Sometimes you get a note through the door, nestled among the bills and flyers for local takeaways. Oi, it says, some priest’s been murdered, and we need you to track down the folks on a list of Nazis he smuggled out of Germany after the war. Ok, you reply, it’s the 1970s and I’ve got nothing better to do.

That’s the setup for Owlskip Games’ The Ratline, the Steam Next Fest demo of which has just put my beleaguered Monday brain to the test.

While plenty of detective games ratchet up the murder to get you hunting for motives and bloodied knives – Obsidian Moon’s one I played relatively recently – The Ratline’s got its sights set firmly on having you unpick the identities of its resettled baddies. Each case sees the names of some ex-Nazis flung up on the investigation board. It’s your job to make enquiries and look through the clues to correctly work out the pseudonym they’re currently going by, where they’re located, and what they look like.

Are they doing dentistry in Canada? Are they running a cafe in London? Are they the bloke with the dodgy hairline in the wedding photo? All of these questions and more flood your mind as you play a game which feels to me like it’ll appeal to the analytical minds of folks who loved Return of the Obra Dinn. I’m not just saying that because Lucas Pope’s quoted in the Steam description either, though his inclusion there has helped me deduce that the makers of these sorts of puzzle games must all have some sort of secret society where they gather to play Cluedo.

Despite the fact it lets you fling open a window to let in the sound of the gentle rain which never ceases and has the sort of smooth jazzy background tunes which are mandatory in all detective games, The Ratline doesn’t lean full on into the over-the-top drama of noir crime solving. Instead, it’s more grounded in tone, which I think fits the subject material well.

From a practical perspective, the process of sorting through notes and photos has a relaxing satisfaction to it. Though, it’d be nice to be able to stick more than eight pieces of evidence to your investigation board at once in longer cases, so you don’t have to worry that the few you’ve left in your inventory might turn out to be key details you miss spotting connections in because they’re out of sight. On a more positive note, The Ratline has one of the smoother phone interfaces I’ve seen, with the option to pull up a nicely chunky keypad once you’ve looked up the number you need via a rolodex.

Overall, The Ratline’s a good time in the 40 minute or so demo snippet I’ve played, and I’m keen to play more when the full thing arrives on March 17th. You can find said demo and wishlist it on Steam, if you’re so inclined. You can also read how the Nazi-uncovering detective flick’s designer Tim Sheinman would go about getting away with the murder of Humpty Dumpty in this feature Julian concocted around Steam’s Detective Fest last month. My money’s on an ambush with a frying pan in the kitchen. Or maybe that’s too obvious…