About PLAY INQUEST
PLAY INQUEST is a murder-mystery detective game built on a single idea: every witness is lying about something, and your job is to catch them. You read a real case file, walk the scenes, question the suspects, and find the contradiction between their alibis. Then you make one accusation you cannot take back.
There are no points for puzzles that exist just to slow you down. The mystery is the puzzle. Every clue you find unlocks new questions, the alibis form a timeline, and the cracks in that timeline are the path to the killer. You can play solo, or pull in a friend for two-player co-op where you share the same case but each make your own final call.
Why one accusation, no undo
Most games that call themselves detective games are not really asking you to detect anything. You click every glowing object in a room, talk to everyone twice, and the game quietly tells you when you have found enough. PLAY INQUEST works the other way around. Nothing sparkles. Nothing tells you when you have "enough" evidence. You decide when you are ready to accuse, and once you do, that is the case, correct or not. That single rule, no walking it back, is what turns a checklist into an actual decision, and it is the one piece of design we will never soften just to make a case easier to finish.
Where the cases come from
The cases are inspired by real-world true crime and by the classic detective fiction that shaped the genre, golden-age locked-room puzzles, hardboiled noir, the country-house mystery, and the quieter procedural tradition of a detective who has to actually listen. They range across eras and settings, from a monsoon-locked mansion in 1962 Goa to a Calcutta manuscript vault to a Bombay film set, and while the launch tone leans noir, PLAY INQUEST is a murder-mystery and thriller engine first: the core loop of lying witnesses, contradicting alibis, and one irreversible accusation holds no matter the style around it. No case claims to retell a real crime; where one draws on the shape of an actual story or a genre convention, it is a work of fiction inspired by that tradition, not a factual account.
The Daily Dossier
Alongside the hand-crafted casebook, a brand-new case is generated every single day, the Daily Dossier. Each one is a full, self-contained mystery with its own setting, victim, suspects, and solvable contradiction, checked automatically before it ever reaches a player so a broken or unfair case never gets published. It means there is always something new to open, even after you have solved everything else in the casebook, and it is the closest thing PLAY INQUEST has to a daily habit worth coming back for.
Who makes it
PLAY INQUEST is made by Kuber, a solo indie developer. It started as a game I wanted to play myself, a detective story you actually have to solve, and grew into a collection of cases with new ones added over time. There is no studio, no publisher, and no roadmap dictated by anyone but the players who keep coming back to catch the next liar.
How to play
PLAY INQUEST runs in any modern browser on desktop or mobile, with an Android build on the way. Today's Daily Dossier and The Missing Watch tutorial can be started without an account. Signed-in detectives can play the handcrafted casebook, the latest seven daily cases, and two-player co-op. Premium adds replays, an archive of up to one year, random case challenges, and removes ads. It is normally $5 and currently 80% off at $1 for 30 days or $1/month, helping cover server bills and ongoing development. Sign in to keep your progress synced across devices and appear on the monthly leaderboard under your own detective alias.