How to Play Casebook
Casebook is a courtroom deduction game about one thing: the line of testimony that does not hold. You are the new clerk to the magistrate of Port Verity, a fog-bound harbour city lit by gas. The court got ten cases wrong, and the magistrate lets you reopen them one hearing at a time. In each case you first read the scene pages and examine what is there: a day book, a telegram form, a tide table, a pawn ticket. Each paper you examine goes into your satchel with its full text.
Then you stand at the witness's elbow. Every statement is a line of text. Select a statement, select the document that makes it impossible, and press Present. In the later cases a line makes two or three claims and only one of them is false, so you must also find which claim the paper breaks. If the pair holds, the line is struck through in red, the clerk names the paper that broke it, and the witness gives a new account, which may be another lie. You keep pressing until the true account stands. When every witness in the case has reached theirs, the case closes, the finding is read and the case is pinned to your wall.
There are 10 cases with 39 lies across 20 witnesses. The first two cases have one witness, cases 3 to 8 have two, and cases 9 and 10 have three, with papers that are sealed until a certain lie is caught. The last case is the magistrate's own old verdict.
Tips and Strategy
- Read the fact, not the mood. A paper opposes a statement only when it carries the same fact with a different value. A paper that merely sounds suspicious, or that agrees with the witness, costs a jet.
- Look for the matching noun. A lie about a time is broken by a paper with a time for the same event, a lie about a place by a paper that puts the witness somewhere else, a lie about a count by a paper with a different count.
- Decoys are on purpose. Every case has papers that agree with the witness or bear on a different matter. Four of the ten papers in a big case may be decoys.
- Do not press the honest lines. A line that is true is never struck, and pressing it costs a jet.
- Use the scene pages again. When a lie is caught the clerk may be able to ask for a sealed paper. Go back and examine the tile.
- Counsel is a trade. It costs a jet and points at a lie but never at the paper, so it is best spent when you are stuck, not when you are rushing.
- Replay for stamps. Replays are free, never lower your best and raise your reputation, which opens the later cases and adds jets.
What Makes Casebook Different
Most deduction games hand you a grid and ask you to fill it in. Casebook asks you to read. The statements and documents are real text, never hidden in pixels or colour, and the same rule judges all of them: same fact, different value. That makes every wrong guess teach something, because the clerk says in words why the paper did not hold.
The campaign changes how you play as you go. The case wall fills with stamps and red strings. Reputation adds jets, a free first counsel and finally a seat in the magistrate's own case. Outside the campaign, the daily docket is a three-minute sheet-by-sheet race against the same puzzle everyone else gets that day.
A Short History of Cross-Examination
Courts in England and its cities depended on witness testimony long before they had forensic science, and by the nineteenth century the ability to test an account line by line against the paper trail had become central to the adversarial trial. Defence counsel were allowed to question prosecution witnesses at the Old Bailey from the eighteenth century onward, and the habit of setting a witness's own words against a ledger, a ticket or a timetable is still the plainest way to show that someone is wrong. Casebook borrows that spirit and sets it in an invented gaslit port.
Frequently Asked Questions
What counts as a contradiction in Casebook?
A document contradicts a statement only when it makes the claim impossible: the same fact with a different value, such as a different time, count, place, person or thing. A paper that only makes the claim look suspicious, or that agrees with it, does not count. In every case each lie has exactly one paper that does this. From Case 5 a lie is a line of two or three claims and only one of them is false, so a paper that backs one claim does not break the line. The clerk tells you in words what a wrong paper is about, or which claim it backs, without naming the false fact.
What happens when the magistrate's patience runs out?
A hearing starts with five lit gas jets, six from reputation 8 and seven from reputation 16. Every wrong presentation costs one jet. When the last jet gutters the court adjourns for the day: your struck lines and your satchel are kept, the jets are lit again when you return, and that run can earn one stamp at most. Nothing else is lost.
Do I lose progress if I close the tab?
No. Casebook saves the case in progress after every statement you resolve, whenever you leave a scene page, when a case closes and when the page is hidden or closed. Continue on the title screen shows the case, the witness and the statement you were on, and restores the satchel, the struck lines and the jets exactly.
What does the clerk's counsel do?
Counsel costs one jet and points at the statement that is a lie in the current witness's account. It never names the document that breaks it. From reputation 12 the first counsel in each case is free.
How do stamps and reputation work?
Closing a case earns three stamps with three or more jets left and no adjournment, two stamps with one or two jets left, and one stamp if the court adjourned. Reputation is the sum of your best stamps over all ten cases, at most thirty. Reputation opens the later cases: case 3 at 3, case 4 at 5, case 5 at 8, case 6 at 10, case 7 at 13, case 8 at 16, case 9 at 19 and case 10 at 22. Replaying a case is free and only ever raises your best.
How does the daily docket work?
Each UTC date has one docket of three single-contradiction sheets, the same for everyone. A sheet is one witness statement of three claims and five document cards: one card contradicts one claim, two support other claims and two bear on nothing. You have sixty seconds a sheet. A sheet scores 300 plus 5 for every second left, minus 120 for every wrong card, never below 0, so a docket is worth up to 1,800. The board has one leaderboard per date, and your score is sent when you press Done on the result card.
Why is a document sealed in a scene page?
Some papers are fetched only after a particular lie is caught. In case 9 the cab docket and the printer's receipt stay sealed until Ibbotson is caught lying about the Town Hall, and in case 10 the insurer's file and the fitters' sheet stay sealed until the constable is caught misquoting the doctor. A sealed tile says in words what unlocks it.
Why does pressing a true statement cost patience?
Because the magistrate does not like a clerk who badgers an honest witness. A few witnesses start with a line that is true, such as the baker's takings in case 1 or the number of lamps in case 2. Pressing a true line with any paper costs a jet, so read the satchel before you press.
