The Detective Reaper Invites is an interesting game of logic and deduction. While it doesn’t go as deep as it could, there’s enough to give players a taste of deductive gameplay that will surely test one’s reasoning skills.
Logic games are often those that appeal to a very select group of players, with a small number having a cult following. A notable series is Ace Attorney, in which players took on the role of Phoenix Wright and used impressive amounts of deductive reasoning to solve court cases in overly dramatic fashions. Ace Attorney’s gameplay loop of multiple bouts of logic tests is supplemented by its story, keeping players enthralled and wanting more even if the cases are convoluted.
Now imagine a simpler gameplay loop of logic tests meshed with roguelite progression. That, dear reader, is The Detective Reaper Invites. It’s an interesting combination of two gameplay formats held together by simple 2D graphics and a relaxing ambiance.
The Detective Reaper Invites put me in the shoes of a Grim Reaper who’s thrust into an endless cycle of deducing culprits from murders. Culprits will always lie, while innocents will always tell the truth. Using a handful of interrogation cards to squeeze out additional information from several targets, I am to execute murderers while sparing innocent bystanders. Executing culprits allows me to proceed to the next case while killing innocents drains my health.
The deductive gameplay plays out quite simply. At the start of a case, I’m told the number of culprits who participated in the crime, the time at which the murder took place, as well as where (which room) the murder took place. Sometimes, the targets already have something to say allowing for snap judgements. There can be instances where only a few of the targets mention something, forcing me to use a strategy card by spending my available money to get a statement out of those who have not yet spoken.
During my first few levels, I realized quickly that I didn’t need to spend money on the strategy cards in my hand if everyone said something right from the start. Knowing that culprits always lie and innocents always tell the truth, my ability to deduce the liar (culprit) could often be done in one swoop. Let’s say there’s one culprit in a case involving three possible targets. If Person F says Person Y is not the culprit, Person Y says Person F is not the culprit, and Person B claims that the culprit has to be Person Y, the decision is easy: It’s Person B, as Persons F and Y are assuredly telling the truth.
Cases end up becoming far more difficult, however, occasionally putting me in a position where it felt like I was making a random decision because I didn’t have enough clues to make an informed choice. Some of that came from me not using my strategy cards wisely, so I wasn’t always in a position where the game felt unfair. However, the times where I used my strategy cards on potential targets only for them to say something benign like “The victim was so kind!” were quite frustrating. Having the ability to make no more than one incorrect guess before game over was frustrating, too, but that is part of the gameplay loop.
Thanks to the additional difficulty of depth in the form of locations and periods of time, deducing later cases became tests of my ability to manage the strategy cards I had acquired alongside using my money to use those cards only when absolutely necessary. In between deductions, I occasionally would come across a shop where I could buy run-specific upgrades, refill some health, or new cards. Random encounters broke up the mix, too, but they often were infrequent and involved me losing some health or gaining a new item.
I wish that there was something more to break up the cycle of going from deduction to deduction, especially since the difficulty ramps up in steep ways that sneak up on me. The occasional instances where I ended up on a random encounter felt like I was hitting a mild break in between deductions rather than something meaningful that could give me power that I truly needed or a glimpse into The Detective Reaper Invites’ lore. Additional cards could have helped add some variety, too, as there are around 30 cards that can be obtained and used during runs.
That said, The Detective Reaper Invites is not the deepest of roguelike experiences. It lacks persistent power across runs that encourages players to try again but with additional tools that weren’t available in earlier runs. Instead, it assumes that players will simply try again as a new Reaper, being increasingly mindful of their currency and (hopefully) more careful with pointing fingers and mindlessly slaying potential culprits.
I don’t want to say that The Detective Reaper Invites felt like a minigame. It hooked me in pretty quickly and didn’t yield frustration I’ve experienced from other deductive gameplay loops. It just didn’t feel like it reached a deep enough point to encourage me to spend more than several hours on it. It’s totally fine for a game like this to lack that depth, mind you. Some minigames are good for short bursts spread out over multiple periods of time. I can absolutely see The Detective Reaper Invites as something I will return to in a few weeks when I want something light to play that hits the deductive reasoning mark that I enjoy.
I fear that most players won’t give it a chance, however. Its current setup is one that is engaging enough for the short term but lacks the depth to encourage long term investment. My other concern is that the UI is quite cramped, making the figures on the in-game map hard to read next to the text. It also would be nice to have an in-game way of marking people as innocent (sort of how Minesweeper lets the player plant “flags” where mines are most likely to be placed).
The Detective Reaper Invites is an interesting game of logic and deduction. While it doesn’t go as deep as it could, there’s enough to give players a taste of deductive gameplay that will surely test one’s reasoning skills.
