Even going back to the classic point-and-click adventure games, well-written mysteries have always been intriguing. There’s something to pulling together clues through investigation, talking to suspects, and making some logical leaps to work out whodunnit that can be very satisfying when the experience is constructed well. In this generation it has been fun to see a mix of styles of play across multiple titles in the subgenre. Some have opted for a classic feel, some have put a heavier focus on character interactions and dialogue, and some have managed to mix together older concepts and play with slightly more action-oriented sequences for flavor. The good news is that Mindcop really doesn’t seem to care what anyone else is doing or has done, it just sets out to tackle things its own way.

While its approach to interrogations and general detective work are quite unusual, make no mistake that probably the biggest shot in the arm the game brings to the table is that you’re constrained by time, and that fact quickly begins to influence all of your decisions. Pretty well every action you take, or line of inquiry you pursue, will have a requisite cost of time. This pretty dramatically alters the typical style of play in the genre, where more often than not it feels like the expectation is that you cover every potential thread and exhaustively search every corner in the hopes of finding some critical clue. In Mindcop you’ll instead need to pause and consider which actions and lines of inquiry are the most likely to bear fruit, which is admittedly much harder your first time through. Subsequent runs will make you better informed, and able to be more efficient, but even then efficient time utilization is a must.

Aside from the more typical actions you can take in your investigation, you’ll also have the option to Mindsurf your suspects. This takes you into an odd puzzle mini game that may take a moment to fully grasp, but serves as a great break from more text-heavy elements. If you’re able to get to the finish line you’ll then be given the opportunity to go through one of three doors, with one representing a truth, one a lie, and the other uncertainty. Depending on the circumstances any of the above may be of benefit, and since they’re capable of opening new lines of questioning with suspects they can absolutely make a major difference in your success.

There’s no doubt that this is a very unusual murder mystery, but it’s also quite a refreshing one. If you’re the type who is looking to approach it as a casual “one run and you’re done” though, it may not be a great match. It feels like it’s deliberately structured to require you to go through it more than once, unless you just happen to be quite lucky or have a walkthrough handy to know where to go, who to talk to, and how best to make use of your finite time to solve the mystery on your first runthrough. I do wish that skipping stock dialogue was possible, helping you more efficiently tackle subsequent runs, but in the grand scheme of things this isn’t a huge issue. If you’re looking for a challenge, and something that’s simply different, Mindcop delivers precisely that.