Mystery Games

Mystery games make you investigate: look for clues, talk to characters, open up new paths and work out what's going on in each scene. There are about 90, from Scooby-Doo adventures to haunted houses and detective cases, all free and with nothing to download.

How to play

Most are played with the mouse. You move around the scene by clicking, pick up what you find, combine it or use it where it fits, and slowly piece together what happened. You win by solving the mystery, and you rarely lose: getting stuck is far more common than dying. That makes them games to take slowly.

What you'll find

• Scooby-Doo, with several adventures: Creepy Castle, Pirate Ship of Fools, The Ghost Pirate Attacks, Neptune's Nest, the Tikal adventure or the cursed cemetery.
• Detective cases, like Detective Conan, or mysteries with familiar characters, like Ben 10 Egypt Mystery.
• Haunted houses and ghosts, like Haunted House Hidden Ghost or Haunted the Trapped Soul.
• Exploration adventures with riddles, like Zelda RPG, Hyrule Adventure or Mysteriez 2.
• A darker tone: TrollFace Quest: Horror 1, Clown Nights or The Fog Fall.

Where to start

To play with kids, the Scooby-Doo adventures are the safest bet. The title tells you what to expect, and the cases involve cartoon ghosts. If you like hunting for hidden things, Haunted House Hidden Ghost is along those lines. Games with "horror" or "nights" in the name are for older players, so check what they're about first.

Tips

Don't stay in the main area. Click on the small details in the scene and check what you've already picked up, since an item you have may be useful on another screen. When you talk to characters, go over what they say, because they often drop the clue you're missing. If you're stuck, go back to an earlier screen: the mystery nearly always moves forward when you find something that had no use before.