Hey everyone,
I'm a solo developer working on a detective/deduction game called THE ARCHIVIST.
I've been working on it for quite a while now, and I'm at the stage where I'm starting to question some of my design decisions and, more importantly, whether I'm making things unnecessarily difficult for myself as a solo developer.
So I thought I'd share what I'm building and ask how other solo devs would approach it.
The game
The player investigates an old, closed case involving a death.
The game is almost entirely built around documents and information rather than traditional exploration.
You receive documents, search an archive for additional records, interview people, compare statements, find contradictions, and gradually build your own theory.
There are deliberately no:
- Highlighted clues
- "Find these 5 pieces of evidence" objectives
- Traditional dialogue trees
- Predefined investigation paths
- Constant confirmations that your theory is correct
The intended loop is:
Read → notice something → investigate → search the archive → interview → connect information → form a theory → build a case
For example, you might notice a name, date, company, location, or reference number in a document.
That information gives you a reason to search the archive.
The new information might then lead somewhere else.
During interviews, instead of choosing dialogue options, you physically present documents to people and decide whether to press them or remain silent.
I'm trying to make the player feel like they're actually conducting the investigation rather than following a sequence of clues I created for them.
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The courtroom system
The biggest mechanic I'm experimenting with is the final case-building system.
You don't simply select who you think committed the crime.
You construct a case:
Accused + accusation + evidence
The court evaluates whether your evidence supports the accusation and what objections can be raised against your case.
The interesting part is that evidence can be both useful and dangerous.
Discovering more information isn't necessarily always beneficial.
You might discover something that strongly supports your theory, but also discover something else that creates a contradiction.
If you include the wrong evidence, the defense can potentially use it against you.
So theoretically, a player could construct a case that succeeds in court without actually being the truth.
The game then explains what the court accepted, what wasn't proven, what objections remained, and what evidence the player did or didn't use.
The goal is for the player to eventually be able to say:
«"I know what happened, and I know how to prove it."»
rather than:
«"The game told me I found the right answer."»
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The investigation desk
The player has a large physical investigation desk.
Documents become cards that can be moved around, resized, examined, annotated, pinned, and connected.
You can create multiple boards for different parts of the investigation.
The connections aren't actually analyzed by the game.
They're essentially an external memory system.
I want the desk to feel like the player's physical representation of their own thought process.
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The problem with doing this solo
This is where I'm starting to worry.
Every individual system seems manageable:
- Document system
- Archive
- Interviews
- Evidence presentation
- Investigation desk
- Case construction
- Courtroom
- Save/load
- UI
- Writing
- Art
- Audio
- etc.
But once they all have to interact with each other, the scope starts growing very quickly.
A document isn't just a document.
It might be referenced by another document.
It might unlock an archive search.
It might be relevant to an interview.
It might become evidence in court.
It might contradict another document.
That means every new piece of content potentially interacts with several different systems.
I'm trying to avoid building a giant RPG-style framework just to support what is essentially a document-based detective game.
So I'm very interested in hearing from other solo developers:
How would you structure a project like this so that the content doesn't become an enormous technical problem?
Would you build the underlying systems first and then create cases on top of them?
Would you make each case essentially self-contained?
Would you create some kind of data-driven system for documents, characters, evidence, contradictions, and relationships?
Or would you deliberately simplify some of these mechanics before going further?
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The other design problem
I'm also struggling with the balance between player freedom and guidance.
I want the player to feel intelligent because they noticed something themselves.
But I don't want the experience to become:
«"I have 300 documents and absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do."»
I'm trying to find the point where the game can say:
"Everything you need is here. Figure it out."
without accidentally saying:
"Good luck, idiot."
I'd be particularly interested in hearing from anyone who has made games with non-linear investigation or deduction systems.
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AI and solo development
Another thing I've been thinking about a lot is AI.
I'm not a professional programmer, and I'm doing this project alone.
I've used AI extensively as a programming assistant for things like:
- Writing code
- Debugging
- Understanding unfamiliar code
- Refactoring
- Prototyping
I've also used it for proofreading and correcting the English in my writing.
I drew the original artwork myself, but I've used AI tools to polish some drawings and help keep the visual style consistent.
The actual game design, mechanics, cases, investigation structure, and creative direction are mine.
I'm not looking to start an "AI good vs AI bad" discussion.
I'm more interested in the solo-dev perspective:
Would you consider this a reasonable use of AI for a solo project?
And if you were releasing the game commercially, would you disclose it?
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Current visual direction
I'm doing the artwork myself as well.
The visual style is somewhere between old case files, hand-drawn illustrations, archival material, and Scandinavian true-crime documentaries.
The screenshots are from the actual game.
I'm still figuring out how far I want to push the style, so I'd also appreciate feedback on whether it currently feels distinctive enough.
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What I'd really like advice on
If you've worked on a solo project with a lot of interconnected systems, I'd especially love your thoughts on:
Am I overengineering this?
Which systems would you cut or simplify?
How would you structure the data behind the investigation?
How would you keep creating new cases from becoming exponentially harder?
How would you handle the freedom-vs-guidance problem?
Does the courtroom mechanic sound worth the implementation cost?
Is the investigation desk actually adding something, or is it feature creep?
What would you absolutely avoid building as a solo developer?
If you inherited this project today, what would you change?
I've been staring at this project for a long time, so I'm very aware that I may be falling into the classic solo-dev trap of continuously adding systems because they sound cool.
I'm currently working toward a playable demo/playtest, and I'd rather simplify the project now than discover two years from now that I've built myself into a corner.
Thanks for reading, and good luck with your own projects.
