Those that love the Ace Attorney games tend to love games that are visual novels, particularly those rooted in the mystery genre. In terms of gameplay, puzzles are most suited for Ace Attorney fans as well.
First released in 2001, Ace Attorney is a series that influenced many games and other facets of pop culture after it. The series was beloved enough to get its own anime, manga, drama CDs, spin-off games, musicals, and even a live-action movie.
While that story may sound quite different from Ace Attorney, its main commonalities are in its gameplay, mechanics, visual novel style, and memorable characters. Every time a student is killed, the player must solve the mystery of who among them is the killer.
This game is for escape room fans, as the premise is a bunch of characters waking up trapped in a giant escape room. There are a ton of puzzles, and the characters are all quite memorable and interesting to get to know.
The Professor Layton series has been releasing games for a while, with its earliest release in 2007 and its latest in 2017. It's been compared to Ace Attorney enough that it even spawn a crossover game between the two franchises in 2012 — Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.
While it may seem like just a cute joke from its title, Aviary Attorney is a game well-loved by all who have played it. The game takes place in France during the 1840s. Players take the role of Jayjay Falcon, a lawyer.
Grim Fandango actually predates Ace Attorney, having been released in 1998. However, Ace Attorney players are still bound to love it. Set in the Land of the Dead, the game is rooted in film noir traditions and puzzles, and keeps the story very focused on conversation. The game won a ton of awards and it is not unusual to see it listed as one ...
With its sleazy jazz soundtrack, gritty monologues, and trenchcoat-wearing hero, Under a Killing Moon is unashamedly an homage to film noir—but set in San Francisco in the future of 2042.
Before it goes all indulgent and supernatural at the halfway point, Fahrenheit is a brilliantly tense crime thriller. The opening scene where you cover up a murder scene as one character, then investigate it later as a homicide detective, is a highlight. A confused mess of a game, but one with a few standout moments.
The story mirrors the film a little too closely, but McCoy does a lot more detecting than Deckard. Much of the game is spent scouring the city for clues and interrogating suspects, and the atmosphere is absolutely incredible, perfectly capturing the dark, melancholy mood of the movie.
And eventually his story becomes entwined with another, very different playable character. This is another entry that isn't strictly a detective game, but has the feel of one.
Enter Manny Cavelera, an afterlife travel agent with a jerk of a boss, a smarmy rival, and conspiracy to solve.
In the seedy underbelly of Ankh Morpork, private investigator Lewton has been hired to investigate a brutal murder in the city and quickly becomes embroiled in a dark and sinister plot. Many fans of the Discworld novels will recognise locations and characters in Ankh Morpork, such as The Palace and the City Watch, but unlike the first two Discworld games, Noir takes on an edge of its own, deviating from the usual tone of the series by swapping wizardry and magic for werewolves and jazz bars.
Frog Detective 2: The Case of the Invisible Wizard dumps the greatest detective in the world – who just so happens to be a frog – on another island with plenty of townsfolk to question and hidden objects to discover with a gigantic magnifying glass.
The simplicity of this mystery is in the real detective work and the hours you’ll need to put in to tie up every loose thread. Instead of unravelling a live murder or ongoing case, you’re working on a proper cold case, scouring through the eerie interior of the vessel for any and all evidence you can get your hands on.
The Broken Sword series follows George Stobbart and Nico Collard as they are drawn into dark conspiracies and ancient plots. The writing is sharp and charming, as George and Nico become tangled in all sorts of villainous escapades over the course of the series, meeting and questioning eccentric characters wherever they go. Broken Sword is a wonderfully testing point and click adventure series, taking polite murder and intrigue to the romantic and idyllic cobbled streets of Paris and beyond.
Holmes’ otherworldly intuition will help you out from time to time, but what makes Crimes and Punishments special is how much freedom you’re allowed to get things wrong. It’s possible to luck out and condemn the right crook, but you’ll often be left wondering if you drew the right conclusions or missed a key piece of evidence as you wrap a case.
Broken Sword isn’t quite Monkey Island in the point-and-click adventure games rankings, but it more than makes up for its lack of pirates, sword fights, and grog, with fiendishly clever puzzles that you’ll spend just long enough pondering before you figure out the correct solution.
Every single character in the game looks true-to-life because of how their faces look and move. The developers used some neat motion scanning technology to capture the voice actors' faces as they gave their lines. You get to see every wrinkle, every shift of their jaw lines, and every twitch of their mouths as they speak and emote. There's so much attention to detail that it looks like you're watching a movie with real people. It's really stunning and stands out as a great example of advancing technology in video games.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is all about choosing your own adventure through living the life of a defense attorney. It's up to you to do a good job for your clients, meaning you have to make the best choices when going through the case. When you interview witnesses and suspects, there's a dialogue tree where you choose what you want to ask them, and then during the trial, you carefully choose the best evidence to support your argument. You get to the bottom of each investigation and trial on your own terms, either by following your instincts or listening to helpful suggestions from other characters. See More
The puzzles require great observational skills with many clues being found only after thoroughly exploring the location in which the puzzle resides. Oftentimes, these clues are very discreet, well hidden, and integrated into the environment in creative ways. Piecing everything together can be quite a challenge at times as the puzzles provide no instructions, but also very rewarding as bits of the story are revealed after each successful solve.
The Danganronpa games have a wacky but intriguing setup: locking a dozen or so students in a school together, and forcing them to kill each other in order to be allowed to leave. The twist is that the murderer can only leave if they are not discovered during a class trial. It's really messed up to watch the lengths the school's "headmaster" goes to in their efforts to drive the students insane and force them to kill their friends. At the same time, you get to know a lot about these individuals in seeing just how far they go to scheme and murder each other, all while attempting to cover up their tracks so as to not get found out. See More
The Wolf Among Us is a murder mystery story that has great characters, action-packed moments, and really interesting twists. What's even better is that you can affect how the story plays out with dialogue options, investigation choices, and even actions during a fights or chase sequences.
