Conspiracy!
PC
Developer/publisher Tim Sheinman
Format PC Release Out now
After two games of deduction set around fictional music scenes, Tim Sheinman turns his hand to satire, taking his cue – or should that be Q? – from US politics in this piercingly relevant and queasily compelling detective puzzler. You’re cast as the president’s lawyer, seeking to uncover an apparent deep-state plot to control the southern states. To do so, you comb through emails, transcripts and private memos while listening to audio recordings to find a connection between 20 disparate incidents spread across several years. Ranging from the purchase of rigged Ecuadorian voting machines to an accident involving a Georgia congressman and the president’s own claim of his limo being bugged, each is represented by a blank Polaroid; it’s your job to attach the month and year to each event, the images revealed and further clues unlocked when you correctly identify five at once.
Like Sheinman’s previous games, Conspiracy! is set within a single screen, but establishes a convincing picture of a world beyond those boundaries through a combination of witty, economical writing and robust voice acting (he’s even managed to secure the services of Jon Ronson for the game’s first tape, as the journalist relays a meeting with one of the game’s fictional theorists). It extends its tendrils into the real world, too, not just in the themes it explores, but by having its clues refer to dates, places and events that will have you tabbing out to Google the solutions. It’s a rare game where prior knowledge of a certain pop star’s birthday makes for swifter progress. Sheinman has clue-giving off to a fine art, ensuring you’ve always got just enough information to proceed, so you’ll still get that Obra Dinn-like buzz of satisfaction when your suggested dates are confirmed. Sure, once you’ve got the first five, it gets steadily easier – at times you might wonder if these secrets could be buried a little deeper – but that feeling of an incomplete picture coming into sharp focus remains captivating throughout.
Indeed, even as it satirises the fanaticism that led to the recent attempted insurrection in the US, with its nods to 5G mania and electoral fraud, Conspiracy! demonstrates how someone might fall under the spell of these wild theories. In combining our innate ability to recognise patterns with the allure of a good story, it allows us a glimpse into the mindset of someone who might seek out links between unconnected events to confirm their innermost fears or prejudices. We’re not saying it’ll make you understand the more virulent strains of Trumpism, but playing as a surrogate Rudy Giuliani for a couple of hours turns out to be a far better use of your time than you’d expect.