Everyone loves a good mystery. Whether it’s solving a murder, catching a thief, or just figuring out who is dating whom, there is so much fun to be had in following leads, hunting for clues, and making dramatic accusations.

Video games have been trying to capture the allure of mystery stories since the earliest days of home consoles. But for the most part, these games take a more narrative approach, asking the player to do little more than collect evidence and select options in dialogue trees while the in-game character does the actual work of connecting the dots of the mystery. The end result is a game that makes you feel less like Sherlock Holmes and more like Watson.

One of my favorite recent trends has been the emergence of games that actually give you a chance to flex your deductive reasoning skills, feeding you seemingly unrelated scraps of information and leaving you with the task of figuring out how they all fit together.

There are few things more satisfying than piecing all of these little clues together until what was once a disorienting jumble of nonsense comes into razor-sharp focus, and you can say with absolute certainty that he was the murderer, or that they were brother and sister all along. For just a moment, you become Sherlock Holmes, and it’s amazing.

If that sounds like the kind of high that you also want to chase, here are a few recommendations to get started.

Return of the Obra Dinn

One of the earliest entries in this “deduce ‘em up” genre, Return of the Obra Dinn remains one of the greatest examples of the genre. The unconventional gameplay, striking visual style, and bare-bones presentation give the game an unmistakably unique identity.

The player is placed in the role of a 19th-century claims adjustor, who has been given the task of investigating a ship called The Obra Dinn after it returns to port mysteriously empty. Armed with nothing but a handful of illustrations, a list of the crew and passengers, and a magic pocket watch that lets you see the moment of a person’s death, you must determine the fates of every person who was aboard the ship.

The game is a master class in puzzle design, with each new death scene giving you just enough details to narrow down someone’s name, occupation, or cause of death. It even uses a clever mechanic to combat brute force or guesswork, as correct answers are only confirmed in groups of three.

If this game has passed you by, there’s no better way to get a taste of what deduction-based games have to offer.

The Case of the Golden Idol

The Case of the Golden Idol takes many of the conventions that Return of the Obra Dinn established and twists or escalates them in new and interesting ways.

The story is much larger in scope, spanning lifetimes and continents as the player investigates a magical golden idol and its involvement in a series of thefts, murders, and national conspiracies.

Like Obra Dinn, this game has the player investigating a series of bizarre deaths, using nothing but the information available at the exact time and place of death. However, Golden Idol takes a more varied approach to puzzle design. In addition to the standard “who killed whom and how,” each death scene has its own specific set of questions, which can be anything from “where was each person sitting at the dinner table?” to “what do the symbols on this poster mean?”

This more granular approach to the game design makes each vignette feel like a self-contained puzzle, which gave the game a very comfortable, natural pace. If you’re intimidated by the amount of information Obra Dinn expects you to keep in your head, The Case of the Golden Idol does a better job of easing you into the detective’s mindset.

Chants of Sennaar

Chants of Sennaar breaks away from all the violence and killing of “deduce ‘em ups” to explore a different theme: language.

The goal of the game is simple enough – the player starts at the bottom of an enormous tower, and they must get to the top. But to do so, the player must navigate through the multiple different societies that live in the tower, each with their own culture and a language that you need to learn from scratch.

The brilliance of the game comes from the way that it explores how those two concepts – culture and language – influence each other. As you make your way through each layer of the tower, you start to get a feel for each society’s values. One society may be particularly religious, so the more common symbols you see are probably related to gods and worship. Another may be more scientific, so their more common symbols are related to observation and measurement.

Out of all the games in this list, Chants of Sennaar made me feel the smartest – you start the game essentially illiterate, and you end the game fluent in five different languages. If your puzzle-solving proclivities lean more towards cryptograms and code-breaking, definitely give this a try.

Unheard – Voices of Crime

Unheard – Voices of Crime is probably the closest to a conventional, narrative-driven mystery game on this list, where the player is asked to listen to conversations and testimony, find contradictions and corroborations, and ultimately draw a conclusion. However, unlike other testimony-driven games like Ace Attorney and Danganronpa, the player is left almost entirely on their own in terms of note-taking and cross-referencing.

The main hook of the game is that the player is given an audio recording of all the different conversations that took place within a given place and time, and they must use these conversations to determine the names of the speakers, their relationships, and of course who committed the crime.

Like Obra Dinn and Golden Idol, the player must go over a relatively small scene with a fine-tooth comb to pull out every useful detail, with the added complication of searching through time as well as space. What did this suspect say or do when no one else was around? Does this person’s story line up with what they said to the previous person?

The voice acting can get a bit cheesy at times, but if you’re looking for a game that asks you to reconstruct a crime scene out of nothing but overheard conversations, give this game a try.

The Roottrees Are Dead

The newest game on this list, The Roottrees Are Dead combines the massive, interconnected fill-in-the-blank puzzle of Obra Dinn with the search-based research method of Her Story.

In this game, you play as an investigative genealogist. After the president of the Roottree Corporation and his three daughters die in a plane crash, it’s up to you to fill out the dauntingly huge Roottree family tree and figure out who is entitled to the inheritance. Your only tools are a basic keyword search engine and a handful of photos, advertisements, and other paraphernalia that feature the Roottrees.

If you’re a fan of celebrity gossip and 90’s-style point-and-click adventures, this is the game for you.

And there you have it, a batch of new challenges for all my fellow Armchair Sherlocks out there. Happy sleuthing!

What do you think about this growing genre? Is it better or worse than the adventure games and visual novels that came before? Tell us what you think in the comments below or head on over to our Discord server for more great conversations.

Featured Image: Frogwares (via SteamDB)