[[quoteright:195:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mcf_8261.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:195:You be the detective.]]
Mystery Case Files is a series of {{Casual Video Game}}s from Big Fish Studios, Elephant Games, Eipix Entertainment and Grandma Studios. Despite its title and slogan, no actual sleuthing occurs; it's actually a HiddenObjectGame, a genre which became popular with this series.

There are currently twenty-six main games in the series for home computer:
* ''Huntsville''
* ''Prime Suspects''
* ''Ravenhearst''
* ''Madame Fate''
* ''Return To Ravenhearst''
* ''Dire Grove''
* ''13th Skull''
* ''Escape From Ravenhearst''
* ''Shadow Lake''
* ''Fate's Carnival''
* ''Dire Grove Sacred Grove''
* ''Key to Ravenhearst''
* ''Ravenhearst Unlocked''
* ''Broken Hour''
* ''The Black Veil''
* ''The Revenant's Hunt''
* ''Rewind''
* ''The Countess''
* ''Moths to a Flame''
* ''Black Crown''
* ''The Harbinger''
* ''Crossfade''
* ''Incident at Pendle Tower''
* ''The Last Resort''
* ''The Dalimar Legacy''
* ''A Crime in Reflection''

As well as three spin-offs:
* ''Millionheir'' (Nintendo DS)
* ''Agent X'' (GluMobile)
* ''The Malgrave Incident'' (Nintendo Wii)

They can be downloaded at the "[[http://www.mysterycasefiles.com Official Fan Site]]" (isn't that an oxymoron?) or the [[http://www.bigfishgames.com Big Fish Games site]].

In 2013, Big Fish has also announced a free-to-play spinoff game, ''Spirits of Blackpool''. The app release is for [=iOS=] in the Canadian App Store.

