Ciella's Casebook is a single-player mystery detective adventure game developed by Studio Elysian for PC. Set in a steampunk industrial city called Actain one year after a major war, the title follows war veteran Ciella as she works cases as a private detective alongside her assistant Ricky. The story connects a fresh murder investigation to events from Ciella's past, including her father's death a decade earlier, while exploring lingering social and political tensions in the post-war world.
Gameplay
Players take on the role of Ciella and progress through cases by visiting crime scenes to locate physical clues. These clues feed into conversations with suspects and other characters, where interrogation reveals testimony that often contains inconsistencies. The core loop centers on collecting statements, cross-referencing them against evidence, and assembling the pieces to advance each investigation. Character interactions form another layer, as Ciella meets survivors of the war who can shift between helpful allies and potential obstacles depending on the choices made during questioning. The narrative branches according to how thoroughly players examine leads, with the depth of Ciella's personal history tied directly to the extent of the investigation.
The setting of Actain provides the backdrop for these activities, featuring a factory environment dominated by steam-powered machinery and the ongoing effects of wartime changes on daily life. No generative AI was used in the game's development, which shapes the hand-crafted nature of the dialogue and clue systems.
Game Modes
The game operates entirely in single-player mode. All content revolves around sequential case investigations that combine scene examination, testimony gathering, and clue assembly into a continuous story experience. There are no separate competitive or cooperative modes listed. Progression occurs through the main narrative thread, with side elements emerging from character relationships built across multiple cases. Steam achievements track specific milestones within these investigations, and Steam Cloud support allows save progress across devices.
Story and Setting
The plot unfolds in Actain, a city still recovering from conflict where national, corporate, and ideological pressures continue to influence events. Ciella's work as a detective pulls her into cases that gradually reveal connections to her own history, forcing decisions about trust and loyalty among the people she encounters. The steampunk aesthetic emphasizes industrial scale and mechanical detail, while the post-war context adds layers of personal and societal fallout that affect how characters respond during interrogations.
Players encounter a range of individuals whose backstories tie into the broader changes happening in the world. These encounters can strengthen bonds or expose betrayals, directly impacting the path to solving each case.
Technical Details and Availability
Ciella's Casebook runs on Windows 10 or 11 with modest hardware requirements, including integrated graphics for the minimum specification and a recommended setup featuring an AMD Ryzen 7 processor and GeForce RTX 2060 card. The game supports English, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese interfaces and subtitles, with full audio available in Korean. It includes family sharing and is currently listed with a planned release in 2027, available for wishlist on the Steam platform.
Is It Worth Playing?
This title targets players who enjoy methodical single-player mystery adventures built around evidence collection and dialogue-driven deduction. The verified features focus on crime scene searches, suspect interrogations, and clue synthesis within a connected story that links personal backstory to larger post-war themes. With no user reviews available yet and the game still in development, reception remains unknown. Those drawn to indie adventure experiences with steampunk settings and character-focused investigations may find the premise appealing once it launches, particularly if they value deliberate pacing over fast action. The emphasis on uncovering contradictions in testimony and deciding whom to trust provides a clear gameplay identity for fans of detective simulations.
