The Detective Box Review – What’s In The Box?

I love detective games, my favorite kind being the ones that offer a more sandbox experience, allowing you free will over how you conduct your investigation and what you do with the evidence provided.  The closest I’ve come to this is The Painscreek Killings by EQ Studios and their more recent game, Scene Investigators. When I heard about the Detective Box, a crime-scene-in-a-box experience which claims to be one of the most realistic and immersive detective experiences you can get, I was understandably quite excited.

The Detective Box is a three-part murder investigation game which gives players the task of investigating the murder of Woodlock University student, Henry Coleman. The titular box is actually three boxes, each containing new pieces of evidence and interview transcripts. A large part of the investigation involves the online portal which is also split into three sections. You can use the portal to search buildings on the campus, interview people, or search the police archives. It will also archive any evidence you pick up online so that you can return to it at any point.

Via the online portal, you will be given a series of questions to answer after completing each box to not only help further your understanding of the case, but also point you in the right direction of where you need to start first with the evidence provided and also so that you can show that you’re piecing the case together correctly.

One important thing to note about the Detective Box is that you have to think outside the box in order to solve it… literally. Not just through the online portal but the tools at your disposal too. Some evidence requires good ol’ Google and you’ll also be able to actually call discovered phone numbers to see who picks up. It’s an incredibly immersive experience and goes above and beyond to make it feel as though you are actually a detective. I was even looking up video tutorials on how to do chromatography with what was available to me in my kitchen.

Within the first box is the Woodlock University student yearbook (which is incredibly helpful for identifying suspects, other students and university staff), a map of the university, and an investigation board. I actually opted to create my own board which the box almost encourages by providing some red string to really push you into the idea of being a movie-style detective.

The storyline itself is really well done with plenty of twists and turns that will surprise you. The box does a good job of providing a profile of each character so that, should they become a suspect, we already know plenty about them and what their motivations may be. I’m usually one for guessing the ending of mystery media but the answer to who killed Henry Coleman was one that I genuinely didn’t see coming.

In terms of design, the Detective Box is really well put together. All the props feel authentic, with some even featuring hidden evidence if you decide to investigate them further. I also liked the addition of various puzzles on top of the usual investigation work, giving the experience more of an ‘escape room’ feeling.

There were a few things that I felt broke the immersion somewhat. For one, the voice acting for most of the characters in interviews is really poor – some interviews are kept to just transcripts and I think this should have been the case with them all.

There were also instances in interviews where I felt like the questioning was purposely being done in a certain way to point the player in a specific direction rather than in a way that would be realistic. For example, all interviewees are asked for an alibi, apart from one instance when this information is found elsewhere and the game wants you to find this – but why wouldn’t the police just ask this in an interview the same as everyone else? We’re also unable to interview Henry’s sister despite several characters prompting us to do so and also despite her being the presumed last person to see him alive. When we try this, the portal just tells us it doesn’t see how she’s relevant to the case – or maybe I was just trying at the wrong time because this can also be an issue with the portal. On top of this, we can also only interview people once. So if we find any further information or anything that conflicts with their previous statement, we’re unable to question them again.

I also felt like the search tool was awkward to use. Rather than picking a building and maybe getting an image to pick at or a description, we have to pick the building and type specifically what object we’re looking for. I also repeatedly ran into the same problem of the portal refusing to let you search for things until you’ve done something else first, often confusing me into thinking this search term simply doesn’t work as it will often phrase it as “I don’t think that’s what we’re looking for here”.

Luckily if you’re stuck, the hint system mostly does a good job at pointing you in the right direction and progressively reveals more information BEFORE straight up giving you answer, allowing several chances for you to still solve the question yourself. There was one instance where it suggested I interview a specific person without explaining why, so I was confused to how we had reached that conclusion because I either hadn’t seen or couldn’t remember this person being mentioned before. But otherwise, the majority of the hints were well put together and provided enough context for the answer reveal to still click with the player.

Overall, the Detective Box is an excellent detective experience which lasts for around ten hours. It can be played solo or with a recommended up to five players. I would recommend playing sessions close together as not only is there a lot of information to remember, but there’s also so many crucial pieces of paper and objects to keep hold of. One thing I will note is that it has a hefty price tag of $110 which, with the amount of detail and realism provided, could be considered worth it since there’s very little experiences like this available. But it is worth noting that the box absolutely cannot be used again after one playthrough due to the amount of annotating and interactive elements involved.

Jess played the Detective Box with a provided review product.