Support

Stuck on a case, hit a bug, or lost a purchase? Write to me — a real person reads every message.

Playing a case

What am I supposed to be doing?

You are given a simulated phone and a client whose money is at risk. Work through the messages, emails, photos, documents, browser pages, notes, calendar entries, call logs and transactions on it, and pin anything that does not hold up. Pinned items go to your case file, where you assign each one to a stage of the Scam Chain — the sequence the fraud actually follows, from first contact to the moment the money is gone. When two clues cannot both be true, link them and prove the contradiction. Then choose an intervention and submit your conclusion.

Nothing new is unlocking. Am I stuck?

The story opens up in response to what you have found, not to how long you have spent. If a chapter is not advancing, there is an item you have not opened or a clue you have not pinned yet. Sweep the apps you have been ignoring — the calendar, the call log and the transactions carry as much as the message threads do.

What does the score mean?

It is out of 100 and entirely deterministic — the same play always produces the same score. It comes from the evidence you pinned, how much of it you filed on the right Scam Chain stage, the contradictions you proved, how much trust you kept with your client, and the intervention you chose. Hints and wrong guesses cost you points. The full breakdown appears in the debrief at the end, never during the case.

Do hints ruin my score?

They cost a few points each, and they unlock in order — you cannot skip to the last one. The cost is saved with your progress, so restarting the app will not wash it off; only a full case reset clears it. Use them. A finished case at 62 teaches you more than an abandoned one.

Linking two clues did nothing

Then that pair does not actually contradict each other, and the game says so rather than pretending. Refused pairs cost a small penalty, capped — a run of bad guesses can cost you everything the contradiction mechanic could have paid, and never a point more. Trying the same wrong pair again is free.

Can I replay a case?

Yes. Settings → Reset all case progress returns every case to the beginning, including your evidence, chain, decisions and hint penalties. Your purchase is kept. There are three broad endings per case, so a second run with a different intervention is worth the trip.

Purchases

What do I get, and is it a subscription?

It is not a subscription. The Starter Case Pack is a single one-time purchase that unlocks The Dream Apartment and The Urgent Boss permanently. The first case, The Perfect Match, is free and stays free. There is no advertising, no energy timer, and nothing else to buy.

I bought it, and a new phone says it is locked

Open Settings → Restore purchases while signed in to the same App Store or Google Play account you bought it with. The entitlement lives with your store account, not with the device. If it still does not appear, email me the store receipt and I will help chase it.

How do I get a refund?

Refunds are handled by the store, not by me — Apple through Report a Problem, Google through your Play order history. If something in the app is broken, tell me too, because a refund fixes your afternoon and a bug report fixes the app.

Settings and accessibility

Can I play with sound off?

Yes, and nothing is lost. Every voice note carries a transcript that stays on screen, and no clue, deduction or piece of evidence ever depends on hearing something. With sound off, the play control is not drawn at all rather than sitting there inert.

The animations make me uncomfortable

Settings → Motion has two switches: follow your device's own reduce-motion setting, or force it off inside the app regardless.

Other accessibility

The app is built for screen readers, scales text to twice its normal size without losing content, never signals a state with colour alone, and never hides an action behind a long-press as the only way to reach it. If something does not work with your assistive setup, that is a bug I want to hear about.

The app itself

Does it need an internet connection or an account?

Neither. There is no sign-in, and a case works in aeroplane mode, start to finish. The app goes online only to check a store purchase and to send anonymous play statistics — see the privacy policy for exactly what those contain.

Does it read my real messages?

No — and it could not if it tried. It declares no permission that could reach your content: no contacts, no photos, no camera, no location, no message or email access. The phone in the game is invented and ships inside the app. There is one microphone purpose string, required by the audio library that plays the voice notes and never used — the app has no recording feature and never asks for the microphone. The privacy policy explains how to check all of that for yourself.

Will it tell me whether a message I received is a scam?

No. It cannot see your phone, and it is not a detector. What it does is train the pattern-matching you use yourself — after a case or two, the manufactured deadline and the pivot to an "easier" payment method start announcing themselves.

Is my progress backed up or synced between devices?

No. Progress lives only on the device you played on. If your phone's own backup is switched on (iCloud on iOS, Google backup on Android) the app's saved data may be included in it — that is your operating system's backup, not a service of mine, and I never see it. Purchases do follow your store account; progress does not.

Are the cases based on real people?

No. Every person, company, platform, domain, address, phone number, document, account number and transaction in the game is invented. The tactics are real, which is the entire point — the people are not.

Known limits

• Three cases ship today. More are planned; none are promised.
• There is no cloud sync, and no way to move progress between devices.
• The share card is text, not an image.
• English only for now.

Reporting a bug

Copy this into an email — it saves a round trip:

App version:   (your app store's listing page)
Device and OS: e.g. iPhone 14, iOS 18.2
Case:          e.g. The Perfect Match
What I did:
What I expected:
What happened:

If a case looks broken:
  Which chapter you were in:
  What was pinned at the time:
  Screenshot if you have one:

Email the report →