True Crime Stories: Can You Cut It as a Postal Inspector?

Step into the role of a United States Postal Inspector and work your way through three cases of increasing difficulty, each inspired by a real-life crime.

True Crime Stories is published by Big Potato Games, with each case taking roughly an hour to play through.

Gameplay

Each case of True Crime Stories comes with various files to read through. Players will be asked a question to find the answer to, submitting their answer either via email or through a website, depending on how the case prompts them. Answering questions correctly will unlock further files, and the next question they have to answer in the case.

At times, players will also have to visit websites, send emails, or even make phone calls to follow leads. Solving each case will unlock the next one (although they are not connected story-wise, they are increasingly difficult and longer as you progress).

Review

There are plenty of detective-style games out there, but True Crime Stories did feel a little different. For one thing, this is the first one we’ve played where the cases are actually based on real-life crimes. Your mileage may vary on this, but we found that, with the cases selected, this did not come across as inappropriate but rather as an interesting addition to the cases. The real-world nature of them does not affect the cases themselves, but each one has a little paragraph or two, after they’ve been solved, giving a little background on the case. In fact, we would have enjoyed it if this section were even longer, as it was fun to see the steps taken by the real-world investigators to solve the cases we’d just tackled.

It was also fun to take on cases from the perspective of the United States Postal Inspection Service, and this also means that the game gives you a variety of case types and steps outside of the usual ‘murder mystery’ that this genre gives you. This might also make the game a good fit for people who want something lighter than a murder.

The online element can feel a little intimidating at first: sending out emails or making a phone call. But we got used to it and there’s not too much online interaction — which we appreciated as we didn’t want to be spending a lot of time staring at a screen — but it does add a fun element of immersion. We did have some issues with the emails, as some of them have pictures attached, and sometimes we had trouble getting them to load on the device we were using.

Answers are either submitted via email or on a website. We preferred the latter. There can be a delay in the email replies, and sometimes we were just waiting for the reply with nothing else to work on until it got back. We preferred the emails that were leads that we could send off and then focus on something else while we waited to hear back.

The production quality is excellent, and we enjoyed handling the evidence. There are a lot of files, but each one is a nice bite-sized length. It was always fun to see what was coming next, and we enjoyed each case. We also liked that you always have to submit your answer, so if you’re wrong, you can just go back to the drawing board, rather than having the answer spoiled for you, which happens in similar types of games.

Overall, the difficulty, even on the hardest case, never felt too much. Everything always felt logical, we never felt like an answer was unfair, and we never got frustrated. There were some fun ‘a-ha’ moments, and we generally felt pleased when we managed to deduce the next step. The cases escalated nicely, and the final puzzle was particularly enjoyable and felt like a fun note to end on.

We had a good time with True Crime Stories, it was probably on the slightly easier side, but we still had to think. We also liked that no case overstayed its welcome, and the end of each one served as a good stopping point. Quite enjoyable if you’re looking for a fun, lighthearted puzzle.

Pros: Cases were a good length, nice production quality, different kinds of cases than you normally get in this style of game

Cons: Some issues with the emails, some delay in email responses

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.