How to Play
One desk, one case: you open the file, mark what matters in your own words, and your marks build the timeline and the notebook that keep your thinking honest. Then the week closes: your answers go on the record, and you say which exhibits prove them. Start with the chapter you need. Nothing here has to be read in order.
You will not need most of it. Anywhere in the case file you see a ? beside a heading or a control, pressing it explains that one thing where you are standing, without losing your place.
The Desk
A new episode every Sunday: one folder of evidence, and a few questions to answer before the next folder opens. Case Files in the top menu takes you to the current case.
If something on a page does not make sense, look for a ? next to it. Pressing one explains that single thing where you are standing, so you rarely need to come back here at all.
The files
Every exhibit in the episode is a card on the episode page. A ✓ Reviewed beside a card's label means you have opened it, so you can see at a glance what you have not read. On timeline · 2 at the foot of a card counts what you have put on your timeline from that file.
On Episode 1 a short First shift checklist sits above the cards: open three files, make two marks, give one a time, star a key moment, file an answer. It ticks itself as you go and puts itself away when you are done.
Opening a file
Tap or click a card and the file opens full screen on the Reader's Desk: the page on the left, your Notebook and Timeline for this episode on the right, updating as you work. The desk opens on your timeline; it remembers the tab you last used.
- The tabs across the top are every file in the episode. A tick shows the ones you have opened and a number counts your marks on each. Click one to move to it. With a keyboard, the arrow keys move along the tabs and Enter opens one.
- Zoom with Fit, 1.5×, 2× and 3× above the page, or pinch, or double tap. With the keyboard, focus the page: Enter zooms in, the arrow keys move around, and Enter again fits it back.
- Read transcript, under some pages, gives you the document's own words.
- The tip line, if your clearance has one, sits under the page too.
← Evidence, top left, takes you back to the files, and so does ← Back to the evidence at the end of every file. You land on the card of the file you were reading. ✕ Close, or Escape, does the same. Escape steps back one thing at a time: an open sheet first, then Mark, then the desk.
On a phone
The page and your notes cannot sit side by side on a small screen, so a switch at the top shows one at a time: Document, Notebook or Timeline. At Fit, a sideways swipe on the page moves to the next file.
Open everything before you close the week
There are no questions on the desk. The week closes at the foot of the episode page, behind one button, and that button does not press until you have opened every file in the episode. Until then it counts them for you.
Opening a file from its card, its tab or a swipe all count. Closing the Week covers what happens when you press it.
Two things you will meet while you work:
- The tip line. Your clearance decides how much the Bellweather desk helps you and what your answers are worth when it does. Three calls an episode at Detective, and calls you do not spend pay points at the end. Change clearance on the episode page, or on your account page.
- Confidence. Every answer carries a confidence level you choose. A hunch risks nothing. Certain pays more and costs more.
Ruling somebody out
The season page lists the Persons of Interest. Tap any of them to read their file, and press rule them out once you are satisfied somebody did not do this. A red X goes over the portrait and a line above the gallery keeps the count.
It is your own working note. Nobody is told, it is not part of what you file, and the game will not tell you whether you were right. Finding that out is the season. The same button puts them back on the board whenever the case turns.
What stays yours
The case material is protected from copying: select an exhibit, a transcript or a question and you get a line pointing at the site instead. A case file pasted somewhere that will happily solve it for you stops being a case.
Everything you write is the opposite, and always will be. Your marks, notebook, timeline, theory and answers are yours to copy and keep anywhere you like.
Marking
A mark is the line that says it, boxed where you found it, with what it tells you in your own words. It is how everything gets into your notebook and onto your timeline, and it keeps the words on the page they came from, so when two marks disagree you can go back and read both.
Mark, and draw a box
Press Mark above the page. The page stops scrolling and waits for a box:
- With a mouse, drag across the part that matters.
- On a phone, tap two opposite corners.
- With a keyboard, focus the page and press Enter. The arrow keys move the box, Shift and the arrows resize it, and Enter marks it.
Press Mark again to go back to scrolling.
Your marks stay drawn on the page, numbered, so you can see what you have already said about a file. A solid box is a fact, a dashed one an assumption, a red one a question. Tap a box you made to change it.
