- Digital forensic deduction that revives burnt case records and hidden truths
- Scheduled for release on Steam (Windows/macOS) in 2027, supports 5 languages
BANJIHAGAMES, a domestic indie game developer known for the text-based survival game ‘Seoul 2033’, has unveiled a new keyword mystery game titled ‘Cold Case’ .
‘Cold Case’ is a mystery adventure game based on digital forensics. It features a unique system in which players directly restore burnt and damaged case records and piece together clues to track down the truth behind long-unsolved cases.
Banjiha Games’ new title is scheduled to be released on the global game platform Steam in 2027 as a PC version supporting Windows and macOS.
On the night the prosecutor burned to death, the case file also turned to ashes.
‘Cold Case’ begins with the discovery of a prosecutor burned to death in his home one night. The old case records stored in the prosecutor’s house are also all lost in the fire.
The player becomes an investigator for the ‘Cold Case’ department, which preserves past crime records, and must restore eight case files salvaged from the ashes to track down what actually happened.
The core of the game is a digital forensics system that revives burnt records. Photos and documents found at the crime scene are completely charred, and players cannot simply recover the information. They must deduce for themselves what to look for and identify the appropriate keywords.
Searching for specific keywords in damaged files restores fragments of records containing those words. Newly identified sentences and clues serve as leads to finding the next keyword, and the player repeats this process to gradually uncover the full scope of the case.
There are no multiple-choice options. It is entirely up to the player’s judgment what to search for, which records to examine first, and how to connect the restored clues.
You must reconstruct the flow of events based on crime scene photos, witness statements, and restored records, and solve eight independent cold cases with different crime scenes, suspects, and hidden truths.
A mystery game where you track down the truth of a case by finding keywords instead of choices.
The biggest feature of ‘Cold Case’ is that instead of choosing options, the player directly deduces and searches for keywords.
Unlike typical deduction games where you select one answer from a list of candidates, players must figure out the relationships between words and clues hidden within the records on their own. New records are restored based on searched keywords, and the information found within them leads to the next search.
While Banjiha Games showcased an experience where players could create their own story using text and choices in their previous work ‘Seoul 2033’, ‘Cold Case’ implements a more active deduction method by reading text and inferring clues.
The concept of approaching the truth by restoring burnt documents, photographs, and records of past events one by one also creates the game’s unique atmosphere.
The studio that started in a semi-basement room and wrote the legend of ‘Seoul 2033’
Banjiha Games is a South Korean indie game studio that started in a semi-basement room in Seoul in 2016 under the motto, “It is better to fail with the original than to succeed with a copy.” The studio’s name also originated from the development environment at the time of its founding.
The flagship title ‘Seoul 2033’ is a text-based post-apocalyptic roguelike game set in a Seoul devastated by nuclear war. It garnered attention for its storytelling style, which relies on vast text and choices, and has continuously expanded its worldview through features such as an AI storyteller and a workshop mode that supports user-created content.
‘Seoul 2033’ won three awards, including the top prize, at the 2019 Google Play Indie Game Festival, and has since expanded its worldview through several spin-off titles such as ‘Seoul 2033: Shelter’, ‘Seoul 2033 Prequel: Yu Si-jin’, and ‘Seoul 2033: Supporter’.
The new title ‘Cold Case’ is a new challenge for Banjiha Games, marking a departure from their existing text-based survival and adventure genres to expand into the mystery game realm.
Breaking away from conventional, standardized choice systems, the unique “Colt Case” system, which solves cases solely through the user’s “keyword search” and “clue deduction,” is a distinct differentiating factor that breaks the grammar of existing mystery games.
As the path to the truth changes in real time depending on which keyword is captured first, attention is focused on whether this bold and unique deduction formula presented by Banjiha Games in 2027 will be able to capture the hearts of global gamers.
Information regarding ‘Cold Case’
| item | detail |
|---|---|
| Developer | Banjiha Games (BANJIHAGAMES, Seoul, South Korea) |
| Publisher | Banjiha Games (Self-publishing) |
| Genre | Keyword-based mystery adventure, digital forensics |
| platform | PC (Steam, Windows·macOS) |
| Release date | 2027 (exact date TBD) |
| language | 5 languages including English, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (Simplified and Traditional) |
| Previous work | ‘Seoul 2033’ – Triple Crown Winner and Best Indie Game Award at the 2019 Google Play Indie Game Festival |
| Volume | 8 independent unsolved cases |
| Reactions/Evaluations | Building anticipation for the new work based on the previous work’s award history |
| Steam Page | Shortcut |
