The Lone Detective online game

PBEM version

The Lone Detective started in 2002 as PBEM game (play-by-e-mail) with Polish title Detektyw PBEM. The early version of the game contained only the basic information about the case, and it was up to the players to get further data by asking Game Master questions via e-mail. That formula gave every player a slightly different experience, based on the direction each of them have taken. On the other hand, it was a time-consuming method for the Game Masters.

After 4 years and adding English version to the game, Detektyw PBEM went into hiatus - the workload and the limitations of the basic formula proved to be not sustainable in a long term. During the hiatus there were several different approaches to revive the title in a new, lighter formula, but most of them had to be abandoned at rather early stage due to technical limitations or the concepts not being up to scratch when it comes to user experience.

The Lone Detective reborn

In 2017, a new version of the website was activated, this time with English as the default language and with completely different approach - while still Game Master is the centre of the game, The Lone Detective was based around cold cases, which meant that all the information available for the players were already present on the website and their role was reduced to analyzing all the evidence and preparing a solution for the Game Master.

The new formula proved to be a balanced solution between high workload for the Game Master and the best user experience for the players. The experience from test runs since 2017 provided us with the data how to make the game more open and how introduce additional elements into the gameplay, f.e. more interactive way to acquire the information.

The current version

In January 2024 the current version of the game has premiered, the most important change was introduction of the case layers. While in previous version each user could access any case available at any time, the currect version is limiting access for the new players to just the easiers cases. Also one of the cases was turned into a tutorial which explains how the player should approach the case, what can be found in each part of the casefile and what important details can be deducted from available data.

The current version proved to be most successful - new users are introduced into the game in more subtle way and can't straight away jump into the most complicated cases.