Mark the whole page saves drawing a box round everything. A file that cannot be boxed, such as a recording, has Mark this exhibit instead, with room for a time into the recording.
What did you find?
As soon as the box is drawn, the sheet opens with your clipping at the top.
- What is it? Pick one. Fact: the evidence shows it. Assumption: you are treating it as true. Question: something to find out. Keeping them apart is half the game.
- In your own words: who, where and when, as far as the page says.
- Put it on my timeline, if it happened at a time. Your Timeline and Notebook covers what the date, time and "how do you know" fields do.
Save to timeline files it in your notebook and on your timeline together. Without the timeline ticked, the button reads Save note.
Nothing is filled in for you
The sheet opens blank, every time, at every clearance. It never copies the document's title, its date or its words into your mark, and the date and time pickers start empty. Only the kind starts on Fact, and you can change it.
That is deliberate. The case is in what you notice and how you say it, and a sheet that wrote it for you would be doing the one part that is yours.
Changing a mark
Tap its box on the page, or press Edit beside it in your notebook or timeline. The same sheet opens with what you wrote. Delete mark removes the note and its place on the timeline together, and Undo brings both back.
Your Timeline and Notebook
Your marks go two places at once. The timeline puts the ones with a time in order, so you can reconstruct the night and see where it goes quiet. The notebook keeps all of them, sorted into what the evidence proves, what you merely suspect and what you still need answered.
Putting a mark on the timeline
Tick Put it on my timeline on the mark sheet and type the Date and Time the page gives. You type them yourself: nothing is copied from the document, and nothing stops you disagreeing with it.
Then say how you know the time:
- A clock, camera or log recorded it: recorded.
- Someone remembers or estimates it: remembered.
- I worked it out from other evidence: worked out.
The timeline shows the difference as a dot beside each time: solid for recorded, hollow for remembered, dashed for worked out. A witness's "around half eight" and a camera's 21:17:58 are not the same kind of fact, and the dots keep you honest about it.
Needs a time
Leave the time blank and the mark goes under its day, as Sometime that day, above the times. Leave the date blank too and it waits under Needs a time at the bottom. Edit it once you know, and it moves into place. Every entry shows its exhibit number, and both lists are sorted by exhibit, so the lines from one file sit together.
Same moment?
Save a time within 15 minutes of one you already typed and the sheet asks whether it is the same moment. Same moment joins them as two sources of one moment, which then shows both times and how far apart they are. No, keep it separate saves it on its own. Nothing is ever joined unless you say so, and Take this out of its moment, when you edit one, splits it back out.
Key events and gaps
Every placed moment has a star. Star the ones your theory rests on, then press Key events only to see just those: your case in a few lines.
A stretch of two hours or more with nothing on it shows as a band, such as 10 h 46 min with nothing on your timeline. The gaps are where the lies live. Raise a question about it adds the question to your notebook, using your own two times.
Compare sits under every source. Tick two, press Compare them, and read them side by side. Raise a question about these two starts a question naming both.
Where the timeline lives
- On each episode page, under the files, is that episode's timeline.
- Timeline in the top menu is the whole case, day by day, with a button for each episode.
- Timeline, on the right of the desk, is the one you are adding to as you mark. The desk opens on it, or on the Notebook if that is the tab you last used.
It is one timeline, shown three ways. Det. L. Carver starts yours with one example, marked as Carver's. Delete it if you like.
The notebook
On the desk, the Notebook side lists this episode's marks under Facts, Assumptions and Open questions, each with its clipping. Press a mark's label to jump back to its box on the page.
Notebook in the top menu is the whole season.
- Known Facts, Assumptions and Unanswered Questions hold your marks and any notes you type there yourself. Cite another exhibit… links a note to a second file.
- Timeline Gaps is a small table for windows of time nobody can account for.
- Who Interests You? is a checklist of the case's people. Tick anyone worth a second look and say why. Untick someone and your reason is kept for a re-tick.
- Evidence to Revisit is your own "look at this again" pile.
Everything you write here is stamped with a week, so you can watch your thinking change. The Week picker at the top sets it and starts on the episode you came from.