The ''Ravenhearst'' {{story arc}} subseries is arguably the most famous line of titles to come from the Big Fish developers. Although not all of the plots in the arc are directly related to the events at Ravenhearst Manor, you play the same Master Detective in all of them and there is a tangential connection in each one.
** In the original ''Ravenhearst,'' you are requested by the Queen of England to investigate the history of Ravenhearst Manor, situated in Blackpool. You must assemble the pages of a young woman's lost diary to find out about the terrible things which happened there.
** In ''Madame Fate,'' the title character summons you to her carnival because she has had a vision of her own death, and she wants you to figure out who her murderer will be and stop them.
** In ''Return to Ravenhearst,'' you return to the ruined manor when you realize that although you solved the mystery connected to Emma's diary, the house was the site of several other grisly events that need to be brought to light.
** In ''Dire Grove,'' you leave the Ravenhearst incidents behind you and travel to a community built on top of an ancient Celtic settlement, where four graduate students have gone missing in an unseasonal blizzard.
** In ''13th Skull'', you're asked to leave England and travel back to the United States to aid a woman whose husband is missing, and whose young daughter insists he was abducted by a ghost.
** In ''Escape From Ravenhearst'', you must return to the remains of the manor one more time, to find out why people have been disappearing in the area.
** In ''Shadow Lake'', you investigate the haunted ruins of a small New England town that was destroyed by an earthquake, aided by a psychic and her spirit-guided drawings.
** In ''Fate's Carnival'', you return to Fate's Carnival and put a stop on its curse once and for all.
** In ''Dire Grove, Sacred Grove'', you return to Dire Grove after receiving a request from the town to help solve the problem of wild animals attacks and unusually severe coldness plaguing the town.
** In ''Key to Ravenhearst'', an unusual series of shipwrecks bring you back to the area around Ravenhearst Manor, which has been rebuilt as a museum.
** In ''Ravenhearst Unlocked'', you wake up to find yourself trapped in the same mental asylum as the Dalimars, and your goal now is to escape and stop Alister from completing his plans for immortality.
** In ''Broken Hour'', a photographer and good friend of the Queen has gone missing, and the Master Detective must investigate his last known location: a creepy Victorian clock tower turned hotel known as Huxley's Boarding House that is rife with clockwork mechanisms and tragic secrets.
** In ''The Black Veil'', you reunite with Alison (one of the students from the ''Dire Grove'' incident), now a reporter, as you both try to uncover the cause of a rapid aging plague that's sweeping through the abandoned town of Dreadmond, Scotland and figure out how it could be connected to The Battle of the Somme and a golden feather.
** In ''Rewind'', your investigation at the mysterious Hotel Victory becomes a quest to mend your own history, finding people - allies, villains, and others - from many of your past adventures and returning them to their proper eras.
** In ''The Dalimar Legacy'', you find yourself trapped in the past in the body of long time enemy Charles Dalimar.
----
!!These games provide examples of:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:#-M]]
* FiveFiveFive: The tavern in ''13th Skull'' has a list of its employees' phone numbers in its office, and all of them start with "555-".
* AbandonedHospital:
** The sinister hospital in ''Prime Suspects'' goes by that appellation
** Not exactly, but the Blackpool Temperance Hospital and the asylum - or at least, Charles's re-creations of them - in ''Escape From Ravenhearst'' have many of the aspects of this trope.
* AbbeyRoadCrossing: In ''The Black Veil'' one of several fake CD covers, labeled "The Alisters", depicts four men in black robes making the crossing.
* AbhorrentAdmirer: In ''Rewind'', Lucy the Bearded Lady has taken a liking to [[EvilOldFolks Victor Dalimar]] (of all people), and this does not please him ''at all''.
* AccidentalMarriage: Solving one of the puzzle sets in ''Escape From Ravenhearst'' is interpreted by Charles as [[spoiler:accepting his proposal of marriage. The Master Detective's reaction is "Oh, ''GOD'' no!"]]
* AchievementSystem: Most Collector's Editions have one.
* AdventureGame: ''Return to Ravenhearst'' changes the format to this, though there are still areas for item hunting.
* AmusementParkOfDoom[=/=]CircusOfFear: The setting of ''Madame Fate'' and ''Fate's Carnival''.
* AnachronismStew: In ''Ravenhearst'', several of the puzzles that keep certain rooms sealed contain technology--including televisions, access card systems, and an ''electric guitar''--that wasn't developed until long after 1895, when Charles built the place. It's unclear whether or not Charles just kept adding to the doors after [[spoiler:he murdered Emma]] or, given that TimeTravel is introduced in later games, was jumping ahead to the future to secure objects that he needed.
* AncientArtifact: [[spoiler:The Ball of Fate.]]
* AncientOrderOfProtectors: ''The Countess'' reveals there was a knight order which only purpose was to guard the mirror in which [[MirrorMonster the Shade]] was trapped and prevent this terrifying entity from being released at any cost. Unfortunately, this order disappeared at some point in history, leading Lady Gloria Codington to find the mirror and become corrupted by the Shade.
* ApocalypticLog:
** Emma's diary in ''Ravenhearst'', and the videotapes found scattered in ''Dire Grove''.
** Averted and lampshaded in ''Return to Ravenhearst'', where one of the rules Charles posted that Rose had to obey forbade her from keeping a diary of any sort.
** Cassandra's visions in ''Shadow Lake'' are a form of this, narrating the story of how the town became the ruined and haunted site of the game.
** ''Fate's Carnival'' [[spoiler:reveals that the log you find in the carnival belongs to Charles Dalimar's father, Alister.]]
** The bonus chapter of ''Sacred Grove'' justifies [[spoiler:Alister's logs]] due to [[spoiler:him having poor memory to begin with and never trusting it for his plans.]]
* ApothecaryAlligator: In ''Ravenhearst Unlocked'', the apothecary shop has what appears to be a stuffed ''dimetrodon'' hanging from the ceiling.
