A playable demo of Inkblood is available on Steam, distributed by CRITICAL REFLEX, and the full game is scheduled for release within 2026 for PC via Steam with Japanese display planned.
Inkblood is a detective adventure from developer Hey Bird!, shown publicly at Tokyo Game Show 2026 and now circulating as a demo. CRITICAL REFLEX brought a playable build to Makuhari Messe for the show, held September 17 to 20, 2026, and then began distributing the demo on Steam on October 2, 2026.
The premise is fixed across both showings. The player is an inquisitor investigating murders tied to a suspected cult, confined to a carriage he cannot leave. In the TGS build the protagonist is Inquisitor #134, and the missing Inquisitor #133, his predecessor, is tied to the burned inn. The carriage interior carries the investigation tools: the Echo Mirror, also called the Reverberation Device, which recreates past events when dragged over a scene, an old-fashioned camera for photographing suspects, and a rotary-dial telephone used to file reports. The carriage manual states an inquisitor's heart is removed and placed in the Engine's glass vessel on the first day of assignment.
The demo includes three cases. One is a rebuilt version of "The Murder at the Burned-Down Inn" with a changed solution method. The TGS demo opened with a corpse by the roadside and then moved to the inn that burned to the ground with multiple deaths, where four members of a musical troupe must be assessed. The reworked case gives the studio a read on a puzzle that already went through public hands at the show.
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CRITICAL REFLEX began distributing a demo of Inkblood, a detective adventure by Hey Bird!, on Steam on October 2, 2026. The player is an inquisitor investigating murders tied to a suspected cult, working from inside a carriage he cannot leave. The demo includes three cases, among them a rebuilt version of "The Murder at the Burned-Down Inn" with a changed solution method.
CRITICAL REFLEX brought a playable demo of Inkblood, the new mystery adventure game from Hey Bird!, to Tokyo Game Show 2026, held at Makuhari Messe from September 17 to 20, 2026. Players take the role of Inquisitor #134, who is both an inquisitor and a prisoner confined to a carriage, investigating brutal murders and traces of blasphemous rituals in a town where suspicion falls on a cult. The carriage interior holds investigation devices, including the Echo Mirror, also called the Reverberation Device, which recreates past events when dragged over a scene, and an old-fashioned camera used to photograph suspects. Reports are filed using a rotary-dial telephone. The demo opens with a corpse by the roadside, then moves to a case at an inn that burned to the ground with multiple deaths, where four members of a musical troupe must be assessed. Inkblood is scheduled for release within 2026 for PC via Steam, with Japanese display planned.