A murder mystery you talk your way through. Six suspects in a snowed-in inn, one killer, and one scapegoat built to take the fall. No dialogue trees: type or say anything, and they answer, remember, and lie to you. Play solo, or six players where the liars are human. Free.

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Coming Soon To Early Access

The developers of this game intend to release as a work in progress, developing with the feedback of players.

Note: Games in Early Access are not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

Why Early Access?

“We are releasing through early access because we are a tiny studio with limited expertise. We don't have a massive budget or a large team behind us, so we need to work with actual gamers that are willing to play early access games to provide us feedback on what is wrong, what is right, and what needs to be improved. The game is playable, but we'd like to make it better than just playable.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We estimate between six months to a year. Mostly because we are doing this on a shoestring budget with two developers.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“The full version will present multiple options of play. There will be fully developed multiplayer versions in various settings that rely on cooperation and communication to work through. Singleplayer will have added content that will allow for several different brief games or a longer campaign story.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“Scapegoat is playable end-to-end in both modes. In single-player you investigate a murder across a living inn of six AI-driven suspects — question anyone about anything in free-form conversation, read their reactions, gather what you learn, and accuse, with multiple possible verdicts depending on who you condemn. In multiplayer, six players become the suspects themselves in a timed social-deduction round: question each other, bluff, vote, and hang someone — guilty or not. The AI cast runs on a bundled on-device model out of the box, with an optional premium cloud brain available in-game. All features listed in the "About This Game" section above are implemented in the current build.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“No — the game is free to play and will remain free. It offers optional in-game token packs, billed through Steam, which power an optional premium cloud AI for NPC dialogue. These are never necessary to play the game, and the built-in AI is free forever.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“Most of the conversation will happen in the discussions on our Steam community page, and our website lists an email address players can reach us at directly — we'll answer as much correspondence as we can. We want players telling us what's wrong, what's right, and what doesn't feel quite right: bug reports, balance gripes, and honest reactions to having an AI-driven cast at the heart of gameplay — how comfortable it feels, where it surprises, where it falls flat. That feedback will steer development priorities.

As the community grows, we plan to run engagement events, get to know the people playing this early version, invite artists to contribute skins, and explore opening the game up to modding. Above all, we intend to stay in touch — players should always know what we're working on and why.”
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This game is not yet available on Steam

Planned Release Date: September 2026

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About This Game

Someone is dead at the inn, and you were the last to arrive.

You are Grey — hired by the Duke to look into caravans vanishing in Deepwood Valley. You walk into the local inn to ask a few questions, and a guest named Aldric turns up with a knife in him. A merchant, the others say. Looks have been known to deceive. And your contract is clear: any incident gets investigated.

Six people were under this roof tonight. One of them is a killer. One of them was chosen, long before you arrived, to hang for it.

Interrogate them, befriend them, or terrorize them. Your job is to make sure the right person is held accountable — and the scapegoat walks free.

What makes it tick

**A cast that actually thinks.**

**Living characters — no scripts, no dialogue trees.**

Each suspect is driven by its own mind: memories, motives, a temperament, and a secret it will bend the truth to keep. Say something new and you get a new answer. Tell one of them something in the taproom, and another will have heard about it by the time you reach the stable.

**Speak, don't select.**

Type your questions, or hold a key and say them out loud — speech recognition runs locally on your machine. Interrogation the way it should feel: you asking, them dodging.

**No canon culprit.**

The murderer is drawn fresh at the start of each round, and the evidence is written so the guilty and the innocent look exactly alike. Learn the tells and they'll still fool you.

**Solo, or six players.**

Play the singleplayer mystery against the cast — or drop into a six-player round where the liars across the table are human, and one of them is quietly steering you toward the wrong neck.

A night at the inn — how a case actually breaks

**1. Make the rounds.**

The six pieces of the story live in what people say, scattered across the whole cast. Nobody hands you the picture — you assemble it, room by room.

**2. Find each person's key.**

Red gives way to the truth. Yellow to gentleness. Green only to hard proof. Bring the wrong approach and the door stays shut — bring the right one and it swings open.

**3. Catch the confession.**

Press the right suspect the right way and the ground goes out from under them. It's the one thing the evidence can never do for you, and the only thing that names the killer for certain.

**4. Name the killer — and clear the scapegoat.**

Accuse on evidence alone and you'll condemn the innocent one it was built to frame. It takes the truth to hang the guilty and free the falsely blamed. Be sure.

How it's made

Every character, every secret, every line of the story was written by a human. The art is human-made. What the engine adds is improvisation: when you say something no writer could have anticipated, the character answers in the voice it was given — and remembers. That improvisation runs entirely on your own PC. No account, no connection, and nothing you say ever leaves your machine.

Multiplayer has no AI in it at all. Six people, one killer, one scapegoat, and only human lies.

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

The suspects' personalities are written by humans, but none of their dialogue is scripted — it is generated live by a language model (a bundled on-device model by default; optionally the player's own local model, or an optional cloud model). Every AI line passes through a deterministic, non-disableable content filter that blocks explicit sexual content, illegal content, and hate speech; romantic dialogue is capped at suggestive innuendo. There is no AI of any kind in Multiplayer.

Mature Content Description

The developers describe the content like this:

Scapegoat is a murder mystery: a killing has occurred and its aftermath, motives, and suspects are discussed throughout. There is no combat or graphic gore in gameplay. Alcohol is served in the inn setting. NPC dialogue is AI-generated at runtime and is not scripted: it may include moderate profanity and suggestive (never explicit) romantic remarks. A built-in content filter that cannot be disabled blocks explicit sexual content, illegal sexual content, and hate speech before any line is shown.

System Requirements

    Minimum:
    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit
    • Processor: Quad-core, 2.5 GHz+ (e.g. Intel Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600)
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • Graphics: DX12-capable GPU, 4 GB VRAM
    • DirectX: Version 12
    • Storage: 5 GB available space
    • Sound Card: DirectX compatible sound card
    • VR Support: N/A
    • Additional Notes: Unreal Engine 5 requires up-to-date graphics drivers. If the game crashes on launch, update your GPU driver first · · , then relaunch. On-device AI NPCs run best with 6 GB+ VRAM; an optional cloud AI option is available in-game.
    Recommended:
    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 11 64-bit
    • Processor: 6-core, 3.5 GHz+ (e.g. Intel Core i5-12400 / AMD Ryzen 5 5600)
    • Memory: 16 GB RAM
    • Graphics: RTX 2060 / RX 5700 or better, 6 GB VRAM
    • DirectX: Version 12
    • Storage: 6 GB available space
    • Sound Card: DirectX compatible sound card
    • VR Support: N/A
    • Additional Notes: Unreal Engine 5 requires up-to-date graphics drivers. If the game crashes on launch, update your GPU driver first · · , then relaunch. On-device AI NPCs run best with 6 GB+ VRAM; an optional cloud AI option is available in-game.
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