Diorama Detective is a lighthearted AR title about recreating crime scenes and gradually working to solve quirky mysteries. It’s the latest game from Studio Cypher, a developer known for its educational games, and it’s heading straight for the App Store on August 8th.

Despite the detective genre’s reputation for being fairly grim, Diorama Detective aims to offer a more kid-friendly experience, with accessible AR exploration and a humorous tone. The general idea behind it is that you’ll explore a series of highly-detailed dioramas to search for clues that might lead you to crack the case.

Recreating crime scenes can be done by moving characters and objects around the scene until everything clicks into place and you’ve got a clear idea of what exactly went down. The AR tech means that you’ll be able to get a much closer look at all of the evidence strewn around the mysterious Gold Beach neighbourhood. And, gradually, you’ll create a complex link chart that makes untangling the facts a whole lot easier.

The cases you can take on range from possible werewolf sightings to a magician who's grown certain someone’s out to ruin his career. These will all seemingly come together in the end, perhaps for some sort of climactic case that ties everything up in a neat bow.

It’s worth noting that it was built with AR play in mind using the latest Apple ARKit framework, so it should hopefully work well enough and make good use of the tech.

Look for Diorama Detective on the App Store this Thursday, August 8th.