Homicide Desk

Homicide Desk puts you at a detective’s desk to investigate homicide cases. Each case gives you a file, a short list of suspects and a desktop of tools. You examine evidence, run lab tests and question suspects in your own words before deciding who to charge. There are no waypoints, glowing clues or cutscenes directing your thinking. A correct charge closes the case; a wrong one brings an Internal Affairs investigation.

Investigate the evidence

Case files contain nested folders of reports, statements and photos. Forensics requires hands-on work: align fingerprints, break ciphers and calibrate a chromatograph against the clock. You can cross-reference phone calls with timestamps, examine photo evidence with a UV light, and connect physical evidence on a board using string. Some locked or sealed documents require you to earn a code or unseal them during interrogation. Written deductions have consequences if you arrest the wrong person, and a case-chain tracker helps you follow the investigation.

Question suspects

Interrogations use free-text questions rather than dialogue trees. Suspects respond conversationally, deflecting, rationalizing or contradicting themselves. Presenting a document can raise a suspect’s stress; pressing them without evidence can make them ask for a lawyer and walk away, while the right evidence can break their story. Solved cases can be reopened, with multiple guilty-party variants that change the truth.

Ravenport and the precinct

Cases take place in Ravenport, a fictional, rain-soaked port city in the Republic of Meridia. The investigation runs through a CRT-era police operating system, complete with scanlines, a working world clock and weather on the taskbar. The case responds in real time with pressure emails and a mid-case twist. The precinct also includes a salary economy, patrol dispatch, a commissary and side games.