
A missing person case straight out of 1995. Search the early internet, dig through emails and dusty floppy discs, and uncover the secrets behind the disappearance of Victoria Mason.
Modeled estimate, not a reported figure. How we estimate →
Media

About
As the newest hire at the Gumshoe Detective Agency, you’ve been assigned your very first case, and all you’ve got to go on is a clunky desktop, a dial-up connection, and a handful of suspicious files.
You'll dig through emails, websites, chat logs, and glitchy software in search of the truth. With every document you decrypt, every clue you drag into your evidence folder, the story will shift. And what started as a simple disappearance will soon unravel into something much, much bigger.
Who took Victoria Mason? And what were they trying to hide?
You’ll need to think like a detective. Or at least… click like one.
Gumshoe Detective Agency: The First Case is a modern homage to detective games of the past. As a solo developer passion project, the game blends vintage computer aesthetics with narrative-driven puzzles to create a wholly unique experience. Made for fans of the Nancy Drew PC games, The Roottrees are Dead, and anyone nostalgic for the 90's.
Key features include:
An immersive point-and-click interface that recreates the charm and quirks of a ‘90s desktop computer
Interactive puzzles hidden inside emails, chat logs, websites, and forgotten files
A persistent mystery file system, where you collect, sort, and piece together your evidence
Easter eggs, red herrings, and that perfect mid-’90s paranoia vibe
Genres
Stats
All-time low is the lowest price we've recorded for this game since we started tracking it.
Languages: English**languages with full audio support
Engagement
Hours played at review time, across 40 reviews with recorded playtime.
Reviews
Themes across 40 recent reviews and how positive each mention is. A keyword signal, not full sentiment analysis.
positive critical· bar length = how often the theme comes up
Reviews
This was a short, but fun game! It took me two hours to solve, but I also don't hesitate to look up hints if I get stuck.
If you're coming here after playing the Roottrees are Dead - or Emily is Away...you will be so disappointed. I bought this on sale for $9 and finished it in a little over 2 hours, the main reason it took that long was because of one puzzle that I didn't cheat on that was massively hard for no reason. My criticism comes from the story line - even at the end of the game, I didn't really fully understand the entire plot - it has a lot of holes in it and there's not really a lot of clues to bring the story line together, you're made to fully make up a connection on your own - which is very easy to miss minor clues for. I feel that $9 was massively overpriced for the value of this game - skip this one unless it's less than $4 or so. I do hope that in the future the writing and storyline is a bit better, this could be a fun series someday!
its quite short and simple. The format somehow feels like its not made for computer? I had to restart it because it could input Ctrl+V but not me typing in the search. When you up the font size (which is an option on bottom right) you can't see/click a option on one of the websites that you need to progress the story. I'm not sure if this was a font issue too but I couldn't see all the clues on the board either at the end while making deductions. Only being able to have one window up and having to sign in over and over again onto mason industries was annoying. The game isn't terrible but it wasn't fun to play.
Fun game for those who like solving crimes/mysteries. But for the price it's very short, less than 2 hours of playtime for me. I would give it a strong recommendation at a lower price point, but it's a mild one as is.
I'm a big fan of cozy mystery games (and have played every ND game plus Roottrees, both listed as inspiration sources for Gumshoe), and this was a fun game to spend a quiet evening with! I will also always go out of my way to support independent developers in their projects because I want the cozy mystery/adventure game community to thrive! Shoutout to the NDRevival subreddit for keeping me up to speed on upcoming and new releases. The difficulty level is fairly easy and thus the game was a quick play, but it was still enjoyable. While there is no copy-paste (as others have mentioned), I did enjoy (and prefer) taking pen and paper notes to keep track of my leads. I love the old school 90's web interface, and I especially enjoyed the digital version of sneaking past locked doors. I think this was a really solid first installment of hopefully many future Gumshoe mysteries. I'd love to see a more expansive storyline, more searchable queries and red herrings, buried ledes, and just in general more dots to connect! This game definitely had those, (plus some fun puzzles!), I would just love to see more in future games. Bravo to Birdy Interactive on their first game, can't wait for more!
I cannot wait for more! I loved this style of game, I was so excited that this type of research came so easily to me, finally a use for all my weird Gen Z internet research abilities and nancy playing skills. There were some knots in a few places, but the only one that really became a problem for me was the shape and color puzzle, since there were multiple answers to the puzzle I got a little frustrated. Other wise, THIS WAS SO SO MUCH FUN TY TO THE CREATOR, BIRDY!
Love the whole vibe - definitely needs a bit more polishing but ultimately a cute puzzle game! Looking forward to what's next :)
Super cute, super short, super fun! I played it in about 2.5 hours after I downloaded it. I really enjoyed it!
If you want to dive into a game with some great 90's nostalgia and you have been wanting to dip your toes into solving mystery games, this game is perfect for you! A fun story line, fun evidence board (that may or may not have a cute dog pic as one of the pieces of evidence), and satisfying typing sounds. Gumshoe Detective Agency: First Case has got me wanting more cases to solve and dig into more mystery games. I can't wait to see what Birdy Interactive comes up with next!
A really fun and cozy short-and-sweet detective/mystery game that takes place in the 90s, using 90s computer aesthetics. From a beginner’s perspective, as someone who has never played any Nancy Drew, Professor Layton, or other detective games, I would say this is a perfect game to start with. The puzzles are quite simple. They took me a while, but that's because I'm dumb. I can imagine that those who have been dabbling in puzzle or mystery games for some time would easily breeze through them. The internet aspect is also quite immersive. Having to type your queries manually into the search engine and seeing the Web 1.0 designs made me feel nostalgic for a past I never actually experienced. My main criticism would be the Notepad feature. Although I can tolerate having to manually visit websites (I believe tabs weren’t a thing back then), the Notepad is a massive clunkfest. Copy-paste seems to work, but it completely breaks the thing. Resizing the Notepad window is also a mess, by the end of the game, the window had become the size of a very long mobile app, which I could no longer adjust because it was too tall and the window’s resize handle was off-screen. So I had to deal with using the very narrow smol Notepad app. Since this is their first game, I believe the next installments of Gumshoe Detective Agency will be more expansive and polished than this one. You can watch me completing the game on my YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emlaph-0znQ
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Trends
Concurrent players on Steam, sampled daily since tracking started.
Audience
Estimated from the language of this game's reviews — a proxy for where players are, not official Steam demographics.
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