Gnosia (Switch eShop)

What do you get when you combine the social deduction and fear of Among Us, and the killing game-style story of games like Danganronpa and Virtue's Last Reward? You get Gnosia, a visual novel originally made for the PlayStation Vita that's found its forever home on the Nintendo Switch.

Guess what? You're stuck in a time loop, and you have to figure out why everyone keeps getting murdered, and more importantly, who is doing all the murdering. There's an alien presence on board, you see, and that means at least one of your crewmates is secretly a murder-monster hiding in a human body. But with the help of the aforementioned time loop, you can eventually narrow down your suspects!

Also, there's a cat!

Aviary Attorney: Definitive Edition (Switch eShop)

What if Phoenix Wright was an actual phoenix? Or, at the very least, a pigeon? This is the story that Aviary Attorney puts forth in its delightful black-on-beige 19th century take on the genre, in which everyone is a bird. And also a lawyer.

Despite the wacky premise, Aviary Attorney is an extremely well-accomplished game, with genuinely hilarious writing, twisty cases, and so many bird puns that you might laugh yourself cuckoo. Beak-areful.

Overboard! (Switch eShop)

Unlike every other detective game on this list, Overboard is about a crime that you definitely, 100% did yourself. A "youdunnit", if you will. Instead of investigating, clue-finding, and interrogating, you'll be working on a sort of reverse-investigation — covering up your own crime, and finding someone else to pin it on.

Inkle are the narrative masterminds behind this one — you may know their work from 80 Days or the Sorcery! games — so be sure to expect plenty of intricate branching, choices with consequences, and a healthy dose of Very British Characters, who practically bleed English Breakfast. It's a short one, but boy is it fun.

Lacuna (Switch eShop)

Another one for the "noir murder mystery with pixel art" pile, Lacuna offers a new take on the point-and-click adventure, allowing you to WASD around the place instead of pointing and clicking (or, well, use a controller, but you get the point) as well as giving you optional hints for interactive items and multiple endings.

The story branches and ends based on your actions. There's no going back. Sure, you can rush your way to the end – if you don't mind paying the price. Play your cards right, and you might make it out alive.

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Lacuna
Lacuna

Telling Lies (Switch eShop)

Sadly, Her Story — in our opinion, the better of the two Sam Barlow mystery FMV games — is not on Switch, but Telling Lies is. You are sitting in front of an anonymous laptop loaded with a stolen NSA database full of footage. The footage covers two years in the intimate lives of four people whose stories are linked by a shocking incident. Explore the database by typing search terms, watch the clips where those words are spoken and piece together your story.

With excellent acting and a non-linear story informed by your own choice in which threads to pull, Telling Lies is a twisty-turny detective story from start to end — wherever you choose to end.

Heaven's Vault (Switch eShop)

Another game from narrative wizards, Inkle, Heaven's Vault is an oddity. It's not exactly a detective game, because you are an archaeologist who is attempting to uncover what happened to a civilisation that went mysteriously missing, and a fellow archaeologist who also went mysteriously missing while trying to investigate the aforementioned civilisation.

But, we would argue that archaeology is simply detective work focused on the past, and therefore this is a detective game, shut up. You'll also be piecing together a forgotten language, which most detectives never get to do because they didn't bother to take French or German at school, probably.

Hypnospace Outlaw (Switch eShop)

You are an internet cop, and you are asked to get a bunch of people in trouble for breaking The Rules Of The Internet in this '90s-themed browser-explorer. Has some kid accidentally infringed on copyright with a Shrek gif on his Myspace page? SEND HIM TO JAIL.

A plot involving much more than some mild copyright infringement quickly unfolds, and it might be up to you to stop the Very Bad Things from happening. It's not a traditional detective game in any sense of the word, but sometimes it's fun to mix things up a little!

The Darkside Detective (Switch eShop)

Another game with "detective" literally in the name, The Darkside Detective is the predecessor to fellow listmate "A Fumble in the Dark".

Detective Francis McQueen is the lead investigator of the criminally underfunded Darkside Division. When evil darkens the doorsteps of Twin Lakes City – hell, even when it just loiters around shop fronts or hangs out in shady alleyways – he’s there, ready to investigate the cases that nobody else will. Expect plenty of referential humour, some of which may go over your head.

Jenny LeClue - Detectivu (Switch eShop)

In an excellent example of nominative determinism, Jenny LeClue is a detective. Or a detectivu, which is mostly just about the rhyme.

Infusing the point-and-click genre with a Gravity Falls kind of vibe, Jenny LeClue is set in a sleepy town that has a whole lot of mysteries lurking beneath its idyllic surface. And guess what? You're totally going to find them all! The game ends on a cliffhanger that will segue into the sequel, but the sequel isn't out yet, so just prepare yourself for a little bit of Game of Thrones-style waiting...

The Sinking City (Switch eShop)

H.P. Lovecraft, where the "H.P." stands for Hercule Poirot — that's pretty much the pitch for The Sinking City, which combines the tentacular writing of the former with the investigative nous of the latter. It's by the same team as the Sherlock Holmes games, Frogwares, so expect a lot of grit and a lot of gore as you attempt to solve your own muddled mind, plus a healthy dose of jank.

Perhaps best aimed at the fans of Lovecraft's oeuvre, considering how many Lovecraftian references are jammed into this one.

The Sexy Brutale (Switch eShop)

The Sexy Brutale is an underrated gem of a timeloop game, in which you — Lafcadio Boone — wake up in a lavishly decorated casino-mansion owned by a strange Gatsby-type millionaire with no memory. Also, everyone inside the mansion will be slowly and specifically killed in outlandish ways throughout the next few hours, and you'll have to prevent their deaths in order to piece together the events that led to you being here.

With plenty of puzzles, mysteries, and interconnected murders to solve, The Sexy Brutale is a glamorous but slow investigation game that's well worth checking out.