Hauntless

Not marking any spoilers because, given the nature of the game, it's not really possible to spoil the solution!

This one really drew me in; I liked the *Toby's Nose*-esque setup where you can guess the solution to the mystery at any time, but to gain any basis for guessing you first have to thoroughly investigate. I enjoyed checking out the different locations, unlocking more information as I explored, uncovering potential murder weapons, and most of all learning about the deceased circus employees, their backgrounds and their relationships to each other.

So far, so good... but eventually I hit a wall. A massive, impassible wall. I'd been to every location many times; I had taken notes on which bodies I'd found, where I'd found them, and how they'd died. The problem was, there was one body I hadn't found---Vivian's. And without finding her body, I had no way of guessing where or how she had died. I also had no idea who had done it. I'd been able to concretely rule out a few weapons, and... that was it.

I finally came up with some semblance of a theory and guessed. Wrongly. Again, and again. Through brute force, I finally got the answer... and was absolutely baffled, because I hadn't seen anything that would have led me to that conclusion. (I was able to solve the after-puzzle very handily, though, because *that* information I had!)

I now know that the who, how, and where of the murder are all randomized---different players get different solutions, and it seems some of those solutions are discoverable! I really wish I had gotten a different one, because finding the clues and piecing the answer together would have been very satisfying. I can only conclude that either I completely overlooked a description of me finding Vivian's lion-chewed bones in the illusion gallery (I ended up opening the source in Twine to see *how* I was supposed to have gained the knowledge that "lions" was the murder weapon), *or* that the game had a bug and her bones simply didn't exist in my playthrough. I also am not sure if I missed something implicating Casper; I did uncover info related to them, but nothing sufficient to make me believe they murdered Vivian.

As alluded to above, the randomized solution will make players' experiences with this game vary widely. Sadly, for me, it was a game with a lot of promise that ended up falling flat.

I like ghost stories, and mystery games, and circus settings, so this mystery game helping a ghost pass on set in a circus was enjoyable to me, though hard.

It's a choice-based game, and you move from location to location, trying to find all the information you can.

The game is randomized like Clue, with the murderer, location of the body, and murder weapon all chosen separately.

I at first thought I could play like some mystery games where it automatically records all pertinent information, so I didn't take notes, expecting the Notes tab would be an automatic collection of my thoughts. I was dismayed when I found that the notes was just a place for you to personally mark off what items you thought were most important! I played through a couple more times and used it then.

Another thing that makes the game difficult is that you have to visit areas repeatedly to see all info. Some things appear only on the second look-through.

Some of the randomized clues are much easier than others. The body location is the easiest (once you find it). Some of the murder weapon clues are much clearer than others. The person involved is the hardest; I was only really able to see what counted as an alibi and what doesn't by playing multiple times and comparing the two games.

So there are a few rough edges here and there, but I had enough fun to try it multiple times, and the art made by the artist (the author) contributed to the game.

Note: This review was written during Spring Thing 2025, and originally posted in the intfiction forum on 2 May 2025.

This is an atmospheric Twine-based piece, where you are a professional spirit exterminator investigating a haunted circus, and trying to solve the mysteries of unsettled spirits.

I liked a lot about this. The circus is a richly developed setting for a game world, and I enjoyed learning about the various characters involved with the circus. There’s a lot to uncover and a lot of depth.

On the downside I found the physical navigation around the circus somewhat problematic. I would often move from, say, location A to location B, but not be offered the chance to return to A directly. There is a “reorient yourself” option in the left side of the user interface, which I used a lot. This keeps a record of the locations you’ve visited, and how often you’ve visited each one, and lets you jump straight back to any one of them. Plus it includes hints of locations still left to discover. In this game it is often worth returning to a location you’ve visited before, and the “reorient yourself” list was handy for noting those places I hadn’t investigated too many times.

I found the number of characters and the secrets revealed for them overwhelming, but equally not enough clarity for me personally to rule most out as guilty or innocent of the crime I was investigating. There’s a “notes” section you can access, where you can make notes about guilty or innocent against a character. I just did not feel confident enough about that for the vast majority of cases. Equally there’s an “assignment details” button to reveal more witness statements. It took me a very long time to even notice that let alone use it. I kept on being puzzled when the game would refer to a witness statement, but I didn’t seem able to look at it and read it …

However, I worked my way through, had lots of fun, and managed to identify a key guilty party at the first go (extremely satisfying!). Which then opened up the option of investigating the circus further, or leaving the site. I chose to stay, and bring the game to a satisfying ultimate resolution. Though I had to take a brute force approach to this bit ((Spoiler - click to show)luckily you can try multiple options for how X was killed by Y with Z!).

I did notice a few small typos the author may want to fix. But generally the writing was very strong. Only one expression threw me and I had to google its meaning ((Spoiler - click to show)“bleacher seating” - I knew immediately what that was after googling!).

Nicely done. I was playing for about 70 minutes. Oh and I loved the art. And not done with AI. Well done!