The Case of the Worst Day Ever

The Case of the Worst Day Ever is a small, cozy slice-of-life detective game where you dig into the tangled stories behind the characters attending a family gathering. You will uncover how they’re connected, what kind of day they’ve had, and how all their little mishaps link together.

The gameplay revolves around picking up keyword clues from clicking on objects around the scene, poking through characters’ inventories and phone messages, or reading the documents that they possess. Once you’ve gathered all the clues, you use those keywords to fill in short story summaries that wrap up each chapter, highlighting who was involved and what happened, including matching the set of attributes (names, traits, items, etc.) for each character. The keywords are color-coded by type (nouns, names, and verbs/actions), and being able to filter them for quick reference is a particularly helpful feature.

The game includes 10 levels of increasing difficulty. As you progress, the relevant information becomes more concealed. Unfortunately, the clue density can be inconsistent: some deductions lack sufficient supporting evidence, while other levels contain an excess of unused clues that add unnecessary fodder to your investigation. Even early on, certain details (for example, character names) aren’t backed by any clues, forcing the player to rely on brute-forcing solutions, which diminishes the overall satisfaction.

The conclusion board that you fill to complete the level is divided into several sections. After completing a section, the game tells you how many mistakes you’ve made with the placement of the keywords for that section. A more advanced hint system is also available, where you can gradually unravel text hints. These only offer a nudge in the right direction, without ever revealing full solutions, ensuring that you will still deduce the solution by yourself. A built-in notepad lets you track clues and character details, but it doesn’t carry notes over between levels. This partially limits its usefulness, especially since some characters reappear in subsequent levels.

The game features 13 Steam achievements. Earning 100% completion requires solving every level without using hints or revealing incorrect entries; the rest are awarded simply for completing each level.

The Case of the Worst Day Ever shares a lot of mechanics with Case of the Golden Idol but is far less complex (a more similar game to it would be Little Problems: A Cozy Detective Game that I reviewed here). Its art style is delightful, and its cases are satisfying enough to solve even when there’s a lot of information to sort through, without ever becoming too overwhelming.