The player takes on the role of an “Acoustic Detective” testing out a device that recreates all of the sounds of a crime scene, but only the most basic of visuals, such as a floor plan and silhouettes. Return aurally to crime scenes and use the voices you hear to identify potential suspects and solve the mysteries. What is it that’s connecting these seemingly unrelated cases?
Tropes:
- All Part of the Show: In Case 4, Sasha's death is caused while she's playing the first Wicked Witch in a theatrical version of The Wizard of Oz, and the house prop flattens her. However, the cast immediately realizes the truth, mainly because she's replacing Emily, a former lead actress who died the exact same way nearly one year prior.
- Ambiguous Ending: Either you are a Detective, and the final Case was a challenge to make you doubt yourself, or you are an inmate undergoing roleplay therapy, and the final Case was your own projection of what would happen after your escape. Due to the Multiple Endings, the player can choose which to believe.
- Artificial Limbs: Kint from Case 3 is stated to have an artificial leg after taking a wound for his boss, Raven. Kint's unaware that it currently contains a bomb.
- Asshole Victim: Sometimes the victim(s) of a crime turn out to have been behind something horrible, such as Raven being caught in his own bomb in Case 3 or Sasha being guilty of Emily's murder in Case 4.
- Bad Boss: In Case 3, the crime lord known as Raven has a reputation of offing his underlings after a job is done, in case they can identify his face.
- Bedlam House: The asylum in Case 5, if you believe that it's brainwashing the interred, not all of which are actually insane, into accepting a specific identity.
- Blackmail Backfire: In the opening moments of Case 4, Sasha has to deal with a blackmailer. It's Slim, who's in cahoots with Sasha's manager Harvey, but they're both being manipulated by Emily's Ghost...and they don't even get to keep the bribe, because the hitmen Chromedome hired find them, knock them out, and take the cash.
- The Chessmaster: Sasha's death in Case 4 is ultimately the result of a plan by Four Eyes, who manipulated Slim and Harvey into confirming his suspicions, and set things up so Larry would hear Sasha's plotting with Jeff, which drove Larry to get her killed.
- Connected All Along: The first four cases are already closed and presented as tests, preparing the Auditory Detective for the unsolved mystery that is the fifth. The fifth case ultimately bridges them all together, mainly by showing asylum inmates going over, or already affected by, the same cases as you.
- Contrived Coincidence: By the end of the third case, the woman supervising you mentions that all of the crimes so far have had too many coincidences to be considered unsuspicious. The end of Case 5 implies that they, and Case 5 itself, were all actually fictional, as part of the true test.
- Creative Closing Credits: The first part of the game's end credits are presented via investigating rooms in the theater map from Case 4, before moving on to traditional white text scrolling up a black background.
- Creepy Children Singing: In Case 5, inmate Emily has selective mutism, and only communicates to others by singing some kind of song. One with the same notes the player hears whenever an investigation starts.
- Cultural Translation: There are slight differences between the different language versions. Other than localizing their names (Emily in the English version becomes Yuki in the Japanese version and Xiao-Xue in the Chinese versions.), certain timings have slight changes (Ms Reeves and the Secretary in the Japanese version will leave her meeting early to wait by the painting and greet Oezaki/Maestro. The Secretary in the Chinese versions, on the other hand, will continue her meeting until slightly after the exhibition has started.)
- Deep Cover Agent: Some of Case 5's suspects speculate that the purpose of the asylum's "tests" is to turn a person into the perfect "Acoustic Detective", though many have failed and adopted the identities of people from the cases.
- Developing Doomed Characters: Investigations of a killing have the Acoustic Detective follow the last living moments of the victims, such as the bombing victims in Cases 3 and 5 or Sasha in Case 4.
- Dirty Cop: Case 3 has Tucker, who's working with Doug to make the latter Raven's successor, and Cassidy, who's reporting to Tucker.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: In Case 3, one of the people visiting the police station that day is secretly the crime lord Raven. It's Dwight, the civilian whose phones keep getting pickpocketed.
- Eccentric Artist: Maestro in Case 2 hired someone to steal his own art, and purposely obfuscated any possible identification process, because he was frustrated by people ignoring budding talent, instead only paying attention to famous artists. By obfuscating any possible identification, he wanted to encourage more people to look more closely at unknown art, as any unsigned piece could be his stolen masterpiece.
