Celia

The secret to keep consistency through all my games?? I use the SAME color palette ✨🎨🌸
#IndieGameDev #indiegames #cozygames #gamedev #screenshotsaturday

I already have lots of ideas about how I can improve the puzzles in My Friends the Monster Trainers, so there will be a post-jam version.

Anyone who tries it out, definitely give us feedback on what works well and what parts can be improved!

My Friends the Monster Trainers by Celia, jamwitch Gotta deduce 'em all!

This #LudumDare 's narrative deduction game: stuck at home while your friends go catch monsters and battle trainers, can you complete your Monster Tracker with deduction alone? Follow the story and search for tricky clues in your friends' letters.

celia14.itch.io/my-friends-t...

#ld58 #gamedev

I thought while voting, “collector” is the most @rosekeller.bsky.social -coded of all the theme options, I wonder if that will be it 😄

Final Round Theme Voting

Ludum Dare 58 kicks off in 6 hours! Cast your vote!

ldjam.com #LDJam

I got to playtest Mind Diver earlier, but now that it's out I had to replay! Great narrative game - I love the use of deduction puzzles to draw you in without ever taking the focus from the very well-written and acted story and characters. It's a short game and on sale, so definitely check it out!

Yeah, I also like Badger Town and their straightforward play style. It’s a better story for them to be dead last than 6th or 7th place, tbh - maybe next season the underdogs (underbadgers) will make a comeback!

But even if you don’t care about making up stories about random names, and you don’t care about sports, the puzzle itself is also just fun. I like that there’s 2-3 easy/medium ones and one optional hard one each day, good mix of satisfying and challenging.

The reason I gave Kickoff League a shot was because it made me think of Blaseball. Definitely not at Blaseball’s level of insanity and community creativity, but I can still get attached to names on the screen and their randomized successes! (Daniela Munoz is the best! 🌸)

Kickoff League: Daily Soccer Puzzle Game Figure out how the goals in today's soccer match were scored. A new puzzle is available each day.

Kickoff League 🏆🌟 (Sep 30, 2025)
Goals: ⭐⭐⭐
Forbidden: 🌟
Completed in 1m 52s
kickoffleague.com

Woo, my favorite team are the champs!! 🎉

Getting into #KickoffLeague has been great, the daily puzzle is challenging and fun, and it’s been surprisingly fun to follow the teams (as a non sports person.)

🧠🤿MIND DIVER IS OUT NOW!🧠🤿

“Mind Diver is absolutely captivating”-Lucas Pope

“It's the kind of game that makes you remember why you love games”-heavyeyed

Investigate a broken mind to solve a twisted case. Uncover a story of love and lies.
store.steampowered.com/app/2259330/...
#indiegames #gaming

Totally! I liked the murder mystery as a puzzle, though I think a more personal/character-focused case might have been nice for the final one. My favorite was the concert, fun feeling of scale and I liked looking at people’s social media for clues. Family tree case was also great!

Just finished up the last case of Little Problems! So cute! From the demo, I was worried it'd be a little easy - so I was pleasantly surprised to find some nice complex and interesting cases in the full game. Love a puzzle game that's both adorable and a good challenge! 💖

Good chance to get two awesome games! Neither particularly crime-based, when you think about it, but they are cozy and a great thinky time!

12 Word Searches by Playcebo Find all the words!

I got really sucked into 12 Word Searches last night. It's a PDF puzzle game (I recommend playing in Firefox, so you can use the highlighter tool) that starts simple and layers on a bunch of rules and fun puzzles. Strong recommend! playcebo.itch.io/12-word-sear...

Yeah I agree, deduction is not quite accurate. (Wasn’t sure if I should use deduction to describe Dungeon Descent either because it has more serendipity/discovery over hard deduction...) But I def feel there’s a unifying thread here, and need some name for the subgenre that’s understandable, heh

I love this! Really cool to hear Mind Diver’s process!

I happen to love "random access" search for a number of reasons - finding something new is a great thrill on its own, and the feeling of "it was there all along if you only knew where to look" is really cool.

But yeah, I didn't mean to limit it by specifically mentioning search.

For getting the info, I can think of these buckets:
1. Receiving new evidence directly
2. Active investigation of the scene
3. Database-style search

In all cases you're analyzing and drawing conclusions from the info you have, but 2 and 3 add an additional layer of puzzle to get that info.

Yes you're right. I think I'd say it like this:

The two mechanical elements of a deduction game are
1. Getting the info
2. Entering a solution

We can consider what those mechanics are and what prominence they have in the gameplay (if at all - entering a solution is optional.)

you're right, it does; for example, outer wilds has great investigation with a similar "insert knowledge to progress" mechanism. however, i think the static part of it does contribute to a coherent sense of genre. there's something about viewing the mystery from "outside" that can be really engaging

Not to quibble on what counts or not, since that's less interesting than talking what the features are and how they work, but Roottrees is totally static. There's no characterized PC and you never have agency to influence the story - you're not even learning info your employer doesn't already know.

It's a matter of taste whether you find that works better for you than other mystery games - but I do think it's valuable to draw a line that lets us discuss this small subset and its approach. Genre lines are always blurry, of course, but that doesn't make it limiting to choose to discuss a subset.

I really agree with @gulbanana.au on this one. Hard to put into words, but being an outsider looking at static evidence can feel more direct and immediate to me - no extra layers like personal stakes for a PC, instead I'm just interacting directly with the puzzles and story.

I think what you’re pointing out is the use of a search mechanic or a solve mechanic (or both.)

Games that have neither don’t count, IMO, even if you’re investigating - Gone Home comes to mind. That hit from succeeding at the mechanic (finding new stuff/getting it right) is part of the magic.

I would never have called myself a detective game fan before falling for Roottrees etc and hearing it called a detective game! 😄 I like the puzzle and narrative aspects, whereas crime fiction doesn’t appeal to me at all. So I do kind of like making a distinction there.

I don’t disagree necessarily, but then I’d want a more specific term for a game where you play as a detective, talk to suspects, accuse culprits, etc. To me that has a super different feeling than a static deduction game that may not even involve crime.

Oh yeah! I’d probably err on the side of including DM - the investigation of static evidence to learn the story is there, and you specifically can’t influence anything during the main run of the game. And I do think “static but unfolding over multiple days” is an interesting idea!

Yeah fair. I’m now into the “genre is a group of features present in diff amounts” idea, and Ratline has a ton of features in common with static deduction games, while also having strong detective game features (a distinct PC, you do affect the game world by solving.) I don’t mind including it!

Also caveat these comments are just my thoughts off the top of my head. It's really fun to play with these classifications and identify similar threads between games - but I never want to sound like I'm trying to give my opinions as "correct" or anything, it's just fun to discuss. 🙂