchants *also* have no idea what you're talking about, but tell you Necropolis might have one because they're the only established town who doesn't buy from the water merchants. You then have to actually find the water chip in Necropolis, and you aren't told where it is right away- the group controlling it doesn't want you taking it, and the group opposing that group needs you to fix their well first. You could go fix the well, or just try to find the chip yourself. In any case, you the player need to put the pieces together and decide which leads are worth following up on- you're also given the names of The Boneyard and The Brotherhood as places to look, but neither actually have one and you're not given as compelling reasons that there *might* be one there. Maybe it's not a detective mission truly, but you do actually need to do your own thinking and investigating beyond a quest telling you what to do.

[@nwright872]

This video came out about a week after I had watched the older version! So happy you remade this- it’s given me some thoughts on my coop adventure detective game with very little dialogue

[@hajimethefool]

Paradise Killer is truly a masterpiece, and the soundtrack makes the journey one of the most memorable ever.

[@Jigsawn2]

I want to give a shout out to an overlooked detective game similar to Lucifer Within Us, called 'Unheard - Voices of Crime'. In it you wander around an abstract top-down crime scene recreation, but you can only hear the voices of the characters when you are in their vicinity. You have a time-scrubber to jump around the timeline and can go to different locations to hear different dialogues, following characters around. Only by listening to all the characters and see where and when they go to places can you piece together the crimes, and it has lots of red herrings. You can finish at any time by answering a few key questions about the crime like 'who opened the vault first?', 'what is the real name of Mr X?' and 'where is the jewel now? Its a good detective game and the cases get much more complex as you go on. Some of them take proper deduction to figure out, and it's fun. If anyone has played Tacoma, it's like a much more complex version of those mechanics.

[@fmgs31]

Unheard voices of crime is a hidden gem a la Her Story (the difference being that you actually have access to all the information but you can't absorbe it all at once because it has time and space as constraints). I totally recommend it, including the free dlc

[@Jigsawn2]

Nice, I just posted about that as well. I can't remember how I found it, might have been a Steam recommendation, but yeah hardly anyone knows about and it definitely deserves more attention!

[@AnnaTyrrell]

I loved Unheard! Did you play the Chinese version of the DLC (that's all I can see on Steam) or is there an English version available somewhere?

[@fmgs31]

@@AnnaTyrrell I have good news for you then. From the 3 dlcs, there is one that is available in English, it's called The lethal script.

[@AnnaTyrrell]

Amazing, thanks so much@@fmgs31!

[@chrispybacon3]

I also like the detective missions from Assassin’s Creed Unity & Syndicate. I remember in Syndicate, there was one where you had to see the trajectory of the shooter’s bullet from across the street and it showed the lines. In order to see the height of one of the shooters and confirm his position, I drove a horse carriage to line up exactly with where the shooter would be sitting on the back of the carriage. Being able to do that in game to assist the investigation was so satisfying!

[@siraaron4462]

I would love a game that mixes deduction, contradiction, and investigation. In a narrative that casts you as the protagonist (genre blending wouldn't hurt either) so that the deeper you get into the case the deeper the risk to you personally

[@alikeremozfidan288]

so no police protection? would work pretty well on a spy story, where you must find evidences withput blowing your cover

[@novalinnhe]

I loved this video so much!! Detective games are one of my favourite genres, and I was so happy to see Detective Grimoire featured here, even if only for a cameo haha. Thanks for all of the awesome game recommendations, I'm so excited to try them out!!

[@louiegallagher990]

I think you should do more of these sequel/remake followups to older videos! Plus you've mentioned before that you regret how you did some older videos, so it'd be pretty cool to see even better updated versions of them!!

[@lados7145]

I just got my first game design job, opened KZbin, and saw GMT uploaded ^^

[@h31602685]

Shadow of Doubts is so good when it works! Its so immersive too. I remember scared to shit when the police is coming for me for trespassing for the 1st time! But its sometime kinda clunky in a weird way. Looking forward to the full release. Love this video btw!

[@TheMultiTasker3]

The La-Mulana games are technically investigation type games. Exploring the Ruins, Deciphering Texts, opening Secret Passages, and collecting useful Gear and Items, all to figure out the mysteries of the titular Ruins of La-Mulana. There are a handful of ways the game will hand you hints, but they rarely, if ever tell you directly where to go next, it's up to you to piece together the texts and locations and figure out what you can do at any given time.

