After a long quiet stretch, ChatMystery has a new case.
The project has been silent for a while. Life happened, time disappeared, and the game remained what it always was: a small, strange AI experiment made by two people who were trying to see whether interactive mystery stories could feel alive.
But the idea never really left.
So today, I’m adding a new mystery:
Vendange 1955: Death at Domaine de Vaulnay
Burgundy, September 1955.
The first morning of the grape harvest.
Before the pickers can begin, old Aubin Mercier, owner of a struggling family wine estate, is found dead in his own fermentation vat. The village doctor calls it a drunken accident: an old man, wine fumes, a lantern, and one careless fall too many.
But the cellar has older debts than wine.
In this case, you’ll speak with five people tied to the estate: a son who wanted to sell, a daughter who keeps her grief behind numbers, a cellar master with too much history in the house, a neighbour marked by the war, and a housekeeper who notices more than she wants to say.
As always, ChatMystery is not about clicking through dialogue options. You investigate by talking. Ask questions, follow contradictions, test motives, and bring your theory to the Referee when you think you understand what really happened.
It’s still small. It’s still imperfect. Sometimes the AI will surprise us in good ways, sometimes in ridiculous ways. That’s part of the experiment.
But this one feels like a real step forward.
If you’ve been curious about ChatMystery, this is probably the best moment to try it.
The harvest has begun.
The vat is open.
And someone at Domaine de Vaulnay is lying.
Vojta