Much Fibbing: Detective Game

Someone has nobbled the champion marrow. The village show is in uproar, the vicar is sweating, and the only witness is a parrot.

Much Fibbing is a cosy detective game set in the kind of English village where everyone knows everyone, and everyone is lying about something.

ASK THEM ANYTHING

Type any question, and the suspects answer in character: the pompous colonel, the tea lady with a secret, the estate agent who calls a cupboard "bijou". Ask where they were last night, or ask what they think of IKEA. They'll have an opinion. Charm them and they open up; badger them and they clam up.

CATCH THE FIBS

Every suspect is hiding something, and most of it isn't murder. Watch for the tells: a twitching moustache, a rattling teacup, a sudden interest in the ceiling. Gossip spreads, so be careful what you repeat.

MIND YOUR TEA

Each question costs a sip. When your tea goes cold, it's time to name the culprit, the motive and the clue that proves it.

PUZZLES IN EVERY CORNER

Search the village for clues, and some of them are guarded by brain-teasers: a padlock set by the vicar's scripture, a hedgehog to steer past the slug pellets, a word ladder to finish for the tea lady, a boat to row across a flooded lane with a dog, a goose and a sack of corn. Every puzzle is different. Win custard creams for solving them.

SEVEN CASES, EACH ITS OWN CORNER OF BRITAIN

• Marrowgate: sabotage at the village show

• The Little Ashes: a cricket trophy pinched on match day

• Rock Bottom: a six-foot stick of rock vanishes from the pier

• Oh No It Isn't!: a crystal slipper goes missing at the Christmas panto

• Steamrollered: a twelve-ton traction engine disappears from a steam rally, and nobody heard a thing

• In a Jam: the last jar of Coronation marmalade goes overboard at a narrowboat rally, and only the duck saw

• Hanky Panky: the Morris men's 1665 bells vanish on the eve of May Day, and nobody heard a jingle

A FLAT TO CALL YOUR OWN

Home is a flat above the post office, with a parrot. Every case you close puts a souvenir in your trophy cabinet. Spend your custard creams in the mail-order catalogue: flying ducks, a teasmade, a swirly carpet, a pot plant with a face that sulks when you forget to water it. One order a day, delivered next morning. Put the kettle on and catch the local news.

HANDMADE LOOK, GENTLE SOUNDS

Risograph-printed villages that sway in the breeze, puppet suspects, blackbirds and wood pigeons, waves on the shingle, narrowboats chugging past, and a sad trombone for when it all goes wrong.

PRIVATE BY DESIGN

Everything happens on your device. On iPhones with Apple Intelligence, the suspects answer using Apple's on-device model; on other devices they answer from lines written for them. Nothing you type ever leaves your phone. No accounts, no ads, no tracking.

Share your result with friends without spoiling it: "I cracked it in 9 questions. Can you?"