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0 Time to put those little grey cells to work in another murder deduction mystery from solo developer K148 Game Studio. This time, the investigation shifts from a motel to three new locations in DETECTIVE – The Test, launching on April 7, 2025.
Investigating the Gameplay
The premise is simple, explore a location, find clues, and solve the crime. The first is a suburban house with missing keys, false rocks, and puzzle boxes your obstacles to success. A trailer park love triangle and an undercover police operation gone wrong at a coffee shop are your other cases. You don’t get an introductory cutscene for each case, you get a screen advising you to use pen and paper to write down clues throughout the investigation. Each location has a small area with papers to find and puzzles to solve.
The trailer park’s mobile phone puzzle was frustrating. Only through research of the previous game revealed the correct combination, as the in-game clues didn’t help. Strangely, solving crimes can require no real investigation. A tablet provides all character information, allowing trial-and-error guessing. No arrest cutscenes play—only a grade screen appears. On the house map, I skipped investigation, guessed correctly, and still earned an A+ rating. Maybe detective school is my true calling!
Deducing the Graphics & Audio
The game looks decent in places. I spent time admiring in-game artwork, posters on COVID, and the lunch menu. Some textures stick out, like rocks in the house level, where you can see the texture edges. There isn’t much difference from previous games in the series in terms of sound, except the lack of voice acting which, despite being a bit wooden in the previous entry, is still better than a silent protagonist and the repetitive ominous drawl of the soundtrack. There are subtitles included on clues and the ability to zoom, those are some accessibility features that are welcomed. However, with a lack of other features, such as text scaling and control changes, the options that are included aren’t there due to effort but already baked into the game engine.
Detecting my Final Thoughts
The game improves slightly on its predecessor, but still there’s no case explanation, and you can brute-force solutions. I didn’t need pen and paper, which is why I finished all three scenarios in just 55 minutes. The killer never changes, unlike in recent murder mystery games, reducing replay value. As a genre fan, some murderers and motives felt overly simple.
As a solo indie developer, I respect the effort involved. However, taking notes seems to just be a feature to artificially extend the playtime past Steam’s refund window, which is a bit dishonest in this writer’s opinion. Although this isn’t the case on PS5.
I am giving DETECTIVE: The Test a Thumb Culture Bronze Award.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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