Detective games. I'm defining "detective" games here to mean not just a mystery but a very specific kind of game in which you don't play as a character who can influence events, only an observer solving a mystery from the outside. You should probably have a notebook and pen when playing any of these, especially since you're probably not going to have help from the character you play making observations.

Return of the Obra Dinn

The Obra Dinn, declared lost at sea after disappearing, has returned to port with damaged sails and no visible crew. An insurance investigator is dispatched to prepare an assessment of damages. From freeze-frame moments in history, you must explore and use logical deductions to identify the members of the crew and their fates, and discover the whole of the story of what happened abord the Obra Dinn.

The Case of the Golden Idol

Uncover the mystery of a string of deaths across fifty years, all apparently related to a mysterious golden idol.

A Hand With Many Fingers

Search an old archive to slowly reveal more information about a CIA conspiracy. The exact files are specifically made for the game, but the people and events are real. Also, you get a fun corkboard where you can do the thing with the red string connecting pictures and files.

Her Story

An FMV game with a clever setup. Search through a police database of clips from seven interviews in which a woman is questioned about the disappearance of her husband. You explore the database by entering keywords and seeing a selection of short clips in which those words are spoken, and piece together her story.

Telling Lies

Another FMV game in the same style as Her Story, but with a greater cast of characters. This one suffers a bit with the pacing in my opinion - each of the clips tends to be longer than the ones in Her Story, and it can be a pain to slog through, in addition to the fact that you are often only hearing one side of a conversation at a time. Not as good as its predecessor, but I feel like you can still definitely get some enjoyment from it.