Home › Cases › Snowbound Pursuit

Snowbound Pursuit

Fireworks over frozen river — four crimes, one night, and a scarf that ties them all.

🎭 Solo / 1 player ⏱️ 80 minutes 🧩 Difficulty 3/5 🆓 Free to play

Snowbound Pursuit — Murder Mystery - Missing Witness

College student Sato Shizuka is found beneath the river bridge at first light, a red wool scarf at her throat — the same pattern as an older, half-forgotten rumor about the Hondou Clinic two years back. On that one snowbound night, trouble also stirred at the dance hall, the steel plant, and the clinic, and four people's accounts refuse to line up.

Clinic owner Dr. Hondou, fleet captain Fukuda, steelworker Minoru Hayashi, and Hondou's gentle son Honkita each spent the night somewhere they cannot quite explain. Find who harmed Sato Shizuka first — then follow the threads the night ties together.

The setting

Sayama City, February 1988. Coal smoke, endless snow, and Little New Year's Eve fireworks over the river. The bridge that held the festival crowd holds sirens by dawn.

What you'll do

Question four AI suspects whose alibis all cross the same few snowbound hours
Search the river bridge, the Hondou clinic, the Red Lantern dance hall, and the steel-plant gate
Trace a sleeping-drug source, a red-scarf pattern, and sled-drag marks in fresh snow
Untangle parallel crimes that all happened under the same fireworks

The suspects

Dr. Hondou — Clinic Owner
Half of Sayama was born, stitched, or medicated under his hands. He runs the family clinic alone, respected but not liked, and seals off any question about his family.

Captain Fukuda — Fleet Boss
Clawed his way up from twenty years of ice roads to captain of the freight fleet. A promotion is finally close — and so is a dance-hall affair he thinks is still a secret.

Minoru Hayashi — Steel Worker
Fifteen years and his best joints given to the plant. Twice passed over for a title and housing that went to the boss's favorites, he has gone quiet and drinks alone.

Honkita — Clinic Owner's Son
A grown man with a child's smile who lights up at anything red — scarves, lanterns, paper flowers. Only his missing sister ever understood his half-finished sentences.

Crime scenes you can search

River Bridge
Sato Shizuka's body lay beneath the north bank after dawn; deep snow cushioned the fall but did not save her. A red scarf, sleeping-drug traces, rope fibers, and sled tracks in the snow.

Hondou Family Clinic
A small private clinic with a locked medicine cabinet — and a medical-waste room that had to be forced open during the investigation.

The Red Lantern
A smoky downtown dance hall where Sato Shizuka worked in secret. Witnesses place more than one suspect here on the festival night.

Steel Plant Gate
Where a morning-shift worker first spotted the body across the river. A worker's locker holds seniority papers — and a hammer is missing from his rack.