Mindcop

Funny thing, the human mind. There's always much more to a person than meets the eye. But you can't literally dive into someone's mind, so you can never know this, unless they tell you or you find out some other way.
Unless you're the Mindcop. Then you can.
It's kinda the same with this game. There's much more to it than meets the eye, but you can't know it without having played it. I dove into this game, but I won't spill its secrets; they're for you to find out. I'll tell you one thing, though.
You know how games have this conservation of detail? If something is detailed, that means it's important. If something is plain or merely mentioned, you don't need to bother. This is understandable, but it creates this weird vibe where you can immediately tell some things from merely looking at things. "Oh, this person has a portrait" - so they must be important. "Oh, this area has detailed geometry" - there's probably going to be a fight there. "Oh, this little apartment took a while to load" - yep, there's definitely some kind of hidden passage here.
But in a real investigation you have to be able to tell which leads are worth following. And if that's not possible, you might find yourself to have been chasing a red herring.
And that's what makes Mindcop special. It's a true whodunnit in a world where every single person has some kind of secret to them. Because, let's be honest: that's how people are. They have things they'd rather keep hidden. Sins, desires, regrets, plans. Do all of them have something to do with the murder?
Of course not. Or do they? It's a small town, after all...
Anyway, this is relevant because you have a week to find the culprit - and everything you do takes time. Everything. Inspecting a bookshelf, moving from one location to the other, asking a person about topic X, diving into someone's mind. In cases of thorough searches, Mindcop will outright state that "I can do a cursory search or really dig into this", and it's up to you to decide. Doing the usual detective game thing where you turn the entire place upside down to search for clues is simply not an option here.
Does this feel you with anxious dread? "Wait, so I can fail?" Yes. You can. And you probably will - the first time around, at least. Even if you do manage to find the relevant evidence, the case itself is non-trivial - even with the power to literally read minds. And trust me when I say: it's okay. Normally I hate having to replay games, but trying, failing, and then succeeding actually enriches this particular experience.
There's a small issue with the game here, though. You only get to follow leads you know about - and this knowledge doesn't transfer to your next playthrough. So you'll have to find your way to get that info or evidence again. Luckily, there are multiple ways to learn pretty much everything, so it's not that big of a deal, especially once you start seeing the big picture. And all that matters in the very end is that you have the right guy arrested when the time comes.
Also, I don't think it's strictly necessary, but you'll probably have an easier time if you take notes. The game doesn't have its own notepad and some info will just pass you by unless you jot it down, and details are everything.
Still, this is an excellent game. 38% of players have caught the culprit, and that's a high number. If you like a good whodunnit and aren't afraid of games with zero handholding, take a dive. The spinal fluid's nice.
Diving into other games

The experience of playing Mindcop is constantly despairing at your time slipping away with every pointless search, every wasted interrogation. "Surely this room wouldn't be in the game if there wasn't anything to find in it" said the fool, about to waste an hour of his day. I am the fool.
But this commitment to such a detailed world and having everything be searchable makes it so sweet when a hunch is correct and something does turn up.
I was so sure I was going to fail until the final couple hours when I finally put together a solid theory and took a shot with only 50% certainty, and got it right. It felt really good.

Very good game for those that enjoy detective/puzzle games. It doesn't shy away from dark themes and really immerses you in the setting. I think my only complaint would be if you replay it you have to rediscover all the topics and it's rather a chore to skip through all the already seen dialogue, but that's a rather small complaint for a overall great time.

I don't know much about the developer, but if this is their first game, I look on with great interest to see what they make next.

Fantastic game. I love whodunits. This one is hard. Thought I knew who the killer was. Wasn't the person I arrested. Now I'm befuddled. Mega kudos to anyone who can solve it the first time 'round.

The world of mindcop is dense is rich. Everything is there for a reason , and you can inspect it , although not everything will be helpful.It was fun exploring the town and putting the pieces together. There are a lot of red herrings and " sub stories " you can find if you choose to .

What makes all that hard to enjoy is the timed aspect of the game. Time is a resource and you have to use it to do everything ( talking to people , entering buildings , looking at piles of trash) . It felt like the devs put a lot of effort into building this world with so many little details and then added a mechanic to ensure you see as little of it as possible.

After completing the game you can revisit any day during the story to see things you may have missed , but the time management aspect still felt poorly implemented. Would recommend to pick it up on sale,

A little bit conflicted here, but yes - the game is great. Big warning though - there's no railroading here and you really have to pay attention.

That said - it feels like you need to be lucky to actually manage to solve this on your first attempt. There's so much information everywhere, and you can just not go to some specific places to know the most important things. Combining that with the time limit mechanics, it's... making it good and bad. I love that you have to deduce things on your own, and not waste time on "trying to click through everything" - but on the other hand, you can't really know what is important or not. There's quite some red herrings here, and a whole separate "criminal side story" that doesn't bring much to the table (apart from leading you astray). While this makes your playtrough definitely more unique - it might just end "unlucky".

The biggest gripe of mine was probably not even the fact that you might not "win" the first time - that's fine, but that the next attempt is still going to be full of tedium. Yeah, maybe you can now skip the dialogues, and you have a lot of context knowledge in your head - but some things you still need to actually "uncover in game" to be able to use them. I'm not sure how this could've been solved better, but it might be a little disheartening to start all over and try to "optimize" things better (and do thing differently).

That all said, I do think it's really good, with a great vibe and the weirdness. I really enjoyed it - but I do wish some things were managed a little differently.

Great game and mechanics, would love to see future dlc with new mysteries/crimes to solve