You know that moment when the detective is reviewing evidence for their latest case and suddenly everything clicks? That process is so delightful that we're always trying to unravel the mystery before the detective does.
Over the last few years, we've seen some brilliant games that capture that experience, like Return of the Obra Dinn and The Case of the Golden Idol, or less-obviously-detective games like Outer Wilds! Yet still we feel this is an untapped design space that we'd love to see explored further. So here we are now, hosting a jam about thinky detective games, to see what brilliant new detective games you wonderful people can come up with!
Since detective game development is a strange and unusual world for many of us, we thought it'd be great to get some inspiration from the experts — so without further ado...
We're incredibly excited to have Andrejs Kļaviņš and Ernests Kļaviņš, creators of IGF award winning The Case of the Golden Idol, kicking off the jam with a talk on designing detective games! Watch the talk here:
Discuss the jam on the Thinky Games Discord
So, what's the theme?
Just that: make a thinky detective game!
Specifically, we'd love to see games that capture the detective case-solving process through their mechanics, like The Case of the Golden Idol or Return of the Obra Dinn (see "Resources" below for more references). Gather clues and evidence, turn insights into hypotheses, and unravel a confounding mystery.
Here's some tips:
🥳 Take your favorite detective game as a starting point and add a twist to it!
🎞️ Draw inspiration from other detective stories!
🧩 Find creative ways to express the detective case-solving process!
🎨 Explore a unique theme for detective gameplay - no need to have an actual detective!
You keep saying "thinky" games
Right! For us, thinky games are those that invite you to carefully reason your way through problems and challenges — games involving puzzles, logic, deduction, strategy, deep systems, engineering, and more, often brimming with aha moments! While many thinky games are also puzzle games, we find thinkiness all over the gaming landscape, from strategy games to adventure games to narrative games.
For examples, take a look at the kinds of games we cover on our website, or take a look at Astra's list of thinky game inspirations.
What are the rules of the jam?
This is a very relaxed jam! Just aim to make a game that follows the theme, but we won't be strict about it. Use any engine, make a puzzle book, create a board game, a VR game, or whatever you like. Feel free to use any existing assets (as long as you have the rights to do so). We may remove submissions if they contain offensive content.
We welcome everyone to the jam, whether you're a designer, programmer, artist, musician, sound designer, narrative designer, or anything, and no matter your background or experience.
There are no votes, ranking, or prizes in this jam. The jam is more than 2 weeks long, but we don't expect everyone to use the full time! If you'd like to treat it like a shorter jam, we'd love to see whatever you make. Please just have fun and take care of yourselves.
Resources
Making a detective game can be quite a challenge! If you want to do some research before brainstorming concepts for your game, we've got you covered!
Detective game design and other media
First of all, Mark Brown from GMTK has a fair few videos on the subject:
- On the genre in general:
- On some specific games:
You can also watch some talks from the creators of games with great detective vibes such as: Outer Wilds, Return of the Obra Dinn, and The Case of the Golden Idol (1 2 3 4).
In addition to those games, you might want to check out: Unheard, Her Story, Ace Attorney, Paradise Killer, The Forgotten City, Case Cracker, Keyword: A Spider’s Thread, Cracks Where the Light Gets In, Frogwares' Sherlock games, Detective Grimoire, Tangle Tower, and Where's An Egg. And always keep in mind that you could find inspiration in other places, like movies or board games.
Detective logic and reasoning
Of course, you could also dive into the logic behind detective games! While we often talk about "deductive" logic ("if X and Y are true, Z must be true!"), which is a very important part of any detective work, such work also typically includes another form of reasoning called "abduction". Abduction is the process of conjuring up an explanation that explains some observed evidence. Of course, there may be many possible explanations for some evidence, so the process of narrowing them down is often known as inference to the best explanation.
Here's the classic example used to demonstrate abductive reasoning: let's say you wake up one morning to find a half-eaten sandwich in the kitchen. The most reasonable explanation might be that your flatmate made a sandwich and started eating it, but then realized they were late for work and left the sandwich behind. However, it's also possible that a burglar broke into your house, got hungry and made themselves a sandwich, and then ran off when they heard you getting up! However, one of these explanations is probably more likely than the other! Perhaps with some more evidence, you can figure out which is the correct one.
There are plenty of resources available about all kinds of logical reasoning. Here's a few links:
- Logical reasoning
- Deductive reasoning
- Inductive reasoning
- Abductive reasoning
- Abduction (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)!
Streamers
The following streamers/let's players are joining us to try out some of your detective game creations! If you'd like to request a streamer try out your game, we recommend getting in touch with them!
| Sunday 17th Dec |  |
4pm PST / midnight UTC rufus_dufus0 (Alex) |
| Monday 18th Dec |  |
4pm PST / midnight UTC no_xiruo (xiruo) |
| Tuesday 19th Dec |  |
11am PST / 7pm UTC Joe Plays Puzzle Games |
| Wednesday 20th Dec |  |
7pm PST / 3am UTC (21st) Ambierona |
| Thursday 21st Dec | |
4pm PST / midnight UTC no_xiruo (xiruo) |
| Friday 22nd Dec |  |
1pm PST / 9pm UTC Thinky Games |
You can also expect some videos in the days after the jam from the following channels:
 |
GothicLordUK |
Code of Conduct
Please be kind and respectful towards each other! We expect all participants to behave according to our code of conduct, and may take actions such as warning or removing an individual from the jam in case of any unacceptable behavior.
If you'd like to reach out to us with any concerns, please contact conduct@thinkygames.com.
Who is behind this?
This jam is organized by Thinky Games, the place to discover great thinky games and join the thinky fan community. We love playing and making these kinds of games, so we hope our jam encourages more of you to explore this space.
Join us: Discord | Newsletter | YouTube | Twitch
Follow us: Twitter | Mastodon | Bluesky | Facebook
We wouldn't be able to run this jam without support from Astra Logical, an indie publisher of premium thinky games powered by passionate folks. An evolution of the philanthropic Astra Fund, Astra Logical is all about fostering the growth of logic-driven and creative-thinking games, helping them reach players all across the gaming universe.
Special thanks to Leyre for the jam artwork, and to Andrejs and Ernests from Color Gray Games for supporting us with the kick-off talk!
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