My Current Theory
At the bottom, one theory per week, under the week set at the top of the page. Nothing here is scored. It exists so that at the finale you can see exactly when you first got it right, or how confidently you got it wrong.
Closing an episode asks for the same theory in one box. It is the same theory in the same place: what you write in either fills in the other.
One honest warning, Detective: the notebook is only as good as the discipline between Facts and Assumptions. The case has a way of punishing people who file one as the other.
Closing the Week
Every episode ends the same way, in one sitting, at the foot of the episode page: you answer the week's questions, you say which exhibits prove the case, and you write down what you think happened.
The button at the foot of the page
While any file in the episode is unopened, the button does not press, and it says how many are left.
Open the last one and it comes alive: Lock in this Episode's answers. There is no way round the count. It is the game making sure you never answer blind.
One overlay, four steps
- The week's questions. Answer them all here. Nothing is filed while you work through them, so an answer you want back is yours to change until you confirm. Each one carries a confidence level: a Hunch pays half and costs nothing when it is wrong, Reasoned pays in full, Certain pays half again and takes a real bite when it misses.
- The evidence that proves it. Choose the exhibits you would put in front of a jury.
- Your theory this week. One box, not scored and not final. It is the same theory that lives in your notebook under My Current Theory. Nothing yet skips it and writes nothing.
- The way out. Straight into the next episode, a countdown to the next drop, the rest of the season, or, in week ten, the verdict.
In week ten the button reads Set your final citations, and there is no theory step. The overlay sets the evidence your solution stands on and nothing more. Close it and file the solution itself on the form below the button, with Submit Your Final Solution: filed once, and scored.
What is final, and what is not
Answers are one-shot. Once you confirm, the week is on the record and there are no take-backs, which is exactly why nothing is filed until you do.
Your chosen exhibits are not. They are a running list. Come back next week, open the overlay again, and move them around as the case turns over. On an episode you have answered the button reads Revise what proves it. On one whose questions closed before you got to it, it reads Choose what proves it, because there is nothing to answer there. Either way the citations harden only when you file your final theory in week ten.
Your weekly theory is the same, only more so. Have a theory and be prepared to change it. Each week is kept as its own page rather than replacing the last, which is the point of writing them down. At the finale you can read your own mind changing.
How many exhibits you can cite
In week ten your final theory names the culprit and cites the exhibits that convict them. Naming the culprit is worth the most on its own. Every exhibit you cite that the case actually turns on pays on top of that. One that does not pays nothing and costs nothing.
The number of slots is set by the case and matches what the scoring counts, so there is nothing to gain by holding one back. Season one gives you six. A seventh pick is refused rather than quietly dropped: you are asked which of the six it replaces.
The order is your own. Put them in the order you would argue them. It changes nothing about the score.
Look at a citation before you file it
A slot is not just a label. Inside the overlay:
- A citation's name unfolds the exhibit in a panel underneath. Press it again to fold it away.
- The picture in that panel is cropped to keep the rows tidy. Press it to see the whole page, and again to shrink it back.
- A chip's name in the picker does the same thing, so you can look before you spend a slot.
- The + beside a chip spends the slot.
It is a glance and not the desk: no zoom, no tip line. The one question it answers is whether this is the file you had in mind. A few exhibits have no picture, and say so. Under a cited file you have marked, Your marks on it shows each mark's clipping and note, so you can see why you picked it.
Flag as you go
Every exhibit you cite when closing a week is flagged as proof in your own file. Nobody is told, and it is not part of anything you file.
That is what the picker leans on: it offers the exhibits you flagged and the ones you leaned on in your timeline or notebook, with the rest of the case file underneath, open. The shortlists are a head start, not the whole file.
That is the trick of week ten, Detective. Flag the good ones in week three and the final theory is a shortlist you already wrote. Leave it to the last night and it is the whole season, in one scroll, against the clock.
Inviting another investigator
Once the week is on the record, the last step offers Invite an investigator. It hands them the case and only the case: not your suspect, your theory, your score or your standing, and no code on the link ties them back to you.
That is the point of it rather than caution. Tell somebody who you think did it and all they can do is agree with you. Send them the file and say nothing, and you find out whether the same evidence produces the same answer in somebody else's head.
What Happens Next
The week is on the record, and the case carries on without you for a few days.
