--- title: "8 Games Like Duskwood to Play Next (2026)" description: "Chat-story games like Duskwood for Android and iPhone: what to play for the messages, the choices and a story about people lying to each other." slug: "games-like-duskwood" locale: "en" pubDate: "2026-10-05" --- If you finished Duskwood and want another story that happens inside a phone, the eight games below are the closest thing to it. Some are crime mysteries, a few are quiet dramas about people lying to each other, and every one of them asks you to read messages, photos and deleted files until the story holds together. ## Why Duskwood still sets the bar Duskwood, by Everbyte, is an [interactive story](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chat_fiction) told through a messenger app. A girl has disappeared, her friends add your number to the group chat, and from then on everything arrives as text: questions you have to answer, choices that change who trusts you, photos and voice notes you have to interpret. It is free to play with in-app purchases, it runs on [Android](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.everbytestudio.interactive.text.chat.story.rpg.cyoa.duskwood) and [iPhone](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/duskwood/id1479430106), and it lists Spanish among its languages. What makes it hard to replace is the pacing. Episodes arrive in chunks, hearts refill over time, minigames interrupt the story, and your progress is tied to a Google or Apple account — the [official support FAQ](https://everbytestudio.com/duskwood-support-faq/) covers the saves, the multimedia pack and what happens when you change phones. Few games in this corner of the market put that much machinery around a script. The good news is that the format survives without the budget. A phone screen, a handful of characters and a lie are enough. ## The 8 games, one by one ### 1. An Elmwood Trail A missing girl, a town called Riverstone and an entire investigation carried out on a phone. You read messenger threads, unlock the victim's diary, dig through hidden files and connect names on a suspect board while small puzzle minigames break up the reading. It is free with in-app purchases on Android and iPhone, it has around three episodes out, and each objective comes with three hints if you stall. The store listing says it plays offline, which is rare here. Everything is in English. ### 2. Not Your Phone: Mystery This one is built around the most uncomfortable idea in the genre: a second inbox. Every case gives you somebody's phone, and the Recently Deleted folder keeps whatever the owner did not want to be read. There are 21 cases — many of them about partners, mothers and best friends rather than criminals — each running 15 to 40 minutes with roughly 15 questions, written answers and up to three hints. It is free for the first three cases, then a Pro purchase opens the rest. Right now it is iOS only, Android is listed as coming soon, and the stories are playable in Japanese and Traditional Chinese. ### 3. Peek a Phone - Detective Game FaintLines releases this in missions, one new case a week, which makes it feel closer to a series than a novel. You get access to a fictional character's phone, unlock apps by solving puzzles and help the client work out what is going on. Some missions are exactly the Duskwood itch — a wife asking about her husband's secret lover — while others involve disappearances and interrogations. It is free with ads and in-app purchases on Android (and through the Play listing on Windows), and the interface is in English. ### 4. ColdTrace ColdTrace gives you a stranger's phone and a cold case, and asks whether it really was an accident. Messages, photos, notes and voicemails are there to be pieced together into a timeline, and what you read and when shapes what you understand. It is free with in-app purchases — some cases are free, a Premium unlock opens the rest — on Android and iPhone, and it lists Spanish among its languages, along with English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian and Portuguese. ### 5. Simulacra The reference point for the found-phone genre: you find the phone of a woman named Anna, answer her messages, go through her gallery and her dating app, and slowly realise the phone is behaving strangely. It is a horror game rather than a drama, shot with live actors, with five possible endings and image and text puzzles in between. It is paid on Android, iPhone and Steam, and it is English only. ### 6. Simulacra 2 The sequel moves the setting to a police investigation: an influencer has died, her phone has been wiped, and a detective gives you the device to restore. A police AI called WARDEN rebuilds deleted files for you, and the story branches far more than the first game. It is paid, it runs on Android and iPhone, and it is English only as well. If you liked Duskwood's more procedural side, this is the one to try. ### 7. Stalkie · Mobile Detective A fake phone full of fake apps, deleted photos and secret conversations. You are the one examining the messages, notes, galleries and calendars, and the game is blunt about it: nothing is random, every contact can hide a clue. Cases are unlocked with an in-app purchase, and the payment model is a subscription rather than a one-off. It is available on Android and iPhone and lists Spanish among six languages, which makes it one of the easier picks if you are playing in Spanish. ### 8. MicroMacro: Downtown Detective No chat here, but the same pleasure of chasing a trail until the picture makes sense. It is the mobile adaptation of the MicroMacro: Crime City board game: a huge illustrated city map where you follow suspects through time, spot small details and solve cases that range from petty theft to something darker. The first three cases are free, the main game and an expansion are one-time purchases, it is on Android (and iPhone), and it is available in English, French, Spanish, Italian, German and Portuguese. ## Comparison table Prices and languages change; these are what the store pages list today. | Game | Platform | Price | Spanish | Offline | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | An Elmwood Trail | Android, iPhone | Free with in-app purchases | No | Yes | | Not Your Phone: Mystery | iPhone | Free with in-app purchases | No | Not stated | | Peek a Phone - Detective Game | Android | Free with ads and in-app purchases | No | Not stated | | ColdTrace | Android, iPhone | Free with in-app purchases | Yes | Not stated | | Simulacra | Android, iPhone, PC | Paid | No | Not stated | | Simulacra 2 | Android, iPhone | Paid | No | Not stated | | Stalkie · Mobile Detective | Android, iPhone | Free with in-app purchases | Yes | Not stated | | MicroMacro: Downtown Detective | Android, iPhone | Free with in-app purchases | Yes | Not stated | ## If what you liked was the relationship drama Most of the games above are crime stories, and that is not what everyone came to Duskwood for. A lot of players stayed for the part where people they know are lying to each other: the friend who answers too fast, the message that arrives at the wrong hour, the conversation that gets deleted right after it happens. That thread has its own shelf, and it is worth knowing the difference between the [phone investigation game](/blog/phone-investigation-games/) as a format and the smaller cluster of stories where the mystery is a couple. Those games are compared in [cheating detective games](/blog/cheating-detective-games/), and if the messenger interface is what you actually miss, the breakdown of the [chat story format](/blog/chat-story-games-explained/) explains why some of them work and others do not. ## How Secreta fits in Secreta shares the format of Duskwood, not the crime: a story told through a phone, read screen by screen, with answers you have to give yourself. What is on the screen is fiction about a couple — someone suspects their partner is lying, hands you a copy of their partner's phone, and you go through the chats, photos, map history and bank app to answer the fifteen questions of that case, one at a time. There is no crime, no police case and nobody being watched; it is not a phone-monitoring app and never reads a real phone. Four self-contained cases, questions 1 to 9 free in each of them, three free hints per case, and it plays offline without an account.