A new detective game has arrived, tasking you with solving puzzles that feel like 'lateral thinking puzzles' (also known as 'Turtle Soup' puzzles).

Gamtropy has officially launched the Early Access version of its latest AI-driven detective game, Couch Detective, on Steam. By blending Large Language Model (LLM) technology with the classic 'lateral thinking puzzle' format, it offers an interactive experience where you face off against an AI moderator to uncover the truth behind various mysteries.

The beauty of Couch Detective is that you don't need a human game master. The in-game AI acts as an all-knowing moderator, parsing your questions and providing logically sound answers. Forget about clunky keyword selection or restrictive dialogue trees; the game embraces full natural language input. The AI understands your inquiries, grasps the context, and judges your hunches with impressive precision, allowing you to interrogate the facts without being tethered to a pre-defined script.

Fancy yourself a mastermind? The game lets you step into the shoes of the creator, too. Using the built-in AI-assisted creation system, you can craft your own puzzles through three specific modes: inspiration generation, reverse-engineering endings, and problem brainstorming. Whether you want to auto-generate questions and answers from a simple keyword or weave a bizarre, mysterious tale backwards, the tools are at your disposal. You can even save your creations to a personal bank and share them with others.

In this current Early Access build, you can dive into the 'Lateral Thinking Mode' or test your wits in the 'Twenty Questions' mode, where you use deductive reasoning to guess what the AI is thinking of. The team at Gamtropy says they are actively gathering player feedback on AI interactions, with plans to bolster the experience with more scenarios and a multiplayer mode down the line.