Detective of the Dead

As a dead undercover Detective in the Mexican afterworld you cook tacos by day & investigate at night. Switch to your dog, save the day!

Our testers said it reminded them of Grim Fandango and Disco Elysium. And the film Coco. We hope fans of Life is strange, Monkey Island and Sherlock Holmes will also enjoy our game. We are working on the game & with internal playtests, so no external official playtests, press or influencer reviews. Demo ETA is Feb 2026, release planned in 2026.  

Detective of the Dead is a co-op narrative adventure game in which you are a dead detective in the colorful Mexican afterworld. Think of it like Coco meets Grim Fandango.

You have just been killed while on the job, and now arrived in the afterworld Mictlan. Your grandma gives you a job, working in her taco shop. There is no better way to question suspects undercover than serving them tacos - if you made them well.

After you finished the taco orders, you go into town to investigate the case with the clues you found out. Obviously you want to find out who killed you. 

On your side is the magic dog Xolo, that has special skills. You need to switch between being Xolo and the Detective to solve each case. 

2 core gameplay loops:

• Day: cooking minigame (with growing list of original Mexican recipes)
• Night: investigation (talk, items, puzzle solving, mini-games)

The game details: 

• Single Player (with Co-op with Xolo)
• handcrafted 3D world full of life (well, dead NPCs)
• 2 Core Gameplay loops
• Top-Down perspective
• ca. 4 hours of gameplay
• Unique unlockable abilities
• Magic companion dog Xolo (short for the unique Mexican hairless dog race Xoloitzcuintle)
• unique skinning places and items (UGC)
• Currency: Calavera Coins
• Different endings based on your decisions in the game
• Unique soundtrack for each quarter and scene specific
• Authentic Mexican mini-games from Piñata shooting to Taco preparation.

Details: 

Detective of the Dead is a narrative adventure game with RPG elements in which you are a dead detective in the colorful Mexican afterworld. 

A very personal matter drives you undercover, you want to find the people who killed you – and as a harmless cook you get close too all sorts of suspects for your case. And the better you cook for them the more they tell you what you want to know. At night you use these clues to get further in the case.
It turns out your case is connected to something much bigger: Now only you can prevent the conspiracy to ruin the famous Día de los Muertos forever, basically the most important day for all the dead and many of the living. No pressure! But yes, that the main quest, just if you wondered.

To succeed you need to do some clever interrogation, clue finding, getting puzzles solved and winning mini-games like shooting Piñatas. Luckily, you are not alone: your magic companion dog Xolo helps you investigate and solve cases with magic abilities. Actually, you switch to become Xolo to do all that.

Your path will cross with dead gangsters to royals and famous artists. From the street level to the roofs to the interior of houses or bars - you can explore the underworld.

Get into preparing original Mexican food. Knowing the best recipes in the afterworld can help you far...

Things in the afterworld are a bit different than in the world of the living. And it's not just these ancient god's powers, that are part of the game.

As you might know from Coco, the film, on the Day of the Dead every Dead can travel to the world of the living – but they can only do it if they have Cempasuchil, that nice orange flower. And the more you have, the longer you can stay with the living. That’s what made Cempasuchil the unofficial currency in the afterworld. So if someone steals all the Cempasuchil from everyone, this would ruin everything, as no one will travel to the living. But why would someone steal so much of it - to do what with it? In any case the Dead clearly have a problem. And you are their best chance to solve it.

Depending on your decisions the outcome will change for the better or worse. We hope you can solve the BIG CASE and make sure the Dead can go to the world of the Living on the Día de los Muertos.