If you loved Return of the Obra Dinn or Case of the Golden Idol, mark your calendar for tomorrow. A Case of Fraud from Hesperus Games launches November 10, 2025 at 4 PM PST on Steam, bringing pure document-based detective work to the deduction game genre. No searching for clues in cluttered rooms, no pixel hunting, no hand-holding. Just you, a binder full of documents, and one objective: figure out what happened to a missing CEO and expose the fraud that got her killed.
The Setup Is Brilliant
Zoolingo is a startup company that claimed to be building revolutionary technology: a translation app that lets people understand what their pets are saying. Think about that for a second. An app that translates dog barks and cat meows into human language. It’s either the most ambitious tech innovation ever or the most obvious scam imaginable. Investors apparently believed the former, pouring millions into the company.
Then the CEO disappeared under suspicious circumstances. When investigators arrived at the office and her home, someone had been busy with a paper shredder. Most documents were destroyed, but a few critical pieces of evidence survived. Those surviving papers are now in your hands, and your job is reading every word, connecting every detail, and reconstructing what really happened at Zoolingo before the CEO vanished.
How the Game Actually Works
A Case of Fraud gives you all the evidence upfront. There’s no gameplay loop of exploring environments and collecting clues. Instead, you start with a complete binder of documents: emails, memos, financial records, employee profiles, meeting notes, and whatever else escaped destruction. Your investigation happens entirely through reading, cross-referencing, and making logical connections between disparate pieces of information.
The game is non-linear, meaning you can approach the mystery however you want. Start with financial documents to trace money flows. Begin with employee emails to understand workplace dynamics and personal relationships. Dig into the CEO’s personal correspondence to learn about her family situation. Every player will have a unique path through the evidence based on what catches their attention and how they process information. There’s no quest marker telling you what to read next or highlighting important passages.
The Core Challenge
Your ultimate goal breaks down into several investigative objectives. First, reconstruct the identities and roles of everyone involved. The shredded documents mean you won’t always have clear org charts or complete personnel files. You’ll need to infer relationships from email signatures, piece together job responsibilities from meeting notes, and figure out the company hierarchy from subtle context clues scattered across multiple documents.
Second, establish motive and opportunity. Who had reasons to commit fraud? Who was in a position to actually execute it? These questions require understanding both the business operations and personal circumstances of everyone connected to Zoolingo. A employee struggling with medical debt has different motivations than a co-founder angry about equity dilution. Both could be guilty, but for completely different reasons.
Third, construct a coherent timeline of events. When did the fraud scheme actually begin? What specific actions were taken? Who knew what and when did they know it? Documents don’t always come with convenient timestamps, so you’ll need to piece together chronology from shipping dates, email threads, calendar entries, and narrative clues within the text itself.
Inspired by the Best
Hesperus Games openly cites Return of the Obra Dinn, The Roottrees are Dead, and Case of the Golden Idol as inspirations, which should tell you everything about the design philosophy. These are games that trust player intelligence and reward careful observation. They don’t insult you with tutorial prompts explaining exactly what you should be noticing. They present evidence and let you draw conclusions.
Return of the Obra Dinn pioneered the modern deduction game by having you identify every person aboard a doomed ship and determine how each one died, using only frozen moments in time. Case of the Golden Idol expanded that formula across multiple interconnected mysteries spanning decades. The Roottrees are Dead narrowed focus to a single family’s tangled relationships and secrets. A Case of Fraud takes that trust in player deduction and applies it to corporate fraud investigation, a refreshingly mundane setting compared to cursed artifacts and ghost ships.
Why Document-Based Works
There’s something uniquely satisfying about document-based detective games that traditional adventure games can’t replicate. When you’re searching a 3D environment for clues, you’re essentially waiting for the designer to show you where to look. Click on the right object, trigger the scripted response, move to the next area. The investigation happens to you rather than being driven by you.
Document-based games flip that dynamic. The evidence is all there from the start, but understanding what it means requires genuine mental effort. When you finally connect two seemingly unrelated documents and realize they expose a critical lie someone told, that breakthrough comes from your brain making connections, not from triggering a scripted revelation. The satisfaction is real because the deduction was real.
This format also allows for emergent storytelling. Different players will notice different details first, leading to varying theories about what happened. You might immediately spot financial irregularities and suspect embezzlement, while another player focuses on personal emails and thinks it’s a crime of passion. Both investigators are examining the same evidence, but their unique perspectives create different narratives until enough proof accumulates to confirm or eliminate theories.
