The Incident At Galley House review – an enthralling deduction game that can’t escape the genre’s classic problem

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The Incident At Galley House review – an enthralling deduction game that can’t escape the genre’s classic problem

Rock Paper Shotgun · 3 hours ago

The Incident At Galley House is a new deduction game from Evil Trout, the developer behind The Roottrees Are Dead, in which players investigate a series of mysterious deaths at a boarded-up 1930s manor using a homemade device dubbed the "Guess Who machine". As with acclaimed genre predecessors such as Her Story and TR-49, the game is designed to be played with minimal foreknowledge, encouraging players to piece together the truth from fragmented evidence rather than a linear narrative, and the reviewer recommends it to fans of that style while flagging some reservations about a recurring weakness in deduction games.

Players use the machine's dials, sliders and switches to input a time, location and list of present characters in order to "tune in" to and replay scenes from the fatal night, gradually building a picture of events and relationships through overheard dialogue and clues. The game began life as Type Help, a free text adventure by William Rous released the previous year, which Evil Trout has reworked into a fuller visual experience that goes beyond simply illustrating the original text, notably by automating evidence-collation tasks players previously had to manage themselves.

  • New deduction game reimagines William Rous's text adventure Type Help visually.
  • Players use a "Guess Who machine" to replay scenes and solve manor deaths.
  • Comparable to Her Story and TR-49, but shares the genre's classic flaw.

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