[@useronuralp]

There ain't a better way to kick off the weekend with a new GMTK video, woooo!

[@punchpomelo]

I referred to the original video again and again conceptualizing something for a demo :D Glad to see a sequel, Mark! Learned a lot, again. Haha

[@Rihnoswirl]

A Hand with Many Fingers is one of my absolute favorite hidden gem-games that I almost never see anyone talk about, so even though it only got referenced visually, I'm superglad it got included in the video. Even if I'm not sure it should technically count as a detective game...

[@papayacatproductions]

Riley & Rochelle's date entry (and its resulting inability to be bruit-forced) in reminds me of the constellation puzzle in Myst, where you had tens of millennia worth of sky positions to look at, so finding the right points was impossible without finding the correct dates.

[@johnjekyllson28]

Great to see Scene Investigators on this! It’s such a good induction game.

[@amberhernandez]

I was stoked to see Judgment get a shout-out at the beginning, but immediately knew it wouldn't fit the bill. It's an action game with some detective-type elements like tailing and lock-picking, with a central mystery to drive the plot. It doesn't help that the detective elements are rudimentary, boiling down to moving your control sticks the right way or hiding from your target while following. Ultimately, Judgment and Lost Judgment are action games _about_ a detective. The former is _incredibly_ fun, and if the second keeps to the formula, it's likely amazing as well (I can't get a PS5 just yet bleggh). Judgment is definitely worth the play time, just not if you're looking for in-depth investigation elements lol

[@jkitty542]

One great detective style game you didn't mention was the Murder on Eridanos expansion to Obsidian's The Outer Worlds. With that and Pentiment, Obsidian is really seemingly into this sub-genre.

[@whimshroud]

wait, was it like a murder mystery themed dlc? i played about 15 hours of the game but it got pulled out of game pass before i finished it. now im intrigued about this expansion..

[@jkitty542]

@@whimshroud It's heavily inspired by Murder on the Orient Express. It's a great story that allows you to engage in deduction and investigation, but it breaks a few too many of the rules a good investigation game should follow.

[@genericname2747]

Strange Horticulture is so fun! I'm glad it's getting recognition!

[@Artichuth]

I think a big problem with detective games is the amount of possibilities available and how there aren't many games that fully use that. It's hard to make a game about a profession where everything is a clue and everyone is a suspect. We obviously can't do that currently with our hardware. I watched a playthrough of LA Noire where someone complained about how you could pick up random objects. And while I agree, I also disagree. Yeah, why should you be able to pick up a random cigarette or detergent box? It doesn't add anything and wastes time. But on the flipside, if you could only pickup important objects, then it's not a detective game anymore and like Mark said "It's a game about a detective". It's a hard genre to tackle and I feel like the only people doing it incredibly well are mentioned in this video, Sam Barlow with Her Story and Lucas Pope with Obra Dinn and even Papers, Please. The mechanics and gameplay of both of those are, i feel, perfect for a detective game in that they allow you to actually investigate and deduce without musical cues or cutscenes to tell you the important things that you should be focusing on.

[@mrburger]

I know it's not a video game, but I would have loved you to explore the intuitive elegance of the Sherlock Homes tabletop games; the ones with the map, newspapers, directory, etc. They simulate sleuthing via a series of co-op choose-you-own-adventure stories with accompanying map of London; while each case is its own contained mystery, the cases begin to interconnect as you near the end-game. The cases/modules are brilliantly written, engagingly clever, and maybe best of all, super easy for newcomers to pick up. The X-mas that I got it, I was able to open it that same day and get the whole family engrossed.

[@UmbrellaGent]

It's a bit of a shame games tend to come either 100% scripted or 100% procedurally-generated. I would really love a detective game with LA Noire + Disco Elysium dialogue management, storytelling and data collection with procedural or at least somewhat randomised elements (e.g., randomising the clues or suspects location, the suspect's emotional state, stuff like that) to make the mystery solving have less hand-holding.

[@gnanay8555]

Isn't shadows of doubt a scripted scenario immerged in a procedurally generated environment ?