* ArchEnemy: After the events of ''Escape'', ''Fate's Carnival'', and ''Sacred Grove'', the main battle is clearly the Master Detective vs. Alister Dalimar.
* ArtEvolution: The games get progressively more detailed to the point that Big Fish hired Creator/ElephantGames, who were already known for their extremely detailed hidden object games, to design ''Fate's Carnival''. The games take another shift in ''Key to Ravenhearst'' as Eipix Entertainment has been hired to develop it.
* AscendedExtra: Benedict Caldwell, the man possessed by the twins during ''Key to Ravenhearst'', is the main character of the game's bonus mode, which depicts the prelude to the main game's plot.
* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:Madame Fate is a mean-spirited, abusive {{Jerkass}} to her entire staff, gloating with glee as her crystal ball reveals the horrid ways they're all going to suffer--and in many cases die--at midnight. The player probably won't be shedding many tears when Charles Dalimar kills her at the end of the game.]]
* AxCrazy: [[spoiler:Meredith Huxley, from ''Broken Hour'', has, as her father put it, lost her humanity after the death of her children and the operation that granted her immortality. It turned her completely deranged and murderous, having killed countless people over the years.]]
* BackFromTheDead:
** [[spoiler:At the end of ''Escape From Ravenhearst'', the efforts of the Master Detective have restored the murdered Emma, Rose, Gwendolyn, and Charlotte to life. Charles had apparently already restored himself to full life, but dies again in the final explosion.]]
** [[spoiler:Madame Fate herself, but only temporarily in order to task Isis to accompany The Master Detective on her journey to break the carnival's curse. The carnies themselves have been brought back from the dead to suffer another punishment before The Master Detective frees them.]]
* {{Balloonacy}}: In ''Madame Fate'', one of the background animations in the Kitty Carnival is a little cat flying while holding three balloons.
* TheBartender: There's one in ''13th Skull'' at the local dive bar, a young woman who is easily the friendliest person you meet in the course of the game (if not the entire series).
* BatScare: Leaning over the well in ''Escape'' will trigger one of these.
* BeatStillMyHeart: The final puzzle in ''Return to Ravenhearst'' features a beating heart (implied to be [[spoiler:Charles Dalimar's]]) in a SoulJar. You can even make it beat ''faster'' by injecting epinephrine into it.
* BedlamHouse: Charles was locked up in one in the backstory of the Ravenhearst saga. He recreated the asylum in ''Escape From Ravenhearst''. Another one, the Manchester Royal Lunatic Asylum, is the primary setting of ''Ravenhearst Unlocked'', as the Master Detective wakes up to realize that she's imprisoned there.
* BerserkButton: The curator of the Dire Grove museum apparently hates anyone who does not show respect to the town's history, so they crafted a lock with the town's founding date as the code, meaning anyone who doesn't know about the town cannot get into the museum. (At least, they can't get in when the museum isn't open...)
* BigFancyHouse[=/=]HauntedCastle:
** The setting of ''Ravenhearst'', which, while certainly haunted, is more of a mansion than a castle.
** Part of the setting of ''Dire Grove'' may qualify. It's actually a bed and breakfast, but it's a centuries-old structure that may well have been a castle or manor at one time.
** Also, the southern mansion in ''13th Skull''.
** The haunted prison in ''Shadow Lake'' literally looks like a ruined castle.
** The hidden areas accessible in the bonus content epilogue to ''Fate's Carnival'' resemble a medieval fortress.
* BilingualBonus: Apparently the Master Detective can't read Latin, as a plaque at the beginning of ''Escape'' more or less trumpets the fact that [[spoiler:she's walking into a trap]].
* BlackCloak: Fittingly enough for an old and very evil sorcerer, Alister Dalimar sports one of these in every game he appears in.
* BlackEyesOfEvil: The Shade, the main antagonist in ''The Countess'', appears as a creepy, black-clad version of Lady Gloria Codington with black eyes with eerie white irises.
* BullyBrutality: In ''Shadow Lake'', the resident bully inadvertently pushes one of her schoolmates off their school's bell tower while trying to steal an ancient relic from him.
* CallBack: The menu screen for ''Dire Grove'' is the dashboard of The Master Detective's car, which features a bobblehead doll of Madame Fate. The bobblehead is still there in ''Escape'' and in ''Key''.
** Speaking of Madame Fate, ''Shadow Lake'' has a pachinko game with Madame Fate's portrait and the {{leitmotif}} from her game; it also spouts out quotes that she would speak.
** ''Fate's Carnival'' is one big CallBack to ''Madame Fate'' and the Ravenhearst arc.
** ''Sacred Grove'' has The Master Detective reminisce on occasion about the case in ''Dire Grove''. The bonus chapter also requires you to [[spoiler:destroy an effigy of Alister Dalimar's heart]] as its final task, which is a CallBack to ''Return to Ravenhearst'' in which [[spoiler:you collect jeweled hearts to access and destroy Charles Dalimar's mechanically-sustained ''real'' heart]].
** ''The Black Veil'' marks the reunion between the Master Detective and Alison Sterling, the student she had saved back in ''Dire Grove''.
* CaptainErsatz: Several of the games obviously try to put a back-story on several Ride/DisneyThemeParks rides, including one which already has a back-story. The house called Ravenhearst is inspired by Phantom Manor (a.k.a. Ravenwood Manor) and Ride/TheHauntedMansion; ''13th Skull'' is inspired by Ride/TheHauntedMansion and Pirates of the Caribbