6 Similar Games Short List
Here are our hand-picked short list of similar games; the perfect thing to play next if you enjoyed Backbone. We don't use automatic matching, instead, we hand-pick games that are good to play if you have enjoyed Backbone.
Release Date: 22/01/2007
Out Now: 3DS and 2DS and DS
Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds
Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is a point-and-click adventure game about detective Kyle Hyde staying in a Twin-Peaks-like, rundown motel near 1979 Los Angeles. You move around the hotel to find clues, talk to other guests and ultimately solve what happened to his...
Release Date: 21/04/2020, updated in 2021
Out Now: PC and Switch
Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds
Components: 3D First-Person
The Flower Collectors is a point-and-click game set in post-Franco Barcelona, about an ex-cop in a wheelchair, witnessing a murder. Play is based in your apartment, using cameras and binoculars to observe and work out what happened. Unlike other murder...
Release Date: 09/11/2016, updated in 2023
Out Now: Android, Mac, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox X|S
Components: 2D Side-On
Beholder is a detective game where you spy on tenants in a building, discover their secrets and report violations of laws to the authorities. As the game unfolds and you see more of the controlling totalitarian state, an uneasy tension develops between...
Release Date: 13/09/2022
Out Now: PC
Components: 2D Side-On
Sunday Gold is a point-and-click adventure game set in a grim future London. You play three criminals out to uncover the dark secrets of an evil corporation and billionaire. It's an unusual mix of collecting items to solve puzzles and strategic...
Release Date: 15/10/2019, updated in 2021
Out Now: Mac, PC, PS4, Stadia, Switch and Xbox One
Skill Rating: 14+ year-olds
Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made
Disco Elysium The Final Cut is a role-playing game set in the fictional city of Revachol where you play Harrier "Harry" Du Bois who must solve a complex murder. Unusually, your choices and actions not only determine how the story unfolds but affect...
Release Date: 21/09/2020
Out Now: PC
Components: 2D Side-On
Rivals is a puzzle game where you piece together the story of Josh and Luke and the breakup of their band. Playing detective, similar to Return of the Obra Dinn, but rather than murder it's musical betrayal you are sleuthing here. You inspect sources,...
17 Similar Games Long List
Here are our hand-picked long list of similar games; the perfect thing to play next if you enjoyed Backbone. We don't use automatic matching, instead, we hand-pick games that are good to play if you have enjoyed Backbone.
Release Date: 29/04/2020
Out Now: Android and PC
Components: 2D Side-On
Fire Escape is a murder mystery styled on Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. You sit on a fire escape and can see into the apartments opposite as well as hear the intimate conversations of your neighbours across the alleyway. You peer into the lives of the...
Release Date: 19/09/2019
Out Now: PC, Switch and iPhone, iPad
Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made
Tangle Tower is a murder mystery game, from the same developer as Snipperclips, where you explore a grand old house and its intertwining families to solve a mysterious murder. You are given the events of the murder, each...
Release Date: 22/12/2015, updated in 2020
Out Now: Mac, PC and Switch
Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made
Aviary Attorney is a courtroom drama set in nineteenth-century Paris, populated with beautifully drawn animals. Guiding JayJay Falcon, defence attorney, you help investigate each case before each of the four court dates; combing crime scenes,...
Release Date: 20/09/1996, updated in 2022
Out Now: 3DS and 2DS, DS, PC, PS Vita, PS3, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox X|S
Skill Rating: 14+ year-olds
Components: 3D Third-Person and Cartoon
Persona 5 (also known as Shin Megami Tensei: Persona) is the latest game in a series of role-playing games that focus on a group of students. You explore the world and take on enemies like other role play games. Here though, you manage relationships...
Release Date: 16/09/2016, updated in 2020
Out Now: Android, Web and iOS
Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds
Components: 2D Side-On and Cards
Argument Wars is an adventure game where you play a lawyer in a U.S. Supreme Court. It's a card game that recreates constitutional arguments behind some important historical cases.
