The case clock & travel

Each case is a race against a deadline shown on an on-screen clock. Every action the player takes — travelling between cities, questioning witnesses, searching a location — consumes a set amount of in-game time. Run out before you corner the crook and the case is lost.

Travel

Movement is the biggest time sink. From each city the player chooses the next stop from a list of connections; the trip costs hours whether or not it was the right choice. A wrong destination is doubly costly — it burns travel time and sends you off the crook's trail — which is why decoding the destination clues correctly is so important.

Spending the clock

The clock turns investigation into a budgeting problem. Visiting every location in a city yields more clues but costs more hours; skipping ahead saves time but risks a wrong guess. Good play means gathering just enough to be confident about both the next city and the suspect's warrant before the deadline closes in. In Where in Space the same pressure is themed as a fuel limit rather than a clock, but the trade-off is identical.