The Somerton Man
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
On 1 December 1948, a body was found on Somerton Beach in Adelaide, Australia. From there unfolded one of the most perplexing (and still unsolved) mysteries of the 20th century.
This game seeks to recreate the experience of the 1948-1949 investigation. It is the first in a series (hopefully?) where I go back over miscellaneous ideas I've had for games over the past five or so years, using them as a starting point for experiments in form and design.
I completed this game in less than 72 hours, so don't expect a comprehensive recreation of the case. In particular, the game intentionally excludes information and theories that arose after 1949. If you want more detail on the case, there are a heap of sources available, but the Wikipedia article is fairly comprehensive as is 'The Unknown Man' by G M Feltus (if you can find a copy).
Additional credits:
Pencil Doodles: Designed by Freepik
Cardenio Modern font by Nils Cordes
Music: Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 582 by JS Bach, performed by Yayoi Yoshida.
WARNING: Mac and Linux builds are entirely untested, as I don't have access to either OS.
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Comments
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This made me feel like reading a very well written detective novel. One of the most interesting text games that I have played.
Wow, this is my favorite text based game I've played in a long time!
I think it's a really novel and interesting way to reveal an investigation. I loved how sometimes when I clicked on the next piece of evidence the camera would fly across the screen to reveal some new information connected to something already known. I also liked the way the information itself was very thoughtfully organized, with various clear areas of interest: the timeline, the map, the body, etc... I would love to see a detective game where the process of solving the investigations is visualized in a manner similar to this.
Thanks! I spent quite a while on the layout - I tried to make it so that some of the information would flow as if it was building to a resolution, and other details would just raise more questions about earlier info. Really glad you liked how it ended up :)