Games like this?

[Shadowblade]

This game was great and I love the concept. Are there other games like this?

[alicia, sun's nemesis]

Hm... It's probably better to expand on what you liked about the game because, as far as I can tell, it's actually quite unique, and there's not really anything out there that's like it in all ways. Other deduction-based games I can think of are more hands-on (or completely hands-off), or they lack the same paranoid vibe, not as information-dense etc. There are a LOT of political thrillers, especially historical and Cold War, on Steam, but they often have different gameplay. One you could look into that I found because of this game is The Flower Collectors, although I've yet to buy and play it. If it's the tone and content you liked, I would recommend looking more into historical/political thrillers on here, even not-super-similar stuff like Disco Elysium.

The Painscreek Killings is an incredible game, probably the closest thing I've played to this game, just no overt political themes - you walk around in a very atmospherically-recreated 90s ghost town, examining environmental clues, old notebooks, etc. to solve a murder mystery. Increasingly paranoid and heavily immersed. You have to use a physical notebook rather than something elegant like this game's corkboard, but it's really good. It's also one of the few games I've played that has the manual 'go and gather the evidence yourself' thing going on, seeing as it's a walking simulator. If you enjoy that, then the sets of point and click detective mysteries and interactive mysteries like Pathologic, are open to you basically.

There are a fair few games with the premise 'you look at a bunch of information and solve a mystery', it's one of my favourite genres. You could look into Tim Sheinman's games, e.g. Conspiracy! (and his other works) on itch.io as well. I played his game Rivals, which is very different mood-wise and more stripped down (and heavily audio-based), but that feeling of mining physical media was still there to some extent, as well as period accuracy and ambience. The Russian Doll might be up your alley: https://tim-sheinman.itch.io/the-russian-doll

Her Story is all FMVs, you type keywords into a database and watch short recordings and piece together what happened in a detective case. There are a few games like Her Story to play if you enjoyed Her Story, too, like Telling Lies. I haven't gotten around to playing The_List, but it looks similar.

Analogue: A Hate Story and its sequel Hate Plus are very anime, very personal narratives, and definitely not going to be everyone's cup of tea if only for the style, but you progressively unlock logs that help you understand what happened on a fictional spaceship emulating a feudal Korean society. It's dark and with a very emotional conclusion.

A more left-field suggestion (for a very good game) would be Hypnospace Outlaw, a retro game set in an interface based on the 90s internet. You browse quite detailed websites in a sequence of narrative chapters and learn about the characters, basically just exploring to find out everything you can. The tone is very different though.

Return of the Obra Dinn is one of the must-plays of investigation/deduction games, but it's more of a puzzle game than a research game? Basically autopsy sudoku, like a very atmospheric logic game where you eliminate possibilites rather than build up complexity. Throwing it in there as another potential starting point, if games like that interest you there are lots of people out there curating lists of 'games like Return of the Obra Dinn'...

Finally, the dev(s?) made more games, available on Steam and itch.io. A Bewitching Revolution and They Came from a Communist Planet are both on my to-play list. Innocent Passage on their itch is.. I don't know how to describe it, it's the closest one to this one, but it's a simulator and it's more like 'think about/envisage these possibilities and their context' rather than sending you down a very specific rabbit hole.

Sorry about the lack of links, thinking about this got me kind of mentally disorganised lol, this game is really unique

[Shadowblade]

Originally posted by alicia, sun's nemesis:

Hm... It's probably better to expand on what you liked about the game because, as far as I can tell, it's actually quite unique, and there's not really anything out there that's like it in all ways. Other deduction-based games I can think of are more hands-on (or completely hands-off), or they lack the same paranoid vibe, not as information-dense etc. There are a LOT of political thrillers, especially historical and Cold War, on Steam, but they often have different gameplay. One you could look into that I found because of this game is The Flower Collectors, although I've yet to buy and play it. If it's the tone and content you liked, I would recommend looking more into historical/political thrillers on here, even not-super-similar stuff like Disco Elysium.

The Painscreek Killings is an incredible game, probably the closest thing I've played to this game, just no overt political themes - you walk around in a very atmospherically-recreated 90s ghost town, examining environmental clues, old notebooks, etc. to solve a murder mystery. Increasingly paranoid and heavily immersed. You have to use a physical notebook rather than something elegant like this game's corkboard, but it's really good. It's also one of the few games I've played that has the manual 'go and gather the evidence yourself' thing going on, seeing as it's a walking simulator. If you enjoy that, then the sets of point and click detective mysteries and interactive mysteries like Pathologic, are open to you basically.

