Game details Developer: Inkle
Publisher: Inkle
Platform: MacOS (reviewed), Windows, iOS
Release Date: Jan. 21, 2026
ESRB Rating: N/A
Price: $7
Links: iOS App Store | Steam | Official website
If you’ve ever fallen down a Wikipedia rabbit hole or spent a pleasant evening digging through college library stacks, you know the joy of a good research puzzle. Every new source and cross-reference you find unlocks an incremental understanding of a previously unknown world, forming a piecemeal tapestry of knowledge that you can eventually look back at as a cohesive and well-known whole.
TR-49 takes this research process and operationalizes it into an engrossing and novel piece of heavily non-linear interactive fiction. Researching the myriad sources contained in the game’s mysterious computer slowly reveals a tale that’s part mystery, part sci-fi allegory, part family drama, and all-compelling alternate academic history.
Steampunk Wikipedia
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