Target player
Someone who finished Return of the Obra Dinn or The Rise of the Golden Idol and immediately wanted a second case — and was disappointed there wasn't one, because the puzzle only works once. Papers, Please fans for the same reason: a simple rule set that stays interesting because the input changes, not the fiction. Roguelike and logic-puzzle players who've never touched a detective game because the genre usually means reading, not solving, are the secondary audience.
Core loop
Pick up an evidence card, read its two or three facts, and drag it onto the board where a suspect's lane crosses a time column. The card locks in with a confidence ring — solid, dashed, or dotted.
Fill the board until every suspect but one is accounted for, then close the case. A reviewer challenges your single weakest standing pin. Back it up with a second card, or watch that suspect's charge drop into a partial clearance.
Standout systems
- The boardTimeline columns crossed with suspect lanes; every card has exactly one correct slot, and the game never hints at which.
- The generator + solverCases assemble from a hand-authored fragment library, but a solver rejects any shift that isn't exactly one consistent chain of guilt before it ever reaches the player.
- Cross-examinationAlways attacks your weakest standing pin at case close — never a random one — so the fix is always legible.
- BurnoutOvertime, overturned pins, and carried-over cases build burnout; past a threshold the board trembles and nudges pins you'd already trusted.
- The tourTwelve shifts per run, headline cases every third shift, and a clearance-rate review that decides what the next tour unlocks.
Differentiators
- One truth, not one script. A solver guarantees a single consistent chain of guilt every shift, turning a one-and-done genre into something you can play every night — without the placeholder-NPC flatness that dogged other procedural detective sandboxes.
- The board is the whole interface. No conversation tree, no tell-reading, no hidden hotspot. One verb — pin a card to a slot — carries the entire game.
- Burnout is the real opponent. A case you solved two shifts ago can still come back and cost you if you cut a corner to beat the clock. The threat late in a tour isn't a smarter suspect — it's your own backlog.
Key features
- Drag-to-pin timeline board — no dialogue trees, no hidden hotspots, one verb the whole game
- Constrained-procedural case generator paired with a solver that guarantees one consistent solution every shift
- Cross-examination always challenges your weakest pin, so every setback traces back to a legible choice
- Burnout and a late-tour board tremble make your own backlog the real late-game pressure
- Twelve-shift tours with unlockable evidence categories and a reshuffled city every run