Games Like Duskwood for Mobile Mystery Fans

Mobile-friendly mysteries for Duskwood fans, from found-phone thrillers to surveillance games, compared by how you investigate.

By Murder Book Editorial TeamPublished 16 September 2026Updated 16 September 2026

If you enjoyed Duskwood, look for mysteries that put the investigation inside a phone or a screen, where you judge people through their messages, files and videos. The closest matches on mobile are:

SIMULACRA: go through a missing woman's phone to find out what happened to her.
Sara Is Missing: the earlier "found phone" mystery from the same studio.
Scriptic: Crime Stories: interactive crime stories played through your phone.
Her Story: search a police database of video interviews.
Orwell: Keeping an Eye on You: profile suspects through their online lives.
Do Not Feed the Monkeys: watch strangers through cameras and research what you see.
Overboard! and The Case of the Golden Idol: two different takes on the whodunnit.

Each of these was checked against the App Store, Google Play, Steam or the developer's own site.

Key takeaways

Duskwood's appeal is investigating through a messenger, as if the mystery were happening on your own phone.
SIMULACRA and Sara Is Missing are the closest matches in format.
Her Story, Orwell and Do Not Feed the Monkeys keep the "screen as evidence" feel, with different tools.
Overboard! and The Case of the Golden Idol suit players who want a tighter puzzle.
Murder Book is an upcoming interrogation game for PC and mobile with 5–10-minute cases.

What makes Duskwood work on mobile?

Duskwood (Everbyte, 2019) is a detective story played in a WhatsApp-style messenger. A girl called Hannah has disappeared, and her friends receive a message from her phone containing only a phone number: yours. According to Everbyte's press sheet, you do not play a separate character but take part in the story as yourself. You chat with the other characters, who are played by actors, and look through voice messages, pictures and video calls for clues. A "spy mode" lets you secretly read other people's chats.

Duskwood is free, released in episodes and available on iOS and Android. Everbyte has not published an episode total that we could verify, so we do not give one here.

A good "game like Duskwood" usually shares some of these qualities:

The phone or screen is the investigation. You read messages, files and footage rather than walking around a 3D world.
You judge people through what they share, and what they leave out.
It fits a phone. Touch controls and a story you can pick up and put down.
No combat. Progress comes from reading and deciding.

Games like Duskwood at a glance

Game	Developer	How you investigate	Format	Platforms (examples)
SIMULACRA	Kaigan Games	Search a missing woman's phone and recover corrupted data	Found-phone thriller	iOS, Android, PC, Mac
Sara Is Missing	Kaigan Games	Search a missing woman's messages, notes and files	Found-phone thriller	iOS
Scriptic: Crime Stories	Scriptic LTD	Use clues and conversations in interactive crime stories	Interactive stories	iOS, Android
Her Story	Sam Barlow	Search a police database of video interviews	Full-motion video	iOS, Android, PC, Mac
Orwell: Keeping an Eye on You	Osmotic Studios	Profile suspects from web pages, chats and private files	Surveillance desktop	iOS, PC, Mac, Linux
Do Not Feed the Monkeys	Fictiorama Studios	Watch strangers on cameras and research them	Surveillance simulator	iOS, Android, PC, consoles
Overboard!	inkle	Steer a murder investigation away from yourself	Reverse whodunnit	iOS, Android, PC, Switch
The Case of the Golden Idol	Color Gray Games	Examine frozen scenes and fill in what happened	Deduction puzzle	iOS, Android, PC, consoles

Platforms were checked against store listings or official sites. Mobile availability can change, so check your store before buying.

SIMULACRA

SIMULACRA (Kaigan Games, 2017) is the closest match to Duskwood's format. You find the lost phone of a woman named Anna, containing a video message asking for help. You talk to her friends and go through her texts, emails, photo gallery, a dating app and her video logs. The characters are played by live actors. Along the way, you recover lost files and solve image and text decryption puzzles. Steam calls it "an interactive horror experience", and it has five possible endings.

