At first glance, MicroMacro might seem like a hidden object game. But underneath, it’s so much more than that: it’s a detective puzzle, it’s a murder mystery and it’s delicious crime storytelling.

“You trace a character’s entire day, piece by piece, and slowly understand how they ended up at the centre of a criminal case,” Daniel Goll, art and game designer for the title, tells us.

From the brains of Berlin game studio Soft Boiled Games, this monochromatic world inspired by comics and the aesthetic of classic detective stories has its origins off-screen.

What started as the MicroMacro board game – winner of the critics’ awarded Spiel des Jahres 2021 (Game of the Year) – has turned into a gigantic map of oddball characters and absurd cases onscreen.

The development didn’t come without its obstacles, though. “On mobile, you’re looking through a much smaller window into that same world,” explains Goll. “It needed its own adapted narrative style: using markers, deliberate zooms and camera movements to draw players into its stories the same way the board game does.”

Once the platform clicked for the team, opportunities opened up. Most obviously, players could tackle the crime cases solo and on the go. Yet it’s the Search Warrants and the “superzoom”, as the team calls it, that make the mobile version so delightful.

According to Goll, “The board game has incredible detail, but some of it is really tiny, almost too small to spot. On mobile, players can zoom in to an extreme level, revealing details that actually matter to the story.”

In The Death Shot, a story that takes place in and around high-rise buildings, Search Warrants let you dig much deeper. “Every apartment has something going on, things relating to the case, but also a lot that’s just funny and strange,” says technical lead Felix Weiler.

Scene by scene, the team crafted a rich world with a meticulous level of care and love for details. “Literally, there’s hardly a pigeon that wasn’t deliberately placed at that exact spot on the map,” laughs Weiler.

And if you haven’t checked out the character sitting on a bench near the bank reading something mind-blowing, you better go take a look right now. It’s Weiler’s favourite Easter Egg and most players miss it.

Ending up with such a polished product wouldn’t be possible if the team at Soft Boiled Games hadn’t intentionally taken the time and care they needed to develop their game.

“Every single case goes through weeks of planning, sketching, playtesting and revision before it ever makes it onto the map,” says art and game designer Johannes Sich.

Luckily, the team tells us they haven’t run out of new ideas to test yet, so expect more new cases and stories to arrive in MicroMacro in the future.

And that’s not all. “We’re experimenting with a different kind of game mechanic set in the same universe. It’s interesting to work on something that plays very differently,” teases Weiler.

We can’t wait to find out what it is, and to dive even deeper into the playful world of all things MicroMacro.