Roman's Christmas / 罗曼圣诞探案集 Murder at the tavern, Christmas canceled

This is old-school detective work: no modern forensics, just visible evidence, a doctor's examination report and the testimony of everyone still standing. You search the tavern room by room, pointing at whatever looks suspicious, and interrogate guests until a story cracks.

When it does, you slap the contradicting evidence right into the liar's face, which the game explicitly does not recommend trying in real life. Each case ends with you completing a comic that lays out exactly how the murder played out. The mysteries stay fair and grounded, and several people note they are genuinely required to think, though the difficulty stays moderate rather than brutal.

The story carries you: dialogue, choices and branching paths decide how your holiday ends, and there are multiple endings, including some creative bad ones. Your choices matter, so make them good ones, and if you happen to have the power to rewind time, use it wisely.

In some cases Roman himself is a suspect, and if you fail to argue your innocence you get a very different Christmas. A second run lets you change fates that went wrong the first time. The writing stays light on its feet even as the body count rises, with genuinely funny dialogue, and the story keeps pulling you forward to the final reveal.

Roman is a wolf, and that comes with a perk: sniffing. Scent is hard to show in a game, so the game simply visualizes smells, letting you solve cases with your nose the way other detectives use their eyes. Species matters here beyond a cute muzzle: a wolf's senses, a dragon's scales and a large cat's raw strength all shape how the cases play out.

Between deductions, the tavern offers small diversions like darts and guessing games, and you can chat with the travellers about Apollion, the world where all kinds of anthropomorphic animals live together.

The final act of each case runs on tavern games. Tarot cards point out the suspicious parts of your evidence so you can pick the best angle. A roulette built from the four elements of a case, motive, technique, weapon and suspect, structures your accusation: complete the four quests and reach the truth. Ordering jettons by time helps you see the chain of events clearly, with fake events mixed in to trip you up.

It fits: the tavern is where guests gamble at night, and here you are gambling your own judgment on what really happened. Newcomers get gentle hints along the way, so you are rarely left stranded.

Everything is hand-drawn, from portraits that blink and move to the dark-toned scenes where the truth comes out, and different illustration styles keep each stage of a case feeling fresh. The soundtrack does real work too: atmospheric while you search, and each character has their own melodic theme shaped around their personality.

One honest note: the game shows murder scenes directly, blood and all, with no softening. If that is a problem, this is not your tavern. The tone is dark and tense, but there is warmth under it, and people who stick around report getting more invested with every in-game day.