[@ShlickMick]

​@@gnanay8555it procedurally generates citizens, a city and murder cases, but the cases are very often solved in the same way every time, so it's not quite fully random or scripted either

[@gnanay8555]

@@ShlickMick oh, ok. Seems a bit disappointing ^^'

[@ShlickMick]

​@@gnanay8555the best way of describing it is that each case is scripted to generate a "clue" to tie the murderer to the crime scene. The murderer, victim, place and method change, but the clue is usually the same In 90% of cases, the scripted clue is a fingerprint. It's rare to actually catch the murderer in any other way. In this video the example given shows a murderer being caught by finding the matching fingerprint. It's cool at first but after a while it gets very repetitive

[@kiddkd7242]

@@ShlickMickHopefully they add more variety in future updates.

[@Puddincess]

Very pleased to see a sequel on this topic. I'd love to see more revisits if you feel there's any you can meaningfully add onto

[@micahjones7837]

Looking for detective games really makes you *feel* like a detective

[@jennaruth6117]

Glad you mentioned 'Overboard!' There was an interesting GDC talk about it from 2022 called 'The Burden of Proof: Narrative Deduction Mechanics for Detective Games' that's available on youtube.

[@sambeckettcat]

One of the issues of some of these games, imo, is sometimes they can expect the player to make connection while having very little to draw their attention to it. Like, Obra Din spoiler, many of the crew can only be identified by details having to do with the cots in the sleeping area, but I never even noticed there was anything about the cots that would help there (and iirc, there was another level of obfuscation) and so I didn’t figure out that part until I looked it up online, which is never a good thing.

[@plaguefellow4956]

I can relate however detective games usually require a different way of thinking I'm not saying I'm smart or anything at them I'm pretty bad myself. They just usually require unique thinking such as for the obra. If there is a crew there must be beds they sleep on somewhere and possibly more information I could pull from them to learn identities

[@petertownsend9148]

I watched your original video on this more times than I can count. As a huge fan of mystery games I essentially used your recommendations and examples as a list of games to one day get. Because of you I have bought and played through The Detective Grimoire Games, The Blackwell series, The Shivah, Her Story, The ABC Murders, The Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective games, and one of my favorite games of all time: Return of the Obra Dinn. Several of the games you mention in this video are going straight onto my Steam wishlist.

[@Sovreign071]

In most Contradiction games like Ace Attorney, the story is usually much more important than the puzzle. It's a story with extra steps. Which does NOT make them bad! The original Trilogy still holds up today! It's just that for the devs, having the player know the story was more important than roadblockong the player.

[@odorF13]

To this day, one of best games that truly made me feel like a detective has been The Painscreek Killings. Its gameplay being incredibly simplistic, it just gave you a (small) completely open world to traverse and piece together where to go next. Almost impossible to stumble on something in random, one of the earlier first person Unity mechanic games, I played it from start to finish in a couple sittings. From the creators of Scene Investigators.

[@Stairmaster_]

You all have to play Ghost Trick.

[@ajerqureshi6411]

I still attest that one of my personal favorite detective games to play (which I hope to again in the future if I can get it again) is Sherlock Holmes: Secret of the Silver Earring. For the most part the game is pretty much your standard point-and-click adventure game, where you wander around the environments and click on clues and people to talk to (plus a few extra things like this ridiculous card puzzle, a bad stealth section, and a race against time to put out a fire). But a key thing about the game, which is different from detective games I've played is that after every chapter, the player is given a quiz that they need to complete in order to advance. Each quiz is compiled of "Yes or No" answers of vaguish questions (so they don't give the answer away), but you also need to provide the specific piece of evidence or testimony that supports the conclusion to. This resulted in me really paying attention to every clue and testimony I received, reading through them all instead of a more cursory glance like other detective games. The game will not move on until you successfully answer the whole quiz. You also have a bonus quiz at the end in which you as the player are given the opportunity to solve the entire mystery...however this is optional for players, and the game doesn't tell you if you got the answers correct or not.

[@haitas8501]

"Why Am I Dead At Sea?" is another very intresting detective game that uses character interactions to unravel its mystery.

[@svarthofde2492]

2 detective games I loved are Contradiction, more for the camp acting and atmosphere to be honest and Her Story for the really interesting way to tell a story. If you haven't played then, you might consider giving then a chance. Cheers!

