This is a list of 10 investigative indie games where the devil plays a fair bit of hiding in the details. Put your sleuthing skills to the test with these genre-bending, definitive games that don’t always play by the rules.
Keep your eyes wide for silent tells in the narrative aftermath, or trace your fate through the tangled dialogue trees. Chances are, you won’t get it right the first time. But that’s never stopped a stubborn detective that won’t let the case go cold.
Close the blinds. Fire up the espresso machine. These titles ought to keep you for long nights of lucid obsession.
Duck Detective: The Secret Salami
Duck Detective Eugene McQuacklin is on the case! Watch as he waddles his way to quacking a lunch-based mystery where the story unfolds to become bigger than what meats the eye.
Short and snackable, with all the classic feels to a detective noir in a full-range cast of charming characters.
The buttery, expressive voice work also lends to the looming quacktastrophe, but not if the Duck Detective can help it.
After taking a bite out of this full-blown lunchmeat conspiracy, take a look at Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping for a vacation that takes a horror turn. Give this mallard a therapist, stat.
Kathy Rain: Director’s Cut
Fans of the first release already know these neck of the woods, except this time, the game packs heightened visuals, more puzzles, more plot, and improved controls.
Following the core story, Kathy Rain solves mysteries surrounding the sleepy town of Conwell Springs as a sharp-tongued journalist with a bad nicotine habit.
A mysterious location called Another Place, a teen death that’s central to the conundrum, and a tape recorder? Call me Agent Cooper, there may be something here for Lynch enthusiasts, too.
Kathy Rain is sleuthing to piece together the strange occurrences surrounding her grandfather’s death as family trauma connives with this small town’s eerie secrets in this point-and-click pixel art mystery narrative.
Kathy Rain might not give a damn but we do… part deux.
The Roottrees are Dead
The Roottree family, three sisters and their parents, have perished in a tragic plane crash. A knock on your door, and soon you’re spiraling into obsession to fulfill a task: uncover legit heirs to the Roottree family.
As an armchair detective, the latest sleuthing technologies are out of reach—it’s 1998 and your beige PC has a basic search engine powered by dial-up modem.
This definitive Steam remaster polishes the pixels and adds a bonus mystery, Roottreemania. More file folders and family trees for slow-burn, deep brain nostalgia.
Open the door to these new wave of genre-bending investigative deduction games, similar to The Golden Idol series, Her Story, and Return of the Obra Dinn. See you there with my sticky notes.
Strange Horticulture
Fancy a verdant familiar? The town of Undermere doesn’t seem to lack herbal petitioners emerging from the shadows to visit your shop.
As the Strange Horticulture’s keeper, you assist seekers of your goods as you identify and acquire plants, explore the beyond, solve puzzles, and fulfill client requests. If it’s sleep or something more sinister they require, the choice of remedy is entirely up to you.
You tend to your plants, do a bit of journaling, and pet your void named Hellebore. It feels like a cozy Sunday, disturbed only by customers who sometimes harbor questionable requests.
For the picky customers, don’t fret: it’s all plant-based, locally-sourced occultism.
The Horror at Highrook
A dark little love letter to fans of board games and horror-mystery RPG, tinged with HP Lovecraft’s cosmic horror, Edgar Allan Poe’s macabre storytelling, and Bram Stroker’s gothic themes.
As an expanded tabletop RPG hijacked by horror, you lead a team of occult investigators who find themselves in a cursed estate in search of a missing family.
Combine cards like you’re high on eldritch alchemy to reveal new clues, dark secrets, and ways to give your team a little TLC. Because while the game only deals with cards, your band of misfits can also take on damage physically and mentally.
If Strange Horticulture is your jam, this game may also be for you.
Enigma of Fear
You’re young Detective Mia, your dad is missing, and you’re in a place that doesn’t exist. Reality folds like origami when you encounter paranormal entities. In a nightmare zone like this, you’ll need a little help.
Thankfully, accompanying you is your dog Lupi, the goodest boy in the worst possible place. You can also call on your other trusty sidekicks: hacker Samuel and occultist Agatha.
In this non-linear, surreal world, you solve mysteries and either evade or attack enemies. You’re slipping into a psychological spiral armed with a gun. What other unspeakable truths hide in this dark dimension? Is this real life?
The Case of the Golden Idol
Good sir and madam, the time is now to deduce some deaths. In this tableau-style logic game, you parse through interconnected disturbances, assisted by your keen eye for detail.
This 18th-century period piece is a challenging mystery detective game. The narratives are gripping and satisfying to solve like a fancy, murdery puzzle book.
But nay, dost thine eyes deceive thee? Even as you uncover the truth, lies and conspiracy can hide behind the bloodbath.
The scheming also continues through its two expansions: The Spider of Lanka and The Lemurian Vampire.
Tangle Tower
Charming, thrilling mystery with aesthetics like a playable version of your favorite feel-good cartoon. Is it red paint or blood? It’s both—and you’re trying to find out how Freya Fellow has been painted out of the picture, so to speak.
Talk to inhabitants of the mansion to untangle the story, find clues, and uncover puzzles to solve this riddle. A mystery whodunnit in cheeky banter that’s a feast for the ears with a vast library of impeccable dialogue courtesy of the tower’s eccentric oddballs.
Tangle Tower is bursting with color but keep a keen eye on the family lore that’s tinged with darker hues. Not all cheerful conversations are innocent. And for this tower, the case may untangle in surprising ways, with the fragments still lingering even after credits roll.
Return of the Obra Dinn
An unfortunate crew of 51 souls reach unknown fates aboard a commercial vessel on the way to the Orient.
You enter this salt-soaked tale as an insurance claim investigator. While it may seem you’ll be stuck in an office pushing papers in 19th-century London, here your deduction abilities will map out the mystery of the ill-fated seafarers, scene by scene, timey-wimey style.
What befell the Obra Dinn and of the 200 tons of trade goods? Why are the sails damaged? As you traverse this meticulously constructed enigma, its beauty can be like the sea’s unpredictability.
This is an incredible seafaring elegy.
Disco Elysium
You wake up, you talk to people, read lines and lines of dialogue, and then you expire. I’m talking about Disco Elysium. Hauntingly brilliant, if not touched by after-credits tensions that mirror its own themes. This is the most acclaimed game on this list.
This narrative-driven, open-ended detective game remembers your decisions and shapes the course of your gameplay… a reflective sandbox for the soul.
As an RPG, it focuses on skill progression rather than combat. There’s high praise for its voice acting, which takes the already rich worldbuilding to an even higher dimension.
In this deeply reflective simulation, could empathy be indicative for when ideals are tested? Which choices and moral codes shape you? Wake up. Your life depends on it. (Definitely still talking about the game.)
These titles are sanity tests that rattle your brain for hidden clues that’s right in your face. Suss out the fragments to see what slithers, just before it slips through your fingertips.
Which investigative games have wormed their way into your head lately?
