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Small-Town Secrets
How you play

The police have their evidence. What do you see?

Small-Town Secrets is a crime-fiction case told one week at a time, and you work it yourself. Each week’s file is the evidence the investigators have. You read it, mark what matters in your own words, and put the night back together from what you found.

A player opens the vehicle recovery report on the Reader’s Desk, presses Mark, boxes the line that says when the car was found, writes it in their own words, puts it on their timeline and stars it as a key event.

Three steps, every week

  1. The Reader’s Desk open on a police vehicle recovery report, with a row of exhibit tabs above it and the player’s notebook beside it.

    Open the file.

    Every exhibit in the week’s file opens full screen on your desk: reports, statements, photographs, logs. Move between them by their tabs, zoom in on the small print, and read the transcript where there is one.

  2. A box being drawn round one paragraph of a police CCTV evidence log, with Mark switched on above it.

    Mark what matters.

    Press Mark and draw a box round the line that says it. Then say what it tells you, in your own words, as a fact, an assumption or a question. Nothing is filled in for you: what you see is yours.

  3. A timeline of one Saturday evening: three moments in order, each with the clipping it came from and a note in the player’s words.

    Build your timeline.

    Give a mark the time the page gives it, and say how you know: a clock recorded it, someone remembers it, or you worked it out. It lands on your timeline. Star the moments your theory rests on, and watch the gaps between them.

New evidence every Sunday.

Start Episode One free.

A week on the case

Each Sunday a new file lands with a few questions about it. Answer them before the next file drops, say which exhibits prove it, and write down what you think happened so far. Nothing tells you whether your theory is right: finding that out is the season.

Episode One is free in every season. 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 through your first two marks on real evidence.

Every control, one chapter at a time: How to Play.