Casebook 1899 - The Leipzig Murders – A test of your investigative skills – Review

Adventure games, especially point & click ones, can come in all shapes and sizes – this is something that Casebook 1899 - The Leipzig Murders was gracious enough to remind me of. This is a very specific kind of point & clicker, you see – one that a certain audience will love, but others who look for traditional adventure game experiences might find a bit more difficult to appreciate. Granted, I personally enjoyed it (for the most part, anyway), but depending on your expectations, your mileage may vary.

Connecting the dots

Put simply, this is a detective game. An investigation game. And I mean that in the strictest sense possible: this is generally the kind of game that requires you to be a detective and… you know, detect things. What’s more, it expects you to choose your own deductions, draw up connections and possibilities, and work out a potential culprit. The fundamentals of point & click titles are still present, mind you: you pick up items and use them to solve puzzles, but the real star of the show is always going to be your detective notebook, where you jot down clues, motives and suspects based on what you discover throughout your adventures. Related clues can be matched together to create more connections and further fill out your notebook, and once you have enough clues in place, you can connect the dots in a way that makes sense to you, thus accusing the person of your choice. Refreshingly enough, you’re given full control with no hand-holding whatsoever: after all, you’re the detective, your word is final, and you – and you alone – have the right to decide who to accuse and how to solve the case. Additionally, whether or not your decision was the correct one isn’t initially revealed, and the game simply lets you continue on with the next case – in this sense, Casebook 1899 reminded me of Lamplight City, another game that gave you the freedom to progress through the storyline even if you made potentially incorrect deductions.

In terms of narrative structure, Casebook 1899 consists of four chapters, each representing a standalone case and a different murder mystery. Do note, however, that these stories are extremely grounded, and never include any particularly fantastical or shocking revelations – this is neither Ace Attorney, nor an over-the-top crime drama, so don’t expect any macabre murders, insane conspiracies or cinematic twists and turns. It’s mostly just “oh, this guy died in a car crash” or “oh, this guy was probably poisoned in his room”. What I’m trying to say is that the actual storylines surrounding the murders are fairly plain, for lack of a better word, and they never attempt to stray too far from the realistic conditions of the game’s 19th century setting. Now, the plot does make an attempt at bringing things together in its final act with a “twist” of sorts, and I did enjoy the implications of what was ultimately revealed, but frankly, it kind of comes out of left field and is concluded just as swiftly as it is introduced. The game literally gets its grand finale out of its system in like 5 minutes, then shoves you into the end credits as if to say “okay, boys, we’re done here, time to go”. Whether it was done intentionally or not, this finale was nonetheless an interesting way to provide commentary on – and pull the rug out from under – the detective genre as a whole, but I was hoping it would’ve been fleshed out a bit more.

Hunting pixels

Despite my narrative gripes, however, the cases themselves are still fun to solve, and become gradually more complex as you progress further in the game. The final chapter in particular involved a couple of decently tricky puzzles, albeit I do also have to point out that some of them felt difficult for the wrong reasons, and included what I can only assume were complete red herrings (or at least elements that felt like red herrings). I also have to note that the game likes to indulge in quite a bit of pixel hunting, which would’ve been mildly annoying if not for the built-in hotspot highlighter; similarly, there were a handful of occasions during my playthrough where I hit a brick wall simply because I failed to notice something fairly insignificant.

As for the puzzles themselves: they’re pretty fun and varied, but ironically enough, for a game with such a grounded and realistic setting, some of things you end up doing come off as unapologetically video game-y. To give you an example, there’s a part where you need to pick up an item on a rooftop, but a cat is blocking the way. Ignoring the fact that the protagonist, a grown man, is somehow incapable of shooing away the grumpy feline, the solution isn’t any less unbelievable: you have to put glue and cookie crumbs on one of the chimneys, which just so happens to attract a magpie, which then distracts the cat as it tries to hunt the bird down. And keep in mind, you engage in all this tomfoolery simply because you’re too scared of going near the cat. This isn’t the only time when common sense is conveniently shoved aside to make a puzzle happen, but seeing how said puzzles are generally enjoyable to solve, I was willing to occasionally suspend my disbelief. And honestly? I was actually amused by how silly and adventure game-y some of the solutions were.

The final verdict

Casebook 1899 - The Leipzig MurdersPlatform: Windows, Linux, macOSGenre: AdventureDeveloper: Homo Narrans StudioPublisher: Homo Narrans StudioRelease: 09/04/2025We now come to the obvious question: should you play this game? Well, if you enjoy the process of collecting evidence, connecting dots and being a genuine detective, it’s a pretty fun – albeit hardly exceptional – experience, all things considered. The puzzles are fairly inventive, and it’s possible to get stuck here and there, but the game rarely leaves you in the dark, offering built-in accessibility features in the form of a companion NPC who points out hotspots and tells you whether or not you’ve collected all the evidence in a given area. The biggest dealbreaker will probably come in the form of the plot (or its lack thereof) for most people: as noted above, it’s just not very exciting, overall. However, if that’s something you can look past, and you’re just here to enjoy some good ol’ 19th century sleuthing, then Casebook 1899 is a decently solid choice for genre enthusiasts.

Casebook 1899 - The Leipzig Murders is available on Steam.