Last month we ran The Case of the Thinky Game Jam, a 17 day game jam to encourage more thinky developers to experiment with making detective games, and boy did you all deliver. We received more than 80 entries from so many brilliant developers and designers.
Now, we here at Thinky Games have taken some time to play through many of the entries (we still haven't played them all — there's so many!), and have picked out a few of our favourites and honourable mentions. This proved to be a tough job, because they were all pretty great, but we hope it gives you all an idea of the wonderfully creative projects you might have missed. If you try out some of the games, make sure to leave some comments and show the participants some love for their hard work!
And finally, a huge thank you to all the designers, developers, artists, musicians, writers, and everyone else who joined our jam. We were blown away by how popular it was and are super glad our love of detective games resonated with you. We can't wait to see you all take these projects even further.
Joe's pick
[CLASSIFIED] of 2015 by Ricky Cruz
[CLASSIFIED] of 2015 is such a creative idea for a detective game. You're the yearbook editor for Voyager Academy, tasked with working out who's who from the photos and notes you've received after a mysterious incident at the school. This game constantly surprised me with clever and creative ways to provide clues, both in the subtle details hidden in each photo and by making connections through the overarching narrative. I may have required a nudge from the developer on a few of the later puzzles and some of the clues could do with a second pass, but I just couldn't put this game down. I sure hope to see it developed further!
Honourable mentions:
- Surradia: An Art Retrospective by G.C. Katz - Very Golden Idol-esque, but with a unique and mysterious narrative about a magical art movement. I would have preferred to understand the events more from just the clues and not the text, but nonetheless these were some intriguing scenarios to puzzle out!
- Conn's Piracy Theory by Frycandle - I'm partly giving this a shout-out because it features our Thinky Games mascot, but it's also one of those cryptic games that slowly seeps into your mind until you're seeing patterns on every page. I haven't finished it yet, but it's a neat idea!
- Life & Crimes by Tim Sheinman - I watched ambierona playing this and want to give it a shout-out for the impressive voice acting. The UI seemed to get a bit annoying at times and transcripts would have been super useful, but it seems like a neat evolution of Her Story's mechanics.
Corey's pick
My pick is a short and sweet cipher-cracking game featuring Zodiac-esque handwritten codes. There was plenty of good writing in the jam entries, but sometimes it's fun to get straight to work. I like how elegant Quiller's Code is: just a limited selection of letters, some knowledge of English and a little bit of context in the murderer's messages is enough to get the ball rolling, one inference leading to another until you start to see the big picture. The levels of the game ramp up in a nice difficulty curve, letting you build up some confidence before really testing you.
Honourable mention:
We Suspect Foul Play by BRANE & Lorenzo - I wanted to give this game a shout-out mostly for the awesome level of visual polish present, more than you'd expect from a jam game. The retro-illustration style lends a wonderful detective vibe. Clicking around to gather all the clue words feels slightly tedious, but there's a neat little mystery to solve here with great presentation.
Hira's pick
Don’t let Case of the Canvas’ simple hand-drawn art fool you — its deduction puzzles will have you scouring the esteemed hallways of the Royal Academy in search of answers as you control a tiny blue spirit. Nothing is straightforward in this game — to progress, you must deduce each name and designation correctly by speaking to paintings. Sometimes, paths you have opened must be revisited. I am very excited that we may one day see a full version of this wonderful jam game!
Honourable mentions:
Archipelago Explorer by hesperus4 - This simple choose your own adventure puzzler utilizes Google Slides to mimic the experience of leafing through a journal. Deduct where you are based on the flora and fauna on the island, and survive!
Surradia by G.C. Katz - An art movement whose key figures have vanished into thin air? Move through the gallery of their lives and deduce the relationships that have lead to this very moment.
Loftlock by thebookofnilo - Play as a wizard named Runi, seeking to unlock their grandmother's book of spells — the catch is that grandma has forgotten what the combination is! Scour the attic for clues, and piece them together in this cozy snippet of what I hope will be a more thoroughly explore universe!
Matt's pick
Dead Cards by pobooy
We love a good card game, at least I do, and Dead Cards manages to scratch multiple itches for me with its mixture of deduction and investigating into a rather interesting idea and concept.
Dead Cards has you use your detective skills to find a killer in a deck of cards, with the killer always being the card on top of the victim. You'll need to question each card that will provide clues to the murderer's location in the deck and ultimately try to find the correct card.
It's a simple idea, but one that is executed brilliantly and makes for a fun brain teaser that is equally as fun as it is visually pleasing.
Honourable mentions:
Of course, these are only a few of the submissions, so please do go have a scroll through the rest of the games and try a few that catch your eye.
Once again, thank you so much to everyone who took part. It's been amazing to see so many great detective games appear all at once, thanks to your incredible talents. We look forward to all the detective games you'll inevitably be releasing in the years to come!
Disclaimer: Thinky Games is part of the Carina Initiatives and may have professional relationships with individuals and businesses related to the subject of this article. Please see our Editorial Policy for details.
