The Invisible Hours

The Invisible Hours is a complex murder mystery designed for both VR headsets and flat-screen play. The framing is theatrical: you're an invisible observer in a sprawling mansion, free to follow any character around at any time, rewinding and fast-forwarding through the same timeline to piece together what's actually happening. The format is openly described as immersive theatre rather than traditional game or movie — you control where you stand, not what unfolds.

The setup is the work of enigmatic inventor Nikola Tesla. He has invited a group of strangers to his isolated mansion laboratory, offering each of them a chance to make amends for their darkest wrongdoings. When the last guest arrives, they find Tesla already dead — murdered — and disgraced Swedish detective Gustaf Gustav takes on the case of finding the killer among the assembled guests. The other guests include a blind butler, a convicted murderer, the world's most famous actress, Tesla's former assistant, the son of a wealthy railroad magnate, and rival inventor Thomas Edison. None of them are quite what they appear.

The gameplay lets you freely follow any character through the entire story timeline, with multiple plotlines running simultaneously across the mansion's many rooms. Following one suspect means you're missing what's happening with another — and the truth of the murder, like the truth of each character's secret, only fully emerges through multiple traversals of the same hours. The mansion itself can also be searched for hidden clues that none of the characters will lead you to directly.