Release Date: 12/11/2014, updated in 2018
Out Now: Android, PC, Switch and iOS
Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made
Framed is a puzzle adventure where you rearrange panels of an animated comic book to change the outcome and timeline of the story. With a noir-detective look, the puzzles start simply but soon get complex.
Release Date: 27/11/2018, updated in 2019
Out Now: Mac, PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One
Components: 2D Side-On, Day and Night and Pixels
Beat Cop is a police crime drama where you have been framed for murder. Back on the street, you navigate the pixilated 80’s Miami Vice world to find out who did it. Your approach and decisions matter. Will you go in with the mafia or stay straight?...
Release Date: 25/08/2022
Out Now: PC, Switch and Xbox One
Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds
Components: 2D Overhead and Cartoon
Like No Other: The Legend Of The Twin Books is a light point-and-click game about a bumbling adventurer who (in spite of his advanced years) sets out to solve the legend of the twin books by exploring the abandoned town of Red Pines. It stands out for...
Release Date: 08/02/2018
Out Now: PC, Switch and iOS
Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made
A Case of Distrust is a narrative game set in the roaring 20's where you play a hardboiled detective, Phyllis Cadence Malone, investigating a mystery full of deception and doubt. You help her struggle to overcome insecurities amidst pushback against...
Release Date: 22/11/2018, updated in 2022
Out Now: Mac, PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One
Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds
Components: 3D First-Person and Hand-Made
Frog Detective is a comedy adventure game where you play a character, named (unsurprisingly) "Frog Detective". In the first mystery, The Haunted Island, you get a call about a ghost on the island. You set about solving the mystery by collecting the...
Release Date: 26/10/2020
Out Now: Android, PC and iOS
Skill Rating: 12+ year-olds
Components: 2D Side-On and Open World
Pitch Black: A Detective's Demise is an adventure game set in a technological noir-detective world. You play using sound alone which offers voice acting and environmental sound effects to enable you to navigate.
Release Date: 11/04/2016
Out Now: Web and iOS
Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds
Components: 2D Side-On and Cartoon
MP For A Week is a puzzle game where you play an MP for a week. That might sound sedate and a little boring, but things soon kick off as you try and survive a week in politics. Like Reigns, you need to balance keeping your party, your voters and the...
Release Date: 01/11/2023
Out Now: PC and PS5
Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds
Components: 3D Third-Person
This Bed We Made is a neo-noir adventure mystery game where you play a 1950s maid who stumbles into deadly secrets. You go about your duties cleaning rooms, but soon notice strange clues about heartbreak and murder.
Release Date: 03/06/2013
Out Now: Mac and PC
Components: 2D Side-On and Pixels
Gunpoint is a stealth puzzle game where you play freelance spy Richard Conway, tasked with infiltrating buildings. To succeed you must avoid guards and bypass security, using various high-tech gadgets. Through these missions you seek to clear your name...
Release Date: Coming soon
Coming Soon: PC
Skill Rating: 12+ year-olds
Components: 2D Side-On and 3D First-Person
Albert Wilde: Quantum P.I. is a mystery adventure where you play a detective cat in a fictional 1930's New York. It combines point-and click adventuring with e first person perspective. Solve murders, flirt badly, maybe discover a wormhole to another...
Release Date: 11/11/2022
Out Now: Mac, PC and Switch
Skill Rating: 12+ year-olds
Components: 2D Overhead and Hand-Made
Shadows Over Loathing is a (slap)stick-figure adventure full of mobsters, monsters, and mysteries, set in a fantasy-horror version of the 1920s prohibition-era United States. You play as a paranormal detective following a trail of cursed artefacts in...
Release Date: Coming soon
Coming Soon: PC, PS4 and Xbox One
Components: 2D Side-On and Hand-Made
Harold Halibut is a narrative adventure set on a city-sized spaceship submerged in an alien ocean, after fleeing the Earth 2050 years ago. It's beautifully created with real puppetry and fully voice-acted. The result is a filmic adventure where you...
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