Finding your way back
The last step of the overlay is a door, and which one you get depends on where the season is: into the next file if it is open, a countdown if it is not, the rest of the season if you are reading episode one for free, or the verdict in week ten.
You do not have to remember any of that. Continue the investigation. always works it out: on the home page once you are signed in, on the page after a purchase, and in the receipt we email you.
Your work, and where it lives
An account is the difference between work that follows you and work that does not. It is the one thing in this handbook worth doing before you are told to.
With an account, your notebook, your timeline, the exhibits you flagged and the answers you filed are held on the record. Reload the page, close the tab, open your phone on the bus: it is all there, and it is the same on every device you sign in on. Signing out clears this browser's copy; your account keeps it. To make one, press Create account at the top of any page. It is free.
Without one, all of it lives in the browser you are using, on the device you are holding, and nowhere else. That is enough to read episode one and answer its questions. It is also fragile in the ordinary ways: a different browser shows you none of it, and clearing your history clears it. Unfiled answers score nothing, which is the whole of what an account changes.
That is why the overlay asks. Finish episode one without an account and it says your answers are held on this device, then offers to put them on the record. Create it and you land back exactly where you were, with your answers and citations as they are. It is free, it takes a minute, and nothing you have written is shared with anybody.
What the Case Pass opens
Episode one is free, and it stays free. The Case Pass opens the rest of the season.
Everything already released opens the moment you join. If you arrive in week six, all six released episodes are open that evening. You are not fed one a week until you catch up, and nothing is held back to slow you down. From then on, new evidence lands every Sunday alongside everyone else, and the pass covers every remaining episode to the end of the season.
If the case has already finished, the pass reopens the whole record at once.
If you change your mind at checkout
Close the payment page, or press back, and nothing is charged. You land back where you were with your answers, citations, notebook and timeline exactly as you left them.
If you do pay and the confirmation page seems unsure of itself, give it a moment: the payment and the pass are two separate messages, and the second sometimes arrives behind you. The page will say the records office is unsealing your file and check again on its own.
Questions
Eleven things people write in and ask. Nothing below gives anything away about any case.
How do I start?
Open the case files and read Episode 1. It is free in every season, and it stays free. You don't need an account to read it. Answer as you go, and sign in, for free, to lock in your answers.
A short intake walks you in. You make two real marks on real exhibits: a box round the line that says when, in your own words, onto your timeline, then a question. Your timeline shows them on the line, and you star the one that matters. Your desk shows where everything sits, on a laptop and on a phone. Both marks are still there when the intake lifts, and the First shift checklist above the files takes you the rest of the way. That is the whole shape of a week, and it takes about twenty minutes.
Where is the next evidence file?
Continue the investigation. is the one link that always knows. It is on the home page once you are signed in, on the page after a purchase, and in the receipt we email you.
To navigate by hand: Case Files lists every episode of the current case, and Seasons lists every case.
How do I know my answers went on the record?
The page tells you the moment it lands, and we email a confirmation saying what was filed and when. You get that one even with case updates switched off, because it is a receipt rather than something we are selling.
What does the Case Pass include?
Episode 1, which was already free, and every other episode to the end of the season.
Everything already released opens the moment you join. If you arrive in week six, all six released episodes are open that evening. You are not fed one a week until you catch up and nothing is held back to slow you down. From then on new evidence lands every Sunday alongside everybody else, and the pass covers every remaining file, the finale, and the verdict.
If the case has already finished, the pass reopens the whole record at once. A pass is for one season: not a subscription, nothing to cancel, and it does not expire.
When does the next episode release?
Sunday, at the same time each week, for ten weeks. The case page counts down when it knows the date, and we email you when a file lands if case updates are on. Change that under Email preferences on your account page.
I joined late. Am I behind?
No. A pass opens every episode released so far the moment you buy it, so the only difference between joining in week one and week six is how much there is to read on your first evening. Nothing expires and nothing is deleted for being old.
The one thing you cannot do is answer a question whose window has closed. Windows shut when the next file drops, and after that the questions are shown with their answers. On those episodes the button at the foot of the page reads Choose what proves it: there is nothing to answer, and your citations and weekly theory still move. You can still file a final theory and be scored on it.
