Dunkelstein: An Augmented Reality Tabletop Murder Mystery

Dunkelstein is an immersive cooperative escape game and murder mystery that blends augmented reality with physical tabletop components to create a haunting, story-driven experience.

Set in a mysterious German villa in 1914, players take on the roles of investigators unraveling a dark family secret. Using a mobile device, the app projects animated characters and interactive clues directly onto the table or a beautifully crafted wooden model of the villa. Real-time performances — captured through motion and facial animation — bring the story to life as players explore rooms, interrogate suspects, and solve puzzles.

The game supports solo or cooperative play with up to four players. It features a range of physical elements such as tutorial, quest, and evidence cards tracked through AR, as well as documents to be handled and examined. Players interact primarily through tapping on the device screen and through voice recognition. With branching narratives and multiple endings, Dunkelstein offers high replayability — and future stories will reuse the same AR-compatible villa to tell completely new tales.

Dunkelstein fuses analog tactility with cinematic digital storytelling to deliver an atmospheric experience unlike anything else in modern board gaming.

—description from the designer