What happened to the crew?

About What happened to the crew?

What happened to the crew? is a short puzzle mystery by bushmonkey, inspired by Return of the Obra Dinn, Type Help and Immortality and played in the browser through a simulated command line. You are an investigator sitting miles away, connected to a station where no one answers any more.

The Niflheim station was a research outpost on the edge of known space, looking for signs of life. They found something else. Your tools are a green-on-black terminal, a directory of damaged files and your own deductions. You type commands, move through folders, unlock new logs and fill an index of what you have found. Some files are locked behind security overrides, small word puzzles where you guess a password; a 3D station map shows where each event happened.

The story comes in fragments you can read in any order: transcripts of audio logs with the crew's tense exchanges, journals and mission reports. Signals that are too structured to be noise, a commander and a doctor hiding something, an explosion below decks. The horror is all in what you are told and never see.

It suits players who like detective games and slow-burning sci-fi horror told through text, and it takes about half an hour.

How to play What happened to the crew?

1. Press play and click into the terminal.
2. Type commands to list and open folders and files in the station's archive.
3. Read the logs and reports, and note names, places and times.
4. Solve the security override puzzles to unlock locked files, and piece together what happened.

Tips

• Read everything: names and times in one log unlock others.
• Use the station map to place each event.
• Play in a dark room with sound on for the mood.

Questions