The Incident at Galley House launches to 97% positive reviews on Steam

The Incident at Galley House, a deduction murder mystery from developer Evil Trout and designer William Rous, launched on Tuesday and immediately racked up over 600 Steam reviews at a 97% overwhelmingly positive rating. Polygon called it 2026's best murder mystery game — and one of its weirdest, scariest ghost stories.

The game costs $20 (£17.75) on Steam, with a 10% launch discount running until July 21. It started life as a free, purely text-based browser game called Type Help, posted to Itch.io by Rous, who cited The Roottrees are Dead as an inspiration. Evil Trout — the studio behind the acclaimed Roottrees remake — reached out, and the two teams collaborated to build a full commercial release. The finished product moves well beyond the original's stripped-back text interface, adding 2D illustrations, voice acting, and what the developers describe as a mysterious 3D interface for navigating memories.

The Roottrees are Dead itself followed a similar path: a visually simple Itch.io browser game that Evil Trout turned into a paid release, earning strong praise in 2025 alongside Blue Prince — PC Gamer's best design GOTY pick that year. Both games sit in a growing wave of deduction titles that credit Lucas Pope's Return of the Obra Dinn as a key inspiration. PC Gamer contributor Abbie Stone had already flagged the original Type Help as one of the nine games that proved 2025 was the best year ever for the detective genre, writing that its gripping story would be an all-time great detective yarn in any medium.

Reception so far suggests the remake has cleared the bar Stone set. With Polygon handing it an early game-of-the-year label and Steam players piling on the thumbs-ups, The Incident at Galley House looks like the detective game to beat in 2026.