Very addictive game! All cases are incredibly fun and interesting to solve.
I just wanted to drop a small 'fun fact' regarding historical accuracy for one of the cases involving Chile (I’m Chilean, by the way!).

Spoiler alert


There’s a slight chronological mix-up in the narrative: in 1971, Chile was actually under the socialist government of Salvador Allende. The military government, the rise of Augusto Pinochet, and the systematic use of secret police didn't start until after the coup in 1973. So, historically speaking, a socialist journalist wouldn't have been targeted by that specific secret police in '71.
Just a minor historical clarification for the curious players out there! Regardless, the game is fantastic and I highly recommend it

From a high concept, what's more fun then hunting down nazis who are trying to hide from their atrocicites and get away with it? This is a really challenging deduction puzzle that respects the player. It asks a lot of you, but in a refreshing way that a lot of puzzle games don't typically do. If you're one of the so-called "puzzle sickos" (you know who you are!) pick this one up, and you'll have a blast.

This is a charming little document-based deduction game (think The Roottrees Are Dead) where your task is to identify Nazis living under alternate identities, smuggled out of Europe after the war on false documents. You use photos, text transcripts, phone calls, and library searches to track down the given name, surname, photo, and location of your targets. The game takes place over 9 chapters, each of which is maybe 30-45 minutes for a veteran of the genre. The hint system is quite generous and can help you with both missing documents and incorrect assumptions. The best part of the game, to my mind, was the necessity of using clues from previous cases to solve current ones; this recalled the best parts of Case of the Golden Idol and Scene Investigators.

If you've never played a game like this, start with Obra Dinn, Roottrees, Immortality, Case of the Golden Idol, Chants of Senaar, and other all-time greats. If you've played those and loved them and are fiending for more, this is a great choice. In my estimation Ratline is good, but a tier below these, which maybe puts me in the awkward position of using a review for a game I thought was quite good to mostly complain. I'm sorry in advance. I am also mindful that this is a solo developer and I want that developer to succeed.

But, in brief: there's two issues. The first is basically technical: there's a fair amount of UI clunk (especially around dialing the phone); no Steam Deck or controller support; none of the visual assets are resolution independent so on my laptop stuff felt small even at the highest level of zoom and things were unplayable on my TV from 10 feet away. The developer is responsive to issues so I would expect the UI flow issues to be fixed but the resolution independence stuff is a limitation of the assets and the core engine design.

The second issue is basically writing-related: the writing is stiff line-to-line. This is exacerbated in conversations where characters talk very indirectly in order to obscure information (important for building a good puzzle, but not riveting to read). The writing also occasionally scans as non-idiomatic (non-spoiler example: the in-game tutorial section is called a "Glossary" even though it doesn't really define words -- not exactly incorrect but also not smooth).

I think this is typical of a solo developed game when the developer is not primarily a writer by trade. The art, music, and design of the game are pretty great, so I'd definitely recommend if the developer finds success to set aside just a little money to hire a copy editor for the writing and a Unity freelancer to shore up the engine issues.

The case-to-case writing and plotting is stronger, but the title is a little misleading. The historical Ratline is mentioned in the frame story, and returned to in the final case, but ultimately this is a game that's more about powerful families and corporate politics than it is about the characters as Nazis or the operation of the actual Ratline. Of course there's nothing wrong with using history and politics as a sprinkling of theme and colour for the world rather than foundationally. Not everything has to be so deep. A movie that takes this approach just won the Best Picture Oscar. But that's the difference between a four-star and a five-star experience for me.

Mechanically I think the puzzles are great, but I'd have probably done another draft of the post-case recaps. When you solve a case, you're given a one page recap of the case, but with words removed like a Mad Lib. Of all things, it reminds me of Mario's Time Machine, an educational game from the early 1990s. It's unclear to me if this feature is designed to tell you what happened in the case (in case you finished it without actually putting things together and need it explained) or if it's designed to test you on what happened. The thing is that the "puzzle" is not a free-form text entry, and the prompts are trivial. Think: "Jack was a good ___" What should I fill in? My choices are "boy", "climbed", or "astronomy". Hmm. So if the recap is meant to tell you what happened, it adds busywork, and if it's meant to test you, it doesn't. For what it's worth, I had in fact missed a major detail in Chapter 8 that I was glad to find out, so I'd keep the recaps but re-think or remove the "puzzle" built into them.

I'll be sure to check out the developer's previous games, and more importantly I'm eager to see what they do next. I think there's a very good foundation here with the potential of one day being great.