Games with good "Detective Mechanics"

[Unkillable Cat]

It's basically a clone of The Case of the Golden Idol. Demo available.

Played demo. It shares some substantial mechanics with Golden Idol to be sure but I found it a very different experience. Aside from the obvious setting difference, the presentation is a linear story with lots of dialogue and waiting for voice acting to finish. I like the mc voice actor; this is not enough to make me like the writing, which is neither intriguing nor funny. Part of what made Golden Idol so captivating for me was its vagueness and nonlinear format, where you have to deduce what the entire story is even about from basically nothing. Here you are walked through step by step, though this may be partially a result of this first section being tutorial-y. The 2nd puzzle gives you two possible solutions, and you simply guess which one is correct - no deduction involved. Overall it felt like "Golden Idol for children". Nothing wrong with that I guess. I may play this depending on how starved I am for a detective experience when it comes out.

I played the full game. You're pretty much spot on, based on the demo.

The full game obviously adds a few more things, but the only really 'different' thing from Golden Idol is that once you solve the case, you get to pick whether to make arrests or not. The game then tells you what other players decided to do. (Minor spoiler: Someone must be arrested, justice must be fed!) With that said, I'm still gonna claim that the game is overly linear. Another minor spoiler: There are two crimes afoot. Though the main crime is front and center, the other one gets uncovered in the process. But arrests and resolution and such only pertain to the main crime, the second crime goes unpunished by Lady Justice.

I agree that the voice acting is good, and I didn't mind the writing, though it never achieved any notable levels except when it comes to a page from a sci-fi novel. Then it goes all-in.

The production value in this one is high, but sadly the game is far too short, too linear and too expensive for what you get, unless you're getting this for a young'un as it's quite kid-friendly (at most it brings up murder in conversation, in truth no one is killed or even injured). Maybe people can get lucky and beat the game in less than 2 hours and get a refund from Steam.

(Also, what's the deal with duck detectives having first names that start with 'E'?)

 

[MessiahMan]

No "Deadline" yet? You're a detective around a mansion where a murder has happened. You have to walk around, the whole thing's timed, listen to conversations for clues, follow people, interrogate people. Old Infocom, so it's their poor parser, but the game's great.

Edit:

I haven't played them, but Deadline is part 1 of a three part series, including Suspect and The Witness. I can't vouch for the other two having not played them yet, but they bear mention.

 

[Koschey]

Soon (hopefully).