- The Ending Changes Everything: The DLC case presents as a group of actors arriving at a location to rehearse a script, only for that script to be a recreation of a criminal case of which the original criminals are staffing the location, and for the actors to then get caught up in the criminals infighting as their secrets are revealed. After answering the first set of questions, the scene continues... and the Director and the Assistant Director come in, revealing that the whole thing was staged and was in fact a live performance. This then runs into Once More, with Clarity as the second part of the case involves going through the whole thing again with the knowledge that everyone is acting, with the goal of finding out who brought a real gun to the stage show.
- Faking the Dead: A conversation in Case 5 has someone speculate that Ghost was originally Raven, and faked their death in the precinct bombing.
- Five-Finger Discount: Case 3 has Chip and his mentor Mickey, who have a talent in nabbing phones.
- Forced Tutorial: The first time you go through the first Case, there are mandatory pauses when the player is asked to do things like pin a name to a character, or follow a character to different rooms.
- Gambit Pileup: One of these happens in every case.
- Case 1: Cameron says he's his twin Tyler to cover up a minor crime, while Tyler is using Cameron's reputation for lying about his identity to pin his own crime on Cameron.
- Case 2: Maestro hired Tommy to steal his own painting as part of the show, while art connoisseur Greene both hired Mac to steal it, and falls for a forgery the Maestro's assistant is selling him.
- Case 3: Raven planned to kill his underlings at a hotel meeting with a remote bomb, but his phones keep being pickpocketed. One of the underlings is working with dirty cops to get on top, while another is actually a clean undercover cop, with these cops working in the same precinct as the one that nabs one of the pickpockets.
- Case 4: Sasha planned to stage an accident so she can leave for Broadway, Ashley and the makeup artist planned to scare Sasha so Ashley could take the lead role, Slim and Harvey planned to blackmail Sasha for her past crimes, Chromedome planned to have Sasha offed by hitmen, the hitmen find and take the blackmail money but still try to fulfill their contract (scaring Sasha out of the lead role in the process), and Four Eyes manipulated multiple people to convince Larry to off Sasha in an "accident" as retribution for her past crimes.
- Case 5: The two cops investigating the asylum are impostors working with an inside man to find Ghost's hidden treasure, the "administrator" and one inmate are impostors looking for Ghost himself, the actual inmates are going along with the fake administrator to take over the asylum, Ghost is hiding his identity as one of the asylum caretakers, a reporter is investigating the asylum undercover as an inmate and helps free the real caretakers, and the actual staff is either running auditory brainwashing experiments on the inmates or just using some very influential hypnotherapy.
- Here We Go Again!: The ending where you identify as an inmate, and choose to escape the exact same way you heard yourself escape in the last case, knocking out Jennifer with an ashtray.
- Husky Russkie: Big D, in the DLC case. The AD is worried that the acted accent will be too strong for their live viewers to understand without subtitles.
- Identity Impersonator: In Case 3, while Chip is satisfied with just a stolen phone's value, Mickey shows off his grifting skills by calling people in the contact list, convincing them he's the phone's true owner, and that he's in a jam that can be fixed by wiring money to "his friend Mickey".
- Impersonating an Officer: Both Elvira and Tony in Case 5, using the investigation of a missing inmate as an excuse to meet up with a crook on the inside and try to find the treasure hidden by another inmate called Ghost.
- Intrepid Reporter: There's one in Case 5 that became an asylum inmate to uncover the asylum's sinister true purpose. Unfortunately, they're having trouble getting back OUT, with others either thinking they're a crazy conspiracy theorist, or are trying to preserve their secrets.
- The Lost Lenore: The deceased actress Emily was beloved by many in Case 4, which turns out to be the motivation behind quite a few character's actions.
- Mad Love: In Case 4, Four Eyes was in love with Emily, to the point that he orchestrates the death of her killer, even though Ashley says she only "had a thing" for Larry the director.
- Marathon Level: The DLC case "The Lethal Script", which is divided into halves, with each one covering a roughly twenty-minute period. In comparison, the longest case in the base game covers a single period under twenty minutes.
- Master Forger: Case 2 has both Maestro's assistant and someone Greene hired make copies of the Maestro's latest work of art, to pass off as real in a scam.
- Meaningful Name: In Case 4, "Slim" plays the slender Scarecrow in the theater's production of The Wizard of Oz and is stated to be unable to think past an immediate profit, "Leo" plays the Cowardly Lion and is incredibly nervous about the recent "ghost texts" everyone's been receiving from dead former star Emily, while "Chromedome" plays the Tin Man and heartlessly hires hitmen to kill Sasha, perceiving it as revenge for Emily.
