The Lens Detective

Your phone is the Lens: a surveillance tool that reveals echoes from the Lattice, a hidden network the city's authorities don't know exists. You're a recruit in the Urban Investigation Bureau, and your handler Pracht has cases that need solving on the streets you already walk every day.

Solve real puzzles. Decode messages hidden in plaques and books. Catch operatives of the Syndicate of Silence before they erase what's left of the city's truth.

Your city is the case file. Cases unfold on the real map around you — a waypoint two streets away, a witness on the corner, a mark on a foundation stone you have to stand in front of to read. You find your own way there; nothing here can be solved from the sofa.

THIS GAME WILL NOT HOLD YOUR HAND

The Lens Detective is made for experienced players. There are no arrows pointing at the answer and no hint button. A witness says something once, and whether you wrote it down is up to you. A case asks you to count what is really on the street, read what is really carved in the stone, and remember a shape you saw three blocks ago.

You will get stuck. You will walk back. And then the number on the plaque suddenly explains what the witness said, and the whole case falls into place. That moment when it clicks is what the game is built around, and it's yours: nobody solved it for you.

Bring a notebook and a pen. You'll need them.

SEASON ONE: THIRTEEN FIFTEEN

Agent Harding has disappeared. He left behind a badge, a number, and a cipher nobody uses any more. Over a season of cases you'll trace what he found: the Echoes who remember him, the folder he hid, and an organisation that would rather the city didn't look too closely at itself. Real history is woven through the cases.

WHAT A CASE ASKS OF YOU

- Walk to a place and look at what is actually there
- Count what a witness could not have counted from memory
- Find a real library, a real chapel, a real café — the Lens marks them for you
- Repeat a rhythm, sketch a shape you were shown a street ago, hold a stakeout
- Catch something that does not want to be caught
- Answer for what you saw, from your own notes

NOT AN INFINITE RUNNER

This is a hand-crafted story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Four hours or so of cases, playable wherever you can walk. Like a series of detective novels, except the next chapter happens when you go outside. Season One is complete and playable start to finish; Season Two will take the mystery further.

GAME REQUIREMENTS

- This game needs GPS and it needs you outdoors. It cannot be played indoors or with location switched off.
- Distances are real. A case may ask for a few hundred metres; some ask for more.
- Watch where you are going. The game is designed to be played with your head up — the screen tells you where, the world tells you what.
- Data use is modest but present: the map streams as you walk.

SEASON ONE IS FREE

There are no adverts, no loot boxes, no energy meters and nothing to buy. You do not make an account. Anonymous gameplay analytics are strictly opt-in — you're asked once, and "no thanks" is a real answer. If you want to join our mailing list - that is completely optional.

Season One is complete and playable from start to finish.