The Incident at Galley House

I'd recommend this on sale, but roughly 7 hours for full price isn't the best offering. The game is good, although the ending is quite unsatisfying.

This is such a brilliant detective game that has a somewhat scary story behind it. I would definitely recommend it.

Fantastic. Really scratched similar itch to Rootrees are Dead. I feel Rootrees is better as there was more to do. Yet the fact that I stayed up all night and binged the game in two sessions tells you how much it hooks you!

This game is not deserving of the “Overwhelmingly Positive” review status that currently stands. It’s overpriced for what it is. It’s vibe-coded, the controls are janky, the graphics and UI are very dated, the voice acting is poor. I don’t recommend

One of the best games of the year, and an obvious recommendation for all deductive puzzler fans. Between this and 'The Roottrees Are Dead', Evil Trout have demonstrated themselves to be one of the best developers in this niche, combining fantastic mechanical hooks and stellar puzzle design. But if there were any complaints I had about 'The Roottrees Are Dead', they were that the game was visually ugly and narratively drab. Both of those complaints have been fully addressed for their follow-up, which not only contains gorgeous illustrations, but also contains a far more unpredictable and exciting plot. The one-sentence pitch is "TR-49 meets The Roottrees Are Dead for a spooky mansion murder mystery. You've been tasked with investigating the unexplained massacre that happened decades prior at Galley House. To solve the mystery, you've been granted access to a seance machine, a device capable of accessing moments in time during the time period in question. To access individual scenes, you need to determine when in the timeline they took place, where they took place, and who was present. The game is a bit more minimalistic than 'Roottrees', having you instead listen in on audio dramas in each scene and using those to determine what's going on and what other scenes you can now access based on hints in the conversations. Having people comb through dialogue is a really risky design choice, since it can easily become so obvious that the dialogue feels stupid or so vague that you have no clue. 'The Incident at Galley House' deftly navigates the issue, crafting a narrative that allows for some natural exposition while also leaving enough details obscured that you have to really pay attention to track down certain scenes. The narrative is genuinely spectacular. I'll keep things vague since I strongly recommend the game and think it's best to go in with as little information as possible. Needless to say, the Agatha Christie/Scooby-Doo mansion is a wonderful setting, and the plot is genuinely inventive. Dialogue early in the game utterly confused me and made me think it was poorly written, but there's a point when you realize it's all very intentional, and everything suddenly snaps into focus. After that, it's utterly fascinating, with a pretty genius finale. For complaints, I wish that the game had a little more interactivity in terms of deductive puzzles to engage the player. As it stands, it can feel like I'm more of an audience than a participant. Additionally, the game has a weird difficulty curve. It's harder early on to access scenes since there are more characters and the nature of the mystery is still unclear. As bodies begin to drop and the mystery is revealed, it becomes easier to access scenes since there are fewer moving parts to keep track of. But even these complaints are minor nitpicks on an otherwise incredible title. I can clearly see why Evil Trout decided to pursue this with William Rous. He really captured lightning in a bottle and delivered a thoroughly unique experience that is sure to be one of the more standout titles of the year. I can't recommend you play it enough if it entices you even a little bit. I'd score it 9/10.

Excellent investigation game with a few great twists. Easy recommend if you liked games like Her Story and Roottrees are dead. Played on the steam deck with a keyboard and mouse, also playable with a gamepad.

A lot of fun! I was briefly stumped for a moment, mainly around scene 20, but the logic flow made sense to where once I thought about it and considered who was left I was able to figure out more points of interest to get me all the scenes filled out. I took my time with it, taking a lot of notes along the way but one could probably beat this in an afternoon if you were focused enough. Highly recommend the game to anyone that likes puzzle games with a large cast of characters.