There are a fair few games with the premise 'you look at a bunch of information and solve a mystery', it's one of my favourite genres. You could look into Tim Sheinman's games, e.g. Conspiracy! (and his other works) on itch.io as well. I played his game Rivals, which is very different mood-wise and more stripped down (and heavily audio-based), but that feeling of mining physical media was still there to some extent, as well as period accuracy and ambience. The Russian Doll might be up your alley: https://tim-sheinman.itch.io/the-russian-doll

Her Story is all FMVs, you type keywords into a database and watch short recordings and piece together what happened in a detective case. There are a few games like Her Story to play if you enjoyed Her Story, too, like Telling Lies. I haven't gotten around to playing The_List, but it looks similar.

Analogue: A Hate Story and its sequel Hate Plus are very anime, very personal narratives, and definitely not going to be everyone's cup of tea if only for the style, but you progressively unlock logs that help you understand what happened on a fictional spaceship emulating a feudal Korean society. It's dark and with a very emotional conclusion.

A more left-field suggestion (for a very good game) would be Hypnospace Outlaw, a retro game set in an interface based on the 90s internet. You browse quite detailed websites in a sequence of narrative chapters and learn about the characters, basically just exploring to find out everything you can. The tone is very different though.

Return of the Obra Dinn is one of the must-plays of investigation/deduction games, but it's more of a puzzle game than a research game? Basically autopsy sudoku, like a very atmospheric logic game where you eliminate possibilites rather than build up complexity. Throwing it in there as another potential starting point, if games like that interest you there are lots of people out there curating lists of 'games like Return of the Obra Dinn'...

Finally, the dev(s?) made more games, available on Steam and itch.io. A Bewitching Revolution and They Came from a Communist Planet are both on my to-play list. Innocent Passage on their itch is.. I don't know how to describe it, it's the closest one to this one, but it's a simulator and it's more like 'think about/envisage these possibilities and their context' rather than sending you down a very specific rabbit hole.

Sorry about the lack of links, thinking about this got me kind of mentally disorganised lol, this game is really unique

THank you for the long and detailed list, I'll def check these games out.

[Gentleman Bird]

If you want a continuously unfolding mystery with some exploration, Outer Wilds is a great game.

[theRealDyer]

This was an excellent response, and I'm gonna look into all of these. Thank you for the suggestions alicia.

[Noowai]

That's a bit of a late response, but if you haven't still played - The Case of the Golden Idol is the game you are looking for.

[coryroush]

Another late response, but this game reminded me a little of Orwell also.

[D'Armailhac]

While the gameplay is totally different L.A. Noire has a strong investigation element - spotting clues and interviewing suspects for example.

[Staffbane]

The closest to these chalkboard type of games would be not where they use a visual example of them - I would say games like Sherlock Holmes Chapter One demonstrate this through what is called the "mind palace" where you connect the clues by making conclusions from the sequence of events taking place.

I would say the reason why we don't see these in video games is that they're not very comprehensive and make it difficult to portray the creator's original concept of the events taking place. The way some have got around this is they do a "show don't tell" approach games like Phoenix Wright stick out because they don't expect the player to remember every relevant detail and try to prompt the player to think about what they've recently been presented in order to lead the player to the right answer.

It's hard to really point out a few good ones that manage to get the detective concept down perfectly but a few good ones I'd recommend are Still Life (avoid the 2nd one), CSI: Hard Evidence, CSI: NY, Post Mortem, Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments and The Testament of Sherlock Holmes stick out in my mind and maybe Sherlock vs Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis... but I find games don't do the whole think on your feet thing that often...

I would say games like Silent Hill may be to blame with their simplistic you find an item go find the place where it goes sort of thing. Not that they are bad, but they do take away elements that would otherwise be puzzle like and turn it into fetch quest scenarios.

I'd say another good one I played recently is Murders on the Yangtze River but unfortunately for some of us that don't like Japanese Novel games they'll be put off by this one. There just aren't many games I can recommend that play the way I'd visually would want it to play, there is Murdered: Soul Suspect, but that plays much like Deadly Premonition or everyone's favourite kick the dead horse game: Heavy Rain.

I think this is me trying to fill the void that is my love for point and click games but I have to admit the action/adventure genre more or less killed them. Nowadays I can expect less of what I actually like playing and more of the push the button to open the door type games and collect the key with the same button. It's a harsh reality I've come to expect really.

[Staffbane]

If you want an interesting game that bends the usual elements of detective work try Unheard - Voices of Crime

For those that want a Bueller's day off vibe there's Twelve Minutes

And another interesting but fun one would be Lucifer Within Us

If you like objection style types there's Law & Order: Legacies

and if you like more of the Japanese Novel type you could try Zero Escape: The Nonary Games and Burden of Proof.

Sadly, there just aren't a lot of games that really do what I'm after... likely I'll end up sighing and playing old games just to recapture the essence of what I envision are the best of perhaps one day I'll get so fed up I'll make my own mystery game.

[Maniac86]

The Operator is a sort of investigative game coming soon, there was a demo during steam next fest, not sure if its still up.

[Call Me: Pickle]

Outer Wilds

[SlogOluf]

The Roottrees are Dead is similar