The rules
How to play
Everything the game enforces, in plain words. Read it once; the game reminds you as you go.
Teams and difficulty layers
A case is played by a team of one to four people. The leader buys the case, creates the team and shares a join code or link. Team size is chosen at the door and locks when the clock starts.
Every case has four difficulty layers built in, one per team size. A bigger team gets more dead ends, more gates and harder questions. A solo detective gets the lean route. The story and the killer are the same for everyone.
Each team size has its own leaderboard, so a team of four is only ever ranked against other teams of four.
Leads and drives
Every scene ends with leads. A lead is a small puzzle that points somewhere: a place in Port Merrow, or a code.
- A place lead is solved by driving there. Open the map or the address book, pick the place and drive. If it is the right one, the next scene opens.
- A code lead is typed at the gate it opens. There is no answer box on the lead itself — work it out, then enter the code where it is asked for.
Leads tell you what you have and where it came from. They never tell you the method — that is the puzzle.
Gates
A gate is a locked scene: a door with a keypad, a phone with a passcode, a safe. It opens when you type the right code. Codes are checked on our servers, so there is nothing to find in the page.
Wrong codes cost nothing but time. If a gate has you stuck, the lead that points at it is where the answer lives.
Hints and the method hint
There are two kinds of help, and both cost rides, never credits.
- A method hint tells you how a lead is meant to be cracked (what kind of puzzle it is), not the answer. It costs one ride, once per lead. Nothing is ever revealed on its own — you ask for it.
- A nudge is a hint on the case itself: which thread matters, what you have missed. Each nudge adds three rides. You get three nudges per attempt.
Rides and free returns
Rides are the score's second half. A ride is a drive to a place you have not been to yet on this attempt. Every case has a par — the number of rides the shortest sensible route takes.
Going back to a place you have already visited is free. Drive around all you like between places you know; only new places count.
Dead ends count. A lead that goes nowhere still costs the ride to find that out. Fewer wrong turns, higher score.
The timer and the pause
Each case has a time limit of active play — the clock only runs while the team is in the case. The leader can pause; paused time does not count. Only the leader pauses, resumes and submits.
There is also a deadline: 30 days from the moment the leader starts the attempt. The game shows the deadline in your own local time. When either the time limit or the deadline runs out, the attempt closes and is graded with whatever answers are in the Case File.
Attempts
Buying a case gives you three attempts. An attempt is a team the leader has started. A team that is still forming is not an attempt yet, and cancelling it costs nothing.
Attempts are numbered 1, 2, 3 in the order they were started. Only attempt 1 goes on the leaderboard — the later ones are for your own satisfaction. Your account page lists every attempt and links back to its results.
Scoring and leaderboards
Your score has two parts. Answer accuracy: the questions in the Case File (who, how, why, and a few more on harder cases) are graded on our servers for how close they are. Rides versus par: the fewer rides over par, the better.
The leaderboard on every case door is per team size, first attempts only. The site-wide boards add monthly and all-time rankings, and the "solved in full" boards list the detectives who have answered every question on a case correctly. Official CaseClosed Games and Creator CaseClosed Games have separate boards.
Staff and test accounts never appear on a public board.
Match: groups of five or more
A team holds four. For a bigger group, start a Match: the buyer adds extra teams of up to four each at the full case price per team. Match teams do not use up the buyer's three attempts.
The match screen shows every team's progress side by side, so a room of twelve can race three teams on the same case.
For companies and groups of 30 or more, see the corporate offer.
Devices
Case Closed is laptop-first: the full three-panel experience — map, evidence, notebook — is built for a big screen. Phones and tablets join a team from the same link and get a layout that fits; the address book, the leads and the documents are all there.
No app to install. A modern browser is enough.
Time zones
Players are all over the world, and a team can be too. Every clock in the game — the case timer, the 30-day deadline, a paused team's resume time — is shown in each player's own local time. The team's active time is the same for everyone regardless of where they are.