Why it fits: the same "someone is missing and all you have is a phone" premise, with a darker, horror-leaning tone.

Sara Is Missing

Sara Is Missing (Kaigan Games, App Store listing 2016) came before SIMULACRA. Your only lead to a missing woman is her mobile phone. You search her messages, notes, emails, pictures and videos, unlock password-protected files and chat with several people at once. The App Store description says multiple choices lead to multiple endings.

Why it fits: a shorter found-phone mystery built around the same questions Duskwood asks. We could only confirm an iOS version.

Scriptic: Crime Stories

Scriptic: Crime Stories (Scriptic LTD) is a collection of interactive stories played on your phone. Its App Store description says you can be the detective in crime stories, "using clues and conversations to crack the case", and that other series put you in roles such as emergency dispatcher, hostage negotiator or judge. All stories are free to play, though you wait for the next one to unlock.

Why it fits: story-first mysteries designed around the phone, with choices that shape the outcome.

Her Story

Her Story (Sam Barlow, 2015) replaces the chat window with an old police computer. You type search terms into a database and watch clips from seven interviews with a British woman about her missing husband. There is no one to tell you what matters, so you follow words and notice where her account shifts. It is available on iOS and Android as well as PC and Mac.

Why it fits: you piece together the truth from fragments of testimony. See more picks in Games Like Her Story.

Orwell: Keeping an Eye on You

Orwell: Keeping an Eye on You (Osmotic Studios, 2016) makes you a researcher for a government surveillance programme after a terror attack. You search web pages, social media, chats, emails and private files to profile suspects, then decide which information reaches the security forces. The iOS version was confirmed; we could not confirm a current Android listing.

Why it fits: reading people through their digital traces, with the uncomfortable question of whether you are reading them fairly.

Do Not Feed the Monkeys

Do Not Feed the Monkeys (Fictiorama Studios, 2018) describes itself as a "digital voyeur simulator". You watch strangers through surveillance cameras, research what you see on an in-game computer and choose whether to interfere.

Why it fits: it expands on Duskwood's spy mode, where observing private lives is the gameplay.

Overboard!

Overboard! (inkle, 2021) turns the whodunnit around. You are the killer, and you have eight in-game hours on a cruise ship to steer conversations and evidence away from yourself. Steam says one play-through lasts about 30–45 minutes, and the game is designed to be replayed.

Why it fits: a text-driven mystery that works in short mobile sessions.

The Case of the Golden Idol

The Case of the Golden Idol (Color Gray Games, 2022) is a deduction puzzle rather than a chat story. You examine frozen scenes of 12 deaths, collect clues and fill in names, motives and events. The mobile version is free to try, with one purchase unlocking the full game, according to its App Store listing.

Why it fits: for Duskwood players who want to test their own conclusions rather than follow a story.

Which game should you play first?

Want the closest match? SIMULACRA.
Prefer a shorter, older found-phone story? Sara Is Missing (iOS).
Want a steady stream of crime stories? Scriptic: Crime Stories.
Like analysing testimony? Her Story.
Only have half an hour? Overboard!

For a broader list, see Best Detective Games for Mobile.

Is there an upcoming mobile mystery like Duskwood?

Murder Book: The Art of Interrogation is an upcoming narrative interrogation game from Gungrounds, an independent studio in Zagreb, Croatia. Where Duskwood unfolds over episodes of chat, Murder Book is built around short, self-contained cases designed for focused 5–10-minute sessions, which suits playing on a phone. You question suspects and examine their stories for fabrication, avoidance and narrative gaps. Development screenshots show an evidence board for linking statements that do not fit together and a case map with multiple endings.

Murder Book is in development for PC (Steam) and mobile, with release currently planned for the end of Q2 2027. Read Why Murder Book Cases Are Designed for 5–10-Minute Sessions or find more Mystery Games With Short Cases.