CaseCracker 3
Confronted with fragmented narratives and deceptive persons of interest, you must isolate crucial evidence. Shatter logical loopholes from testimonies and reconstruct the crime scene from subtle clues. Can you survive this immersive battle of wits?
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CaseCracker on Steam
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No flashy visuals, just pure mental gymnastics. Actively search, cross-reference, and unravel the truth from a complex database. In this hardcore text-based deduction game, the devil is always in the details. Detective, are you ready?
CaseCracker is a text-based, detective and puzzle game
developed and published by BlackRobe.
Released on December 19th 2022 is available on Windows, MacOS, Steam Deck and Steam Machine.
It has received 2,871 reviews of which 2,613 were positive and 258 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.7 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 10.25€ on Steam, but you can find it for 6.33€ on G2A.
The Steam community has classified CaseCracker into these genres:
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System requirements
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Windows
- OS: Windows 10
- Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-3220
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 610
- DirectX: Version 9.0
- Storage: 2 GB available space
- Sound Card: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
MacOS
- OS: macOS Big Sur 11.0.1
- Processor: Intel 或 M1及以上
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: Intel Iris Graphics
- Storage: 2 GB available space
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User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Great indie investigative game from China about several murder mysteries in a small Chinese city (and some wacky extra things you can discover). The interface is a bit janky (particularly the note-taking) and some translations are off (tenses and genders as you’d expect from a language without them) but the creator’s intentions come through. The cases are interesting, with most characters having hidden motivations or connections, and the victims usually having several enemies. There is a lot of information and it’s a challenge to pare it down to what’s relevant and dispositive, particularly when juggling multiple suspects. As you go on you find characters from previous cases being alluded to, and to solve some later puzzles you need to go back to earlier cases. The cultural differences were interesting, though this made some clues harder to understand (eg the meaning of a golden toad). The cases were almost completely text, which honestly made them easier to deal with. There are probably better ways to search and organize the information but it’s forgivable given the game’s indie status. Some of the puzzles are a bit too obscure, particularly ones involving numeric sequences and codes that don’t have a particular character motivation behind them. The cases leave open major questions, making it tough to realize when you have enough information to arrest. Some of the mysteries will probably be addressed in the sequels. I thought the fourth-wall breaking was unnecessary, the core investigations are solid enough.
The good: - Engrossing story and worldbuilding - The rabbit holes you come across in these investigations are compelling and engaging. It almost feels like a wiki walk, in a good way. - It's immensely satisfying to find the one or two relevant video recordings in a sea of potential dates by applying logic and information gotten through other clues. - Using the car rental database from case 1 to solve a puzzle in case 3 was brilliant! - Side questions are cool and very rewarding. They also provide a reason to revisit old cases. - Almost every character in the game is connected, and so are the cases and the locations themselves. It makes the world of CaseCracker feel alive. - The case report system is a definite improvement over the traditional "pick one answer from a group of three/four" seen in most detective games. There are many more possibilities, and that forces the player to think and understand the case. - There were a lot of excellent and brilliant twists. - Interesting premises and obstacles. It's so cool to identify the victim of case 4. - The existence of Jiao Bin as a whole. I love this character. - Some out-of-game stuff is clever and very creative, like finding the HQ of Black Robe Inc. Keyword "some", because other examples are stupid. The bad: - The name of the killer in Case 2 is spoiled by the question about the alibi. It was as simple as replacing the name with "the killer" (and this is done in later cases, so I don't know why it wasn't done here). Edit: Later, I read on a Steam guide that this question is unlocked by "filling in Xin Youwei as the killer", but I'm not sure if this means it unlocks as soon as you drop his name on the killer box or if you send the report without fully filling it out first (or if you do fill everything out but get an answer wrong). If it unlocks as soon as you drop his name on the killer box, that's bad design because the player could just drop random names as they theorize and guess, and accidentally spoil themselves if they scroll down. - The player can accidentally access evidence before they are supposed to. In my experience, I searched "log" after reading about Liu Wei's murder because I thought there might have been a log of people who entered the duty office in Sky Electrical, but what I got was a clue you're supposed to obtain only after cracking the password in Sphinx. The ideal solution would be to write code that prevents the player from searching clues that are mentioned after an action (like cracking a password). - Sometimes, when reading a new clue, you can see the dialogue of a character who had a copy of the clue hidden in their house, even if their house has not been searched yet. It happens with the VAM Agreement, for example. This is an obvious spoiler. Like I said in the previous paragraph, code should be implemented to prevent the player from seeing things too early. - The in-game notepad doesn't automatically send a word to the next line when you reach the end of the current line. This is a super basic feature that I expect in any software (video game or not) that provides a way to type notes. Having to go back and untype part of a word because you realize it doesn't fit in that line wastes a lot of time, is infinitely annoying, and breaks the flow of thought. - There are very few songs in the game. They are good, but any song eventually becomes annoying when you hear it too many times. These were licensed through Creative Commons, meaning they are free and quick to implement, so there is no excuse. There should be at least five more songs to keep things varied and from getting stale (especially in case 1, which only has like four songs). - The updated translation to English still has some issues, even though it's better than the original (which I used when playing the demo in February 2026): 1. It uses unfitting words like "procuratorate", "biological deceased", "social-identity deceased", and "canvassing". 2. Sometimes characters say the wrong gender, like Chen Liang in the clue Li Jianjun, where he says "I've met his father" instead of "her father" (Li Yiying's). Also in case 1 when the Search Warrant section of Zhang Yanhong's profile says her real estate has been inherited by "his son". And when Junyan's ex boyfriend says "Sister Yao" even though Yao Yu is a man. 3. The "where the rivers meet" riddle doesn't make sense in English. 