When you start up a game you believe will be a mystery of some sort, involving some intrigue and puzzle-solving, it can be a bit of a bummer to find out things play out a bit differently. Death Trick, though you will be working on a case, turned out to be a far more narratively-driven affair. While I consider that a bit less ideal, I will at least admit that the result turned out better than I initially anticipated, as normally games that overwhelm you with screens of text to read tend to irritate me after a while.

What helps keep Death Trick afloat, is a combination of things it does that aren’t what you’d expect, and giving you just enough agency to keep it from feeling like you’re just along for the ride. You’ll be working the case from two pretty different angles, one as a traditional gumshoe detective with memory issues, and one as a female magician who has an association with the deceased. This creates an interesting dynamic where you’ll have the opportunity to work witnesses and potential suspects very differently, exploiting information you’ve picked up as your other half to dig deeper.

What will give you pause is that you essentially only have so many actions you can take per “turn” as each person, so you’ll have to prioritize your thoughts and theories, not just randomly try everything in the hopes of something shaking out. The game ultimately then ends up being a bit of a character study, where you’ll need to try to understand each of the 8 people you’re able to interact with well enough to get hunches about who you should work on for more information. How you proceed and work with will affect which endings you’ll see, which at least also opens the door to it being worth working through a handful of hours again, trying something different to see how else things can play out.

I’m not typically a fan of experiences that are so focused on an abundance of text to read, but at least in this case it feels more rewarding than your average on-rails digital novel. While you can’t work your case as actively as is typical, you’re at least left to use your instincts to decide who to talk to and how to proceed, so you do retain some control over the outcome. If you don’t mind doing quite a bit of reading along the way, this may not be a bad match.