Desktop Explorer is a fake OS game with some fantastically clever puzzles

There’s a specific genre of game I find fascinating, where the player investigates a mystery, and the setting isn’t a traditional crime scene, but a desktop computer. We’re all plugged in these days, and our computers are a portal to our communications, our diaries, our finances. It’s a fun conceit for a story, and it can be played in a bunch of different ways. It’s a genre known as Fake OS or Interface Mystery, and these games cover a whole spectrum, from goofy romps to stories that fit squarely in the horror genre. Desktop Explorer leans towards the latter, and it quickly hooked me with a dark mystery and some very clever puzzles

I play as an intrepid niece, sitting down at my uncle’s computer after he’s been sent to intensive care with a severe case of dementia. I have to work my way through his last files, tracing his steps through a game called Desktop Explorer. This game within a game is like an old school adventure title, but there’s something wrong with the game’s puzzles. They require digging through source code, renaming files, and all sorts of unorthodox solutions.

Before I dig into my deeper thoughts on this game, I have to take a moment to praise the inventive puzzles in these games. Some Fake OS games try to stick to realism, but Desktop Explorer plays with the premise of a haunted PC, complete with a Clippy-style companion who knows more than he probably should.