Content Warnings

Potential upsetting content: murder, crime, blood, body, vomit, alcohol, explicit language, fistfight

Project Introduction

"Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing" is a playable mystery thriller. In this story-driven third-person RPG, you solve a murder case at the German North Sea coast in 1870, where the first telegraph cable between the North American and European continents had just been installed. It is the second part of the "Inspector Schmidt" series.

• “Inspector Schmidt – The Ebbing” is a 3rd person RPG in a historically accurate setting.


• The game puts a strong focus on a deep storyline, branching dialog, and player decisions that shape the gameworld, the story and the ending of the game.


• Unique detective mechanics let the player feel the satisfaction of drawing the right conclusions and solving the case.

In this unique Detective RPG you have to choose how to solve the mystery:

Exploration: Experience and explore the game world, the fictional small town Havstedt on the German North Sea coast in the 19th century.
Dialogs: Talk to the villagers, question them for clues, defeat yourself in verbal confrontations.
Detective Sense: Use your detective sense to find hidden clues and information.
Combination: Combine statements and observations to gather evidence.
Confrontation: Confront the suspects and convict the perpetrators.
Decisions: Your actions affect the course of the story, the inhabitants' behaviour, and your own fate.
Character Progression: Develop your character, level up your skills in dice tests, and use them in dialogs and choose-your-own-adventure situations.
Skill Checks: Use your stats in classic pen and paper skill checks.
Crafting: Gather resources and craft items and consumables which will help you in skill checks.


The Gameplay:
Players control the character Valentin Schmidt in third-person perspective through an open world environment. The aim of the game is to investigate several unexplained deaths without being targeted by the village community. You can obtain clues about suspects in dialogs, explore the world, combine observations and statements and/or gain parts through skill tests in choose-your-own-adventure situations.

At key moments in the story, players can confront NPCs with the results of their investigation in verbal confrontations, convince them or obtain information from them. It is important to be well prepared for these confrontations. This is where collected information is used and the character's skills are being tested.

The skills of the player character are tested in dice rolls. The aim is to level up the character according to your own playing preferences. Consumables, which can be discovered while exploring the game world, can be used to temporarily increase skills. These can be further processed in a crafting system and then used during dice rolls to strengthen skills.

The clues and information collected during the game can be logically linked with the help of a combination mechanic. When linking the information, the players make important decisions that either exclude people as suspects or harden their suspicions.

The player's decisions have an impact on the further course of the story, the game world, the way in which NPCs react to the player character and the end of the game.


The Plot:
In „Inspector Schmidt – The Ebbing“, you, as Valentin Schmidt, are sent on a well-deserved vacation after solving your last complex criminal case in Wolpertshofen, Bavaria. You immerse yourself in the open world consisting of the small town of Havstedt and a picturesque peninsula at the German North Sea coast. Just arrived, a brutal murder case shakes the community and thwarts your vacation plans. To prove your own innocence, you must question residents, gather information, find and link clues. Level up your character's skills and use them in classic pen and paper dice trials. Combine your findings to follow the right clues.

It soon becomes clear that this small town is hiding some dark secrets. As the boundaries between sailor's yarn, superstition, the supernatural and tangible conflicts become increasingly blurred, it is your job to clarify the situation and successfully solve the case.

The aim of the game is to investigate several mysterious deaths and identify the right culprit. In doing so, you must be careful to not become the target of the village community yourself or cause even more unrest. The outcome and development of the story, as well as the behavior of the villagers, is influenced by the decisions that you make as a player.


The World Story:
The fictional criminal case is told in an accurately prepared historical setting. Real historical events, people and developments are thematized, such as the development of German high industrialization, the laying of the transatlantic telegraph cable with a connection in Emden, the Franco-Prussian War in 1870/71, Samuel F. B. Morse, Otto von Bismarck, Werner von Siemens, and many more. The aera around 1870 is a time of great change. Industrialization is advancing in leaps and bounds; the transatlantic telegraph cable connects Europe with America, and the world is moving closer together. These changes are not only met with support among the population.

About Developer

Servus (Bavarian slang for “Hi”), we are Active Fungus Studios, a Munich-based game development studio founded in 2020. Led by Jakob Braun, the founder and CEO, we are a small-size, high-impact team of 20, developing first-person and third-person games. Our key skills are in:

• Realistic graphics style


• Deep stories and branching narrative with player agency


• First-person - building, simulation and management gameplay


• Survival mechanics


• Serious games


• Historic settings


• Unreal Engine 5

As a remote company, we value flexible working conditions that allow us to integrate talented professionals regardless of their location.

Active Fungus develops computer games as experiences that entertain as well as immerse our players deeply in the subject matter and provide food for thought. Through computer games, we enable players to adopt different perspectives and encourage them to experience and understand conflicts and problems from different angles.

We create worlds that are deep and rich in stories, experiences and challenges for the players and ourselves. We select projects that are close to our hearts, in which we can fully immerse ourselves. As a team, we encourage ourselves to contribute ideas, feedback, and improvements and to participate in the decision-making process.

Founded in 2020, Active Fungus Studios released the game “Inspector Schmidt - A Bavarian Tale” in February 2023 making a first impact in the German gaming community. The release with 83% positive reviews on Steam opened the doors for new projects and a strong development of the team from 3 developers in 2020 to 20 team members by the end of 2023. Currently, the team is working on 3 projects:

Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing
A playable mystery thriller. In this story-driven third-person RPG, you solve a murder case at the German North Sea coast in 1870, where the first telegraph cable between the North American and European continents had just been installed. It is the second part of the "Inspector Schmidt" series.

Medieval Farmer Simulator
A first-person survival and village builder game, set in medieval times.

STRESS
A serious game dedicated to the training of medical personnel in high stress triage situations like disasters and terror attacks, funded by BMBF, the German Ministry for Education and Research.