While most players will recognize fairy tale characters like Snow White or the Big Bad Wolf, there are many obscure characters such as Ichabod Crane or Bluebeard. Luckily enough, the game has an in-game encyclopedia that will update as you encounter new characters. Their encyclopedia entry will contain background info and the fairy tale they first appeared in while also providing insights on their current situation. The encyclopedia not only fills you in but also is a very enjoyable and interesting read. See More
As this is a character-heavy visual novel game , it helps a lot that the art for the characters are all really well-done. Full of expressive personality, they look just like the ones in the series' anime. Their exaggerated humor shows through their designs and animations, helping the game to stand on its art and writing without more complicated animations or even much voice acting. Experiencing the story through the character art doesn't get tiring, since it does such a good job of carrying the whole legal drama.
The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a first-person horror game that really puts the player's deductive reasoning and investigation skills to the test. Players take control of Paul Prospero, a detective that specializes in the occult. A letter from a boy named Ethan Carter sends him to Red Creek Valley, Ethan's home and the sight of more than one homicide that catches his attention. Players use Paul's ability to communicate with the dead and their own observation skills to find clues and figure out the dark secret of Red Creek Valley and the fate of Ethan.
Solving puzzles is the only way to progress through the game, and each game consists of a collection of different style puzzles, like mazes, brainteasers, math problems, etc.
What makes a good detective game? Obviously, a mystery that needs to be solved and a set of challenging but still enjoyable puzzles and objectives to be completed. The right atmosphere is important as well, whether it is set in a smoky lounge in the 1940s or a more modern city setting, players should feel like they're thoroughly immersed in the world the mystery takes place in.
Players use Batman's stealth, combat skills and gadgets to aid him in missions. The game even has a "Detective Mode" that turns the screen blue and highlights things of interest, like interactive objects, the status of enemies and more, that can be used to solve puzzles and find clues.
5 The Wolf Among Us. The Wolf Among Us mixes fairytales and fables together with the dark and grittiness of crime dramas. Based on the Fables comic book series, The Wolf Among Us takes place in a community called Fabletown, inhabited by many characters depicted in folklore and fairytales.
Players are made to feel like they really are a detective working on a case as the visuals of the game are set up to look like an old desktop at a police station. Players are tasked with solving the fictional case of a missing man by searching through a database of police interviews. The interviews focus on the missing person's wife and players have to use their own deductive reasoning to figure out if she's innocent or if she played a part of his disappearance.
This retro game is based on the 1989 comic characters Sam and Max, an anthropomorphic dog and a hyperactive rabbit who are freelance detectives. Players control Sam and Max as they investigate the disappearance of a bigfoot from a carnival.
Virtual murder mystery games are role-playing detective games that you can play on your preferred video-calling platforms such as Zoom and Skype. There is a plethora of themes, games, and activities you can choose from. They included fully hosted games to free downloadable ones that you can use for your next virtual murder mystery dinner, party, or event.
There is no particular limit to players, but most virtual murder mysteries involve 8 to 15 participants. It really depends on which storyline you choose and your preferences.
Online murder mystery also has great benefits when it comes to team bonding. It builds a sense of community through creative role-playing, and they are awesome games to play in person or at a virtual party. Virtual murder mystery games also act as mental exercises while being fun. Your team has the opportunity to collaborate and build community.
The Zombie Cannibal Asylum is set to be on zombie apocalypse doomsday. Zombie Cannibal Asylum takes place during a zombie apocalypse. The setting for the game is a psychiatric assignment where a deranged doctor uses inmates as test subjects.
Red Herring Games has brought you the most mysterious and lively plots to engage your team. They have created some of the best online murder mystery games that will make you feel like you are solving a real crime. It is super easy to set up, and there is plenty of different thrilling themes to choose from!
Detective Ness has been in the murder mystery business for 15 years and has everything planned out for you. They have professional actors that host your evening of mystery virtually, which makes the planning process stress-free.
Ideally it works for groups of 3 to 5 people, if you have more than that then you can split into teams with 1 code each and see which team can finish it first.
Murder at the Mafia takes place at a big birthday party of the big Mafia boss, Don Corleone. Of course, it's nice when everyone's dressed festively, but it's not necessarily necessary. Some characters are very suitable to have nice attributes with thembut it is not necessary.
Here it is important to know that there are 9 main roles. It is wise to give them to people who don't mind reading a text in front of everyone. The other roles are supporting roles.
Don Corleone, the largest Mafia boss in Italy, celebrates his birthday every year. All mafia families are invited and not coming is not an option. Actually everyone hates this bad man, even his own family members. The party was in full swing and suddenly there was the news that Don Corleone died.
His own bodyguard Massimo. But even Don Corleone's Consigliere (the right hand) can't be trusted. Luckily, there are plenty of people out there who've been involved in criminal activity before. No doubt they can help the detective present solve this brutal murder.
Each role gets some information, which has to be shared proactively with your conversation partner. But sometimes you only have to share the information when asked to do so. A murder has been committed and then all players have to find out who did it and why.
The game leader can play along as well. If you print out the evidence in advance, but don't read through it in advance, you can (in the role of detective and game leader) join in the search for the killer.
No. If your space is big enough for the group you're going to play with, then it's fine for the murder game, as well. It's necessary that people can go to each other to interrogate each other.