The Demo Got Positive Reactions
Hesperus Games released a demo earlier in 2025, and early player reactions have been encouraging. Reddit comments from people who tried it described the experience as promising, with one player specifically noting it belongs on the radar of anyone who enjoyed Obra Dinn, Golden Idol, or similar deduction games. The demo apparently provides enough content to understand the gameplay loop while leaving the actual mystery unsolved.
YouTube playthroughs show that solving cases can take anywhere from a couple hours for experienced deduction game veterans to significantly longer for players new to the genre. The game appears designed for a single playthrough rather than replayability, though the non-linear structure means each player’s investigation journey will be unique even if the ultimate solution is the same.
What About the Pet Translation App
The premise of Zoolingo deserves special attention because it’s brilliantly chosen. A pet translation app sits in that perfect sweet spot of sounding plausible enough that investors might actually fund it while being absurd enough that skepticism is warranted. We live in an era where companies raise millions for equally unlikely tech promises, so the setup feels uncomfortably realistic.
This also creates an interesting investigation dynamic. Is Zoolingo’s technology actually impossible, making it an obvious scam from day one? Or was it legitimate research that someone corrupted for personal gain? Did the CEO believe in the project and get betrayed, or was she the mastermind of the fraud all along? The absurdity of the premise becomes part of the mystery rather than a throwaway joke.
Short But Focused
Hesperus Games describes A Case of Fraud as a short adventure, which is probably the right call for this format. Document-based investigation is mentally taxing in ways that traditional gameplay isn’t. Reading dozens of pages of fictional corporate emails, cross-referencing financial statements, and constructing timelines requires sustained concentration. A tight, focused mystery that respects player time beats a bloated investigation that overstays its welcome.
The pricing hasn’t been officially announced yet, but given the indie developer scope and the short length, expect something in the 10 to 15 dollar range. That’s standard for this genre. You’re paying for a few hours of intense mental engagement rather than dozens of hours of content. Quality over quantity has always been the deduction game philosophy.
FAQs
When does A Case of Fraud release?
The game launches November 10, 2025 at 4 PM PST on Steam for PC, Mac, and Linux. A demo is currently available if you want to try before buying.
Who is developing A Case of Fraud?
Hesperus Games is both the developer and publisher. This appears to be a small indie studio working on deduction and mystery games specifically.
What is A Case of Fraud about?
You investigate the disappearance of a CEO from Zoolingo, a startup claiming to build a pet translation app. By analyzing surviving documents from her office and home, you reconstruct identities, establish motives, and expose the fraudulent scheme behind her disappearance.
How long is the game?
Hesperus Games describes it as a short adventure. Based on demo playthroughs, expect 2 to 4 hours depending on your deduction skills and reading speed. The game is designed for a single playthrough experience.
Is this like Return of the Obra Dinn?
Yes, A Case of Fraud draws heavy inspiration from Obra Dinn, Case of the Golden Idol, and The Roottrees are Dead. It’s a non-linear deduction game where you piece together a mystery through careful analysis without hand-holding or hint systems.
Do I need to be good at detective games to enjoy this?
The game doesn’t require prior experience with deduction games, but you do need patience for reading documents carefully and making your own connections. If you find satisfaction in solving puzzles through observation and logic, you’ll probably enjoy this.
Is there a demo available?
Yes, a demo has been available on Steam since earlier in 2025. It gives you a taste of the gameplay and investigation mechanics without spoiling the full mystery.
What platforms is the game coming to?
A Case of Fraud launches on Steam for Windows, Mac, and Linux. No console versions have been announced.
Conclusion
The deduction game genre remains niche, but for those who love it, nothing else scratches the same itch. A Case of Fraud understands what makes these games work. Give players evidence, trust their intelligence, and let them experience the genuine satisfaction of connecting dots that nobody explicitly told them to connect. The corporate fraud setting is refreshingly grounded compared to supernatural mysteries and historical murders, proving that compelling detective work doesn’t need elaborate fantasy premises. Tomorrow at 4 PM PST, you can download A Case of Fraud and see if you have what it takes to expose Zoolingo’s secrets. The documents are waiting. The evidence is already in your hands. All that’s missing is a detective smart enough to understand what it all means. Think you can solve it? Only one way to find out.