10 best mystery games for Android

There is nothing like a good mystery. The story jerks you around and makes you think the wrong things. It then surprises you at the end with some big revelation. It’s difficult to find the good ones, though, especially on Android. Believe it or not, the platform actually has some excellent games in the mystery genre. Here are the best mystery games for Android! We also recommend checking out Her Story as long as you don’t mind the game not having an update in the last four years.

The best mystery games for Android

Ace Attorney series (four games)

Price: $15.99-$19.99 each

Ace Attorney is a popular mystery-puzzle visual novel from the Nintendo DS and 3DS. Four of the games are on Android right now, including Spirit of Justice, Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies (linked at the button), Apollo Justice Ace Attorney, and Ace Attorney Investigations. All of these play a similar way. You start a new case, collect evidence, and use the evidence in court to win. Each one has its own little mechanics as well. For instance, Ace Attorney Investigations lets you combine clues to create new clues. These are pure console ports with the full game included in each title. They are rather expensive, but there are no in-app purchases or ads to ruin the experience.

See also: The best visual novels for Android

Adventure Escape (five games)

Price: Free to play

The Adventure Escape series by Haiku Games is a popular series of mystery games. Each game in the series has a storyline and players have to solve puzzles to progress through the story. The game includes mystery, puzzles, and escape room mechanics. The games are classic point-and-click adventure-style games where you find stuff and use it later on different puzzles. The games are entirely free to play, but you can buy hints if you really want to. The Escape the Mansion series by GAMEBORN is also pretty good.

Clue

Price: $3.99 with in-app purchases

Clue is the mobile launch of the classic Clue board game. It plays basically the same. You move around the board to assemble clues and find out who the killer is, where the murder took place, and with what implement of destruction. Players get clipboards just like the real game and must add stuff to eventually solve the murder. It has its ups and downs, but it’s generally a solid play.

See also: The best board games for Android

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

Price: $17.99

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is a thriller-mystery visual novel. It’s also one of the best in its genre on any platform. You start as a student in a government-sponsored academy with some other students. The only way to graduate is to murder a fellow classmate and completely get away with it. Players find clues and figure out the killer in the game’s court. This is the anniversary edition on top of being a port from the PSP version, so you get a little bit of extra content as well. It’s super expensive, but there are no in-app purchases or ads to mess things up.

Emulators

Price: Free / Varies

There were a bunch of classic mystery games on older consoles. You can play them with the use of emulators. Some ideas include Mario is Missing on SNES, Scooby-Doo Mystery on SEGA Genesis, Myst on PlayStation, Time Hollow on the Nintendo 3DS, and many others. Emulators are relatively easy to use as long as you can procure your own game files. All of them have things like save and load states (bypassing the in-game save systems), touch controls, and most of them have support for external game controllers. We have John NESS (SNES and NES) linked at the button, or you can check out the best emulators for Android here.

See also: The best NES emulators for Android

Life is Strange (two games)

Price: Free / Up to $8.99 (each)

Life is Strange is an adventure-puzzle game from Square Enix. You play as Max Caulfield, a girl with the ability to rewind time in short bursts to change minor things. You use the ability to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. The mechanics are actually pretty good with decent graphics and a fun story. The dialog can get a little verbose, but hey, nobody’s perfect. The game is a premium game, but you can start it for free. Square Enix also has the prequel available on mobile as well.

Professor Layton series

Price: $9.99-$15.99 each

The Professor Layton series is a popular and excellent mystery series from the Nintendo DS. Luckily, LEVEL-5 is porting the games to mobile for play there. There are four games available right now, including Diabolical Box, Curious Village, Mystery Journey, and Pandora’s Box (although we couldn’t download Pandora’s Box, check your device compatibility first). The games follow a similar story. Professor Layton embarks on a journey to tackle various mysteries. The series was insanely popular on the Nintendo DS and we hope it gains popularity here too because it’s really good. The games range from $9.99 to $15.99 each but have no in-app purchases or ads.

See also: The best puzzle games for Android

The Room (four games)

Price: $0.99-$4.99 each

The Room was one of the first great mystery games on mobile. The game traps the player in a room and you must deconstruct the puzzles to escape. The first game was fairly basic, but the developers added a bit of a story as the series continued. Later games also added features like cloud saving and achievements. The series is best known for its insanely good graphics, clever puzzles, and arcane story. This is one of the great mobile franchises of all time. Of course, we recommend it to people.

Rusty Lake and Cube Escape (several games)

Price: Free / Up to $3.49 each

Rusty Lake is a developer on Google Play and basically, all of their games fall under the mystery banner. Cube Escape is a series of puzzle-mystery games with escape room mechanics and there are ten games in that series. Additionally, there is the hallmark Rusty Lake series with three games. Finally, the developer also has Samsara Room which is similar to Cube Escape, but it has its own thing. All of these games use point-and-click adventure mechanics to move around and engage with the game world. The Rusty Lake series has a lot more story than Cube Escape, but you really can’t go wrong with any of these titles. They’re excellent mystery games.

See also: The best psychological thriller games for Android

The Vigil Files: Case 1

Price: $2.99

The Vigil Files: Case 1 is an interesting text-based mystery game. Players receive emails and texts and make actions based on them. You also have to examine actual websites to discover clues and the game has a bit of hacking as well. It’s definitely something a little bit different in the genre and it reminds us heavily of the Lost Phone games from Dear Villagers (another excellent mystery series, by the way). The text based style may leave those wanting good graphics wanting more, but the story is good and the concept is neat. 

Whispers of a Machine

Price: $4.99

Whispers of a Machine is a Sci-Fi Noir. It tells the story of Vera and her dealings with some brutal murders in the game’s world. The game progresses as the player explores and solves various puzzles. At its core, it uses a point-and-click adventure game style of storytelling. You will read a bunch of dialog and make various decisions. The game is actually quite good and should sate that mystery game itch rather well. The story is quite excellent as well. It runs for $4.99 with no in-app purchases or ads. You can also get it via Google Play Pass for free if you use that service.

See also: The best adventure games for Android

If we missed any great mystery games for Android, tell us about them in the comments. You can also click here to check out our latest Android app and game lists.
Thank you for reading. Try these too:

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• The best escape games for Android