Methods: The Detective Competition

Methods: The Detective Competition

LockedOn Games · 2020 · Visual Novel, Detective, Investigation, Mystery, Adventure

PC
Very Positive91% · 643 📈 Making a comeback 100%
Best price 70 All-time low
$5.99-70%
$19.99⭐ lowest tracked
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Steam
Steam
Standard Edition · Steam
-70%
$5.99
$19.99
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Gameseal
Gameseal
Standard Edition · Steam
$8.43
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About Methods: The Detective Competition


The first game in the Methods series.

One hundred detectives compete against each other in a mysterious competition, solving mysteries created by criminal masterminds.

The detective who wins receives one million dollars and the opportunity of a lifetime. If a criminal wins, however, they will also receive a million dollars... and parole, no matter the severity of their crime.

Methods is a visual novel with simple crime investigation gameplay where you examine evidence and answer multiple-choice questions about the solution.

It includes 100 chapters totaling 139K words, taking approximately 10 hours to play through (though that varies greatly depending on your reading speed).

  • Original soundtrack
  • Over 25 interactive crime scenes
  • CG gallery
  • Expressions gallery
  • Backgrounds gallery
  • Music room
  • Bios
  • Character Interviews
  • Behind-the-scenes

DLC & expansions

🎁 Complete the collection

Base game + 0 of 1 DLC at today's best prices (some DLC unpriced).

$5.99
to own everything

What Steam players say

Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.

Recommended Apr 7, 2026
the autism competition
1 found this helpful
Recommended Jul 7, 2026
Loved every second of playing this. This had a unique voice, sense of humour, and art style with an intriguing take on death games with the Detectives vs Criminals concept. All the characters were so charming, especially Detective [Insert Number Here]. The mysteries themselves could have been more complex, I feel, but I have a feeling that their relative simplicity was perhaps the point(implication of the detectives' and criminals' competence?). I was hooked from beginning to end. Very well done!
Recommended Jul 5, 2026
What an amazing little detective story! Some say it starts slowly but it hooked me from the very first chapter, to be honest. It got to the point pretty quickly and the written dialogue is incredibly funny. The game has a LOT of characters and they all felt distinct. The ending got me excited to see what comes next, so I will definitely be moving on to the next game now and I'm excited to see what the future might bring furthermore :)
Recommended May 29, 2026
[b]Methods: The Detective Competition[/b] is a gritty mystery game where you play as the detectives who are contestants of a grand mystery-solving competition. It consists a colorful casts of characters, whom you may or may not meet again, due to changing perspectives for each stages. All detectives are equipped with their own specialty for solving cases, some are of average types while others are game-changers. Some may require codependency to utilize their strengths, but there are others who are practically better alone than your typical run-of-the-mill. The game definitely catches that eerie vibe when provided with a case so tangible, it could practically happen in real life (given with some suspension of disbelief). [spoiler]Because you’re not just up against other detectives competing to be the best there is. There’s also the stake of the best criminal getting away scot-free if they ever win.[/spoiler] But I'm getting ahead of myself, the game is definitely loads of fun and a must play for hard-core mystery solvers, filled with a compelling story and interesting characters. I give it a [b]9/10.[/b]
Recommended May 24, 2026
I have been trying to scratch my detective itch for years now, and this seemed like a hidden gem I would immensily enjoy. After playing 10 hours of this game, I can give a shaky thumbs up. I enjoyed my time but it definitely left me feeling overwhelmed and underwhelmed at multiple points. First, the gameplay is pretty middle of the road. Nothing offensive, it works fine enough as a visual novel as you would expect, but still leaves a lot to be desired especially when it comes to the difficulty. The mysteries themselves are interesting and solid throughout, but the way of solving them is dissapointingly straight forward. You check for clues, you maybe get a multiple choice question and you do either well or not well. There very few fail states, as most of "failing" you can do just gets you different flavor text. The visuals are decent as well, but it took a while for me to get used to it and even then I was not always sold. The music is fine, albeit it a bit too loud, and the visual style was certainly unique. There are tons of different backgrounds, the character designs are all over the place, and my favorite bit of the entire game is how each chapter had an unique introductery …
Recommended Apr 2, 2026
Larika Downs is hot.

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