I paid but cannot access an episode.
Give it a minute. The payment and the pass are two separate messages, and the second occasionally arrives behind you. Your account page will say the records office is unsealing your file and check again on its own.
Still sealed a couple of minutes later? Write to support@smalltownsecrets.com from the address you signed up with and we will open it by hand. The delay costs you nothing.
Worth checking too: a pass covers one season. If you hold a pass for one case and are looking at an episode of another, the door you are being shown is correct.
Can I make the text bigger?
Two ways, and they work together. Your browser's zoom always works and nothing here caps how far it goes. Signed in, there is also Text size on your account page under Game settings, which offers Default, Large and Larger and follows your account to every browser. If you have already told your device to use larger type everywhere, we build on top of that rather than replacing it.
Can I try new features early?
Yes: join The Forensics Lab under Game settings on your account page. The Lab page it links to lists what you have and ideas to try. Leave, or switch any new feature off, from either place. Nothing there changes how the case is scored.
Can I play with a keyboard or a screen reader?
Yes. The whole case file is reachable without a mouse.
Tab moves between controls and a gold outline shows where you are. Press Tab once on any page for a Skip to content link. Escape closes any overlay and returns you to the control you opened it from. In the evidence viewer, Enter zooms a document and the arrow keys move around it. Headings and landmarks are labelled throughout, and error messages are attached to the field they are about. If you set Reduce Motion on your device, we honour it.
If something gets in your way, write to support@smalltownsecrets.com and tell us what you were trying to do. That is a bug on our side, not yours.
Will you use what I write?
Not without asking, and not without you saying yes. Your notebook, theories, answers and debrief note are read without your name beside them and are never quoted anywhere.
Two moments are the exception, and both are a button you have to press. At the end of a season we ask how it was, and if you rate it well we ask what you would tell somebody thinking about starting. The first time you finish the free file we ask something similar. Under the box are two buttons: one sends your words to us and stops there, the other says we may put them on the site beside your detective name. A person here reads anything you allow us to quote, and plenty never go anywhere. Take the permission back any time from your account page and the words come off the site.
One favour, if you are writing after a finale: please do not say who did it. People read these before they have played.
What everything does
Every mechanic in one line. The same words sit behind the beside each one in the case file, so you need not come back here for them.
- The evidence
- Everything the week arrived with. The file does not close until you have opened all of it, and some of it will turn out to be nothing. Reading it is how you find out which.
- The tip line
- The Bellweather desk, on the end of a phone. Three calls an episode at Detective clearance. Calls you do not spend pay points at scoring, in any week you file answers.
- The notebook
- Facts, assumptions, and the questions you cannot answer yet. Anything you would otherwise look up twice.
- The timeline
- Times, and what happened at them. On a case like this the gaps between the entries tend to matter more than the entries.
- Marking the page
- The line that says it, boxed where you found it. A mark keeps the words on the page they came from, so when two of them disagree you can go back and read both again.
- Fact, assumption or question
- A fact is what the page shows. An assumption is what you are treating as true for now. A question is what you still need answered. Keep them apart and you will know which of your ideas are holding the others up.
- Same moment
- Two sources for the same few minutes are one moment with two witnesses. When they agree the time gets firmer. When they do not, you have found something worth a question.
- Key events
- The handful of moments your theory stands on. Key events only shows just those, which is the whole case in a few lines, and the first place to look when it stops adding up.
- Ruling somebody out
- The people the town talks about. Ruling one out is your own note and nobody is told about it, so put them back on the board the week the case turns.
- The week's questions
- The week on the record. You answer them in one sitting, nothing is filed until you confirm, and after that the week is closed.
- Confidence
- What you are staking on an answer. A hunch pays half and costs nothing when it is wrong. Certain pays half again and takes a real bite out of you when it misses.
- Citing an exhibit
- The exhibits you would put in front of a jury. They are only scored in the last week, so nothing chosen today is binding and a pick you are unsure of costs you nothing.
- Your weekly theory
- What you think happened, on what you know today. Nothing scores it. It is here so that at the finale you can see the week you first had it.
- Clearance
- How much help the desk gives you, and what the answers are worth when it does. You can change it later.