- Multiple Endings: At the end of Case 5, the player is asked a simple question to determine how the auditory investigating has affected their perception, with how you answer determining the ending: "Who are you?"
- Identify yourself as someone from a past case: You're considered a failure, and committed. No end credits, but it does award an achievement.
- Identify yourself as Detective: You're considered a success, and allowed to leave, though asked to be aware of residual auditory hallucinations. As you leave the room (which notably isn't in the asylum), all of the voices from past cases start speaking up, louder and louder, before a cut to credits. No achievement is awarded.
- Identify yourself as No.68: You're stated to be on the road to recovery, and asked to take your medication. Then, you can either take the offered drugs and fall into a stupor while seeing past maps and hearing the voices of others, or throw an ashtray sitting on the table at your caretaker (Jennifer from Case 5), knocking her out, and escape the asylum...just like your escape was described in Case 5. Both outcomes give achievements and lead to the credits.
- Obfuscating Insanity: Although some of the inmates in Case 5 are truly unstable, others are just faking, either to get closer to Ghost or to investigate the asylum.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted; Emily is the name of both the long-deceased former lead actress mentioned in Case 4, and an inmate in Case 5. There is also a "Maestro" in Cases 2 and 5. These are not coincidences.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: The artist "Maestro" in Case 2 has the real name of Claude, but it's only used once, and the game's English U.I. only refers to him by his title.
- Phony Degree: In Case 5, the "administrator" that greets the "cops" is a fraud coached by inmate Mr. Director, trying to track down Ghost and claim the bounty on his head.
- Replaced with Replica: Case 2 deals with a famous portrait that's being stolen and replaced, with the catch that there are multiple thieves that think someone else has the real deal, to the point that the real portrait is returned after a thief thinks it's one of the fakes.
- The Reveal:
- In Case 5, all of the actual inmates are convinced they're suspects from previous cases, having been affected by government experiments and identified too well with someone else. Silver Spoon thinks he's both of the twins from Case 1, Maestro is "himself" from Case 2, Klep is Chip from Case 3, and Emily and Mr. Director are from Case 4. And the tech that's been affecting them, as heard in George's meeting with Maestro, is the same auditory investigation tablet that the player's been using all game long, indicating that the player may be an inmate themself.
- In the DLC case, the entire scenario is a live-action, livestreamed play.
- Satchel Switcheroo: One happens in Case 2, after a smoke alarm is set off in the bathroom.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: "Emily's Ghost" in Case 4 turns out to be Four Eyes. Additionally, the ghost's reputation is also exploited by Ashley, who gets help to fake something paranormal.
- Split Personality: One of the inmates in Case 5 suffers from this and is presumed to be schizophrenic, though the Intrepid Reporter he's roomed with says it's more accurately Dissociative Identity Disorder.
- Tomato in the Mirror: The truth is obfuscated, but there's a strong possibility that the player is being subject to the exact same auditory manipulation experiments as all of the true inmates in Case 5, as he's actually Inmate No.68 instead of a real Detective.
- Twin Switch: The first Case covers a crook named Cameron pretending to be his well-off twin brother Tyler in order to get suspicion off of him. And Tyler was using it to his advantage to blame Cameron for Tyler's own drug smuggling.
- Two Aliases, One Character: There's a few of these throughout the cases, such as "Raven" in Case 3 having the civilian identity of Dwight, "Emily's Ghost" in Case 4 actually being staged by the much-alive Four Eyes, and the inmate "Ghost" in Case 5 truly being Ray the caretaker (with the bounty hunters speculating he's also Raven/Dwight).
- Undercover Cop Reveal: In Case 3, there's Blade, working to identify the enigmatic crime lord Raven.
- Unplanned Manual Detonation: One of Case 3's driving questions is who set off a bomb in a police station, killing everyone involved, including whoever planted that bomb. It was Chip, who pickpocketed the phone used as a detonator and used it without knowing its purpose.
- It happens again with the explosion in Case 5, which turns out to be a mistake caused by Klep (the one that, fittingly, has Chip's identity) trying to give a pilfered remote control to the patient in front of a secretly-booby-trapped television.
- Wham Line: In Case 5, George asking asylum inmate "Maestro" to look at and listen to the exact same things the player has experienced can completely change the player's perspective on the entire game thus far.
- Whole-Plot Reference: Case 3 is one to The Usual Suspects, focusing on a bunch of small-time crooks that are (almost) all connected to the same mysterious backer, with one of them even named Kint.