4. More potential issues in the following paragraphs. - 404's identity is absurdly hidden, and it requires knowledge of Chinese culture (the year of the rat/mouse). No one can figure this out. What inevitably happens is that you make a blind guess and the game then tells you the answer straight in the "In-depth investigation" files. Not satisfying at all. - The hint system makes it possible to waste detective points when one hint isn't enough to help you and you ask for another (which is the exact same). It should be programmed so that the same hint doesn't cost any additional points; or alternatively, prevent the player from triggering the hint purchase when they already paid for it. - We were told that the Sunliner sedan smashed a tree and made it fall, but the killer doesn't mention anything about this. I thought there was some purpose, but maybe he's just a bad driver? Terrible driver, if he hit that tree so hard unintentionally. I imagine this was done to give a clue to the player that the killer used a car near the river, but it feels cheap in hindsight. - Help text in the action menus tends to go offscreen, making it impossible to read it all. An example is Photo in case 2: the help text says "Pinpointing the filming location and floor level may help identify the". - After beating the game, I still don't know if the dots beneath the chapter names in Infiltration were made by Junting or Junyan. Junting's dialogue doesn't clarify - might be a translation issue again. - Jiao Bin's profile in Case 1 says he got the security guard job at the Raceway one year ago, but the same profile in Case 3 says it happened two years ago. Which one is it? - Case 2 accepts the personnel files as the method by which the killer obtained crucial information about the victim. However, Case 4 does not accept the orphan files for the same purpose, instead asking for the source of the information. Inconsistent standards. - Case 1 says the explosion in Mt. Urn happened on July 16, 2019, while the clue Sol in Case 3 says it happened on July 17, 2020. Also, the In-depth Investigation text about the puzzles says the police found Sol on July 18, even though it was the 17th (the day after the explosion, which happened on the 16th). - Jia Huasheng's advice sometimes doesn't line up with the actual names of the features she explains. For example, in case 2 she says to use "Info Search" if you're trying to pick out one clue from a pile, but the feature is called "Search Existing Information". This is only one example of many that can confuse the player. I assume this is probably a localization issue of consistency. - There is no hint in the game that spells out the name of the mathematician who died in a duel. It requires sinking time in the internet looking for famous French mathematicians. Additionally, the "life formula" mentioned by Wang Feng shows no relevant results in real life, so I suspect that's a mistranslation. - Ol' Ge's diaries should use more paragraphs. Right now they are uninviting walls of text. - It would be nice if photos showed actual photos to the player instead of being described with text. This was rectified in CaseCracker2, but still exists as a minor problem in this game. - No window should appear when you hover over a clue that doesn't have excerpts. Seeing "this clue does not have an excerpt yet" on every clue you hover over is distracting.
What a great little game. By the fourth case, I was using a pad and paper, and that made me incredibly happy. The mysteries are complex and rise in difficulty by virtue of the sheer amount of information in each case. The meta-mysteries are interesting and have a lot of real-life overlap, with some supernatural elements that remind me of the Paranormasight games, Chinese edition. Don't play this on deck unless you have no alternative: I started there and a keyboard and real mouse make life a lot easier. Contrary to other reviewers, I did not find the localization particularly poor. I can give you a list of much much worse if you like. I think the characters are all believably unique and the writing is good. Not a huge memory drain, if anything this is one step up from a text adventure and the last several decades of hardware could do it. Worth the buy in a bundle, I am really looking forward to the subsequent games. I had fun, and after completion and some rereading of my notes, I went for the guide to snag about five outstanding achievements. This is a gem of the investigation genre, go for it!
I'm marking positive because Steam doesn't have a middle-of-the-road option. Most of the game is genuinely good and enjoyable, but the ending is downright absurd and turned this game from a reasonable puzzle game into nonsense dream logic. Expecting people to remember things from prior cases (which were solved IRL days ago) is unfair with no prior warning. Expecting people to randomly look through the game's steam files to find a new file that wasn't there before in order to get the ending is completely ridiculous, and I never would have known to do that if not for a walkthrough. That's not clever, that is literally completely random. There are also a lot of issues with the English translation that pretty much any fluent English speaker would have been able to fix. It was still playable, but definitely noticeable for a game whose gameplay is 100% reliant on text. According to the latest update, there should be a retranslation for this game coming out soon. I'd recommend waiting until then.
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Frequently Asked Questions
CaseCracker is currently priced at 10.25€ on Steam.
No, CaseCracker is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 10.25€ on Steam.
Yes, CaseCracker received 2,613 positive votes out of a total of 2,871 achieving a rating of 8.73.
😎
CaseCracker was developed and published by BlackRobe.
Yes, CaseCracker is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Yes, CaseCracker is playable and fully supported on MacOS.
No, CaseCracker is not playable on Linux.
Yes, CaseCracker is playable on Steam Deck, though it might require a few minor tweaks. Make sure to check the Steam store page and community feedback on ProtonDB for exact compatibility details.
Yes, CaseCracker is playable on Steam Machine, though it might require a few minor tweaks. Make sure to check the Steam store page and community feedback on ProtonDB for exact compatibility details.
No, CaseCracker does not support VR.
CaseCracker is a single-player game.
No, CaseCracker does not currently offer any DLC.
No, CaseCracker does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
No, CaseCracker does not support Steam Remote Play.
Yes, CaseCracker is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for CaseCracker.
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Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 12 October 2026 22:58 UTC |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 20 October 2026 11:05 UTC |
| Steam price | 27 October 2026 03:29 UTC |
| Steam reviews | 19 October 2026 05:55 UTC |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about CaseCracker, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about CaseCracker
- SteamCharts - Analysis of CaseCracker concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck CaseCracker compatibility
Game modes
Features
Online players
8
Developer
BlackRobe
Publisher
BlackRobe
Release
19 Dec 2022
Platforms
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