[@viktor8552]

I would argue that Tunic is a detective game as well. Finding the manual pages and then deciphering what all the notes mean and putting information from different pages together.

[@frodobrommelkamp9119]

I think for it to be a Detective game specifically you tend to have a situation and try to figure out what exactly happened. Be a Detective, literally or implied. Tunic is an amazing game, but feels more along the lines of general "These are hints towards puzzles" game play, not necessarily "Something happened here, figure out what!" - well, aside from the usual environmental storytelling/unravelling story thing that Dark Souls (re)popularized. It scratches a similar itch, following hints and feeling clever once it clicks, but it rarely those "Oh, THAT'S what must've happened here!" feeling a good Detective Game gives you.

[@EriesAston]

Those are just puzzles, not every game that has them is a detective game

[@paultapping9510]

while it's not the focus of the game, so I don't think Tunic qualifies as a Detective Game, I do agree that the instruction manual system is a really, really clever idea that did a wonderful job of making me scour it for clues, make deductions and so forth. I would be very interested in a game that took that idea and expanded on it.

[@aidandupuis5944]

It’s been really interesting seeing just how influence gmtk has gained in the industry over the years - not just in terms of industry connections and contacts for interviews but the publishing of these design concepts influencing actual game direction, especially in the indie scene. It’s like a self-published free master class for the masses

[@ApolloDawn85]

I personally prefer the “Contradiction” style of detective games (Ace Attorney/Danganronpa) because they are more streamlined. This does lead to some instances where the game asks leading questions that can spoil elements of the mystery, but to me the streamlined-ness results in better pacing for the stories they are trying to tell. I feel like games like Ace Attorney want you to sit back and think but they still want to push you along for a snappier pace. Other detective games where there are hundreds of possible wrong answers you can come to for a single question and hundreds of possible suspects sound exhausting to me. I can find Ace Attorney frustrating when you get lost and don’t know how to progress or what evidence you need to present and amplifying that sounds tedious to me.

[@icarue993]

I have not played AT, but I have played DR. I think it helps you to feel smart since there are several questions and several answers. But you have to find the onle that is the most fitting to the current clues you have atm. Some questions are irrelevant, so you ignore them. SOme questions are just facts, so you ignore them. SO you have to sauce out what is relevant and THEN show the nessery evidence to show a contradiction.

[@TheNeonCaster]

Possibly a counterpoint, but I actually really enjoy Contradiction-style mystery games because they can be quite tightly paced, and you never feel like you're flagging in one place for too long. I love mystery *stories*, but I'm not actually all that smart, and extended floundering really bums me out. Obra Dinn is a really cool game but since it's really stringent with hints, there was a point I got Capital-S Stuck, had to put the game down for the day, and never quite got the will to go back to it compared to something snappier, like a Hypnospace or a Somnium File.

[@popgamer2602]

I was waiting until GMTK mentioned Shadows Of Doubt

[@R3TR0J4N]

😂 same, I think it's well use of AI in gaming for immersive sims regards dynamic writing

[@Deadwolf27]

About three weeks ago I beat the Wolf Among Us again, doing everything I could to make it feel like a perfect run. Ever since then i've been trying to play more. Including Ghost Trick, Sherlock Holmes Crime and Punishment, La Noire and Telltale Batman. Ive even dressed Arthur Morrigan up like a mix between Sherlock Holmes and Watson just to get more of my fix. Really grateful you made this video.

[@tabeatamm3594]

I loved Obra Dinn, but I realized I just wasn't smart enough to solve it. I had to look up like 90% of the answers, because I just couldn't figure it out.

[@tabbune]

You *have* to try The Sekimeiya: Spun Glass. It's not exactly a detective game, but it's an incredibly dense mystery novel where you need to understand what's actually happening in a head twisting 4 chapters of visual novel gameplay, before getting quizzed by the game at the last chapter. The game also lets you take free notes on any line of the dialog, along with a free rewind to any section of the story.

[@Jigsawn2]

Thanks for this recommendation, I had never heard of this, but I totally love stuff like Zero Escape. Just went down a rabbit hole reading the Steam reviews and I'm going to give it a go