Description
Six people. One road. It went at midnight.
Ardenfell Observatory sits alone on an upland plateau, ninety kilometres from the nearest town — a single access road, a low-water ford as the only way in or out. Six people arrived for a three-night observing run. On the second night, heavy rain took out the ford. Around 2 a.m., Dr. Miriam Hallam — a revered astronomer on what everyone knew was her last observing run — fell roughly seven metres from the exterior catwalk onto concrete below.
Nobody could get in. Nobody could get out. It was forty hours before the road was passable and police finally reached the site.
You're detectives with the Hartsmere Constabulary Major Crime Unit, assigned once the site manager's report of an unsecured catwalk gate and a contradicted witness account turned a probable accident into a suspected homicide.
What you get:
A full printable evidence packet — coronial reports, scene examination findings, a first account taken over a satellite handset, and six people's stories from the forty hours they spent isolated together — paired with three real digital gates, each unlockable only once you've found the right credentials hidden in the physical evidence.
This is our most demanding case yet. With the road out, opportunity stops being a discriminator — everyone on site had access to everywhere. The case can only be solved on means, motive, and contradiction: reconstructing exactly what happened during one specific hour, using machine records that don't have a motive to lie the way people do.
- Format: Printable PDF evidence packet + web-based digital investigation
- Players: Built for a group of 4–8
- Difficulty: 5/5 — our hardest case to date
- Typical solve time: 3–4 hours
- Framing: You're official police detectives investigating a suspected homicide, with full investigative authority
Every detail — the coronial procedure, the scene examination, the satellite-communications record — is built to hold up under real scrutiny. Nothing hands you the answer; everything has to be assembled.
