How to Play The Real Killer — Investigation & Deduction Guide

1. Scene Inspection, Map Routes & the Deadline Clock

Each chapter opens on the city map, displaying the districts and specific locations currently open for field reporting. Across coastal Danwol City, you move between the pier boarding house, local tearooms, the police detective squad, the abandoned quarry hut, City Hall offices, the sea cable car control room, and the cruise pier. Every stop holds witnesses to interview, background conversations to overhear, or physical records waiting to be examined.

At the top of the screen sit your wristwatch and remaining time slots. Each slot represents thirty minutes of in-story time ahead of your copy deadline. Traveling to a new location or choosing to wait thirty minutes for a person to arrive spends one slot and advances the hands of the clock. Once every slot in a chapter is spent, field reporting wraps up for that segment, making route planning and interview priority an essential part of detective work.

To keep travel focused, location cards indicate when you have already covered everything currently available at a stop. Certain people only appear during specific windows, and new destinations unlock as names surface in conversation, rewarding attentive reading over rushing blindly from pin to pin.

2. Organizing the Reporter's Notebook & Evidence Archive

Every statement you hear and every item you collect is filed automatically inside your Reporter's Notebook and Evidence Archive, accessible anytime from the bottom bar during play.

The Notebook is divided into three main tabs plus personal notes. The Facts tab records verified chapter events in chronological order so you never lose track of the broader timeline. The People tab lists everyone involved—including all five primary suspects—alongside their public roles and the exact statements heard directly from each person. The Broken Lies tab preserves every contradiction you have already exposed. Alongside those tabs, a freeform Memo pad lets you jot down time comparisons or personal reminders for the current playthrough.

The Evidence Archive organizes collected material across Word Cards, Evidence, and Documents. Key phrases, times, places, and objects enter your kit as Word Cards during dialogue, while crime-scene photographs and copied records can be zoomed in full detail. Checking a small margin note, a gate log entry, or a receipt time often reveals the exact detail needed to challenge an alibi.

3. Comparing Testimony & Presenting Proof with Hold It

Interviews unfold one line at a time. Neighbors, clerks, and staff members often describe events plainly as witnessed, whereas anyone hiding misconduct—especially the true culprit—quietly shifts times, routes, or companions to construct a believable alibi.

Whenever the Hold it button appears during a conversation, at least one line in that exchange clashes directly with proof available in your kit. Pressing Hold it on a suspicious statement opens your Word Cards, Evidence, and People tabs so you can select the exact item that disproves what was just said and present it on the spot.

Randomly cycling through items will not break an alibi. You must challenge the specific false sentence using the photograph, document, or word card that contradicts it. When the proof matches, a red stroke crosses out the false claim, forcing the speaker to retreat and reveal hidden movements or fresh leads. If you spot a suspicious claim before you have gathered the document to disprove it, you can choose Listen on, explore other locations around town, and return once the missing proof is in hand.

4. Completing Sentences on the Deduction Board

At the close of each chapter, reporting shifts from the street back to your notebook's Deduction Board. On the page sit incomplete summary sentences with open blanks, paired with the pool of Word Cards gathered during your investigation.

You drag Word Cards into the matching blanks—or tap a card and then tap a blank on touch screens—before submitting the page to your desk editor for review. Passing the board requires fitting together who went where, what was carried, and how conflicting accounts connect. If one or more blanks miss the mark, incorrect slots are highlighted in red so you can re-examine your notes and revise only the flawed entries.

Rather than acting as an arbitrary puzzle, the Deduction Board anchors the facts verified so far before the investigation widens in the next chapter. By turning scattered observations into clear, confirmed sentences, the board sharpens your view of whose Wednesday-night story still fails to add up.

5. Five Changing Culprits & Case Log Verdict Stamps

A defining pillar of The Real Killer is its variable culprit structure. In Case 01: Pylon 2, five suspects stand connected to the sea cable car project and the abandoned quarry. Every suspect has a distinct public position, a reason to care about the project's fate, and a prepared alibi.

Each time you start a new playthrough from the beginning, one of those five suspects is selected as the real culprit. Behind the scenes, the culprit's actual night movements, concealed items, witness sightings, and spoken lies shift to match that reality. A person whose alibi held firm during your previous playthrough may become the liar on your next visit, meaning memorized answers from an earlier run will never solve a new investigation.

When the final deadline arrives and you name the culprit along with supporting proof, your work receives one of three editorial stamps: Solved when both the culprit and decisive evidence are nailed down, Not Proven when the right person is named without complete proof, or Wrong Man when an innocent suspect is accused. The in-game Case Log records your stamp for each of the five suspects separately, inviting you to replay until all five culprit variations are fully solved.

6. Browser Local Saves & Comfortable Controls

When you play in a web browser at /play/, your active save slot, Case Log stamps, memos, language choice, text size, and audio settings are stored locally inside your browser's localStorage. Nothing is uploaded to an external server and no account registration is asked of you.

Because progress lives inside that specific browser, clearing site data or closing an incognito or private window will erase your local save; stick to a regular browser window if you plan to take breaks between chapters. Both mouse drag-and-drop on desktop monitors and one-handed tap controls on mobile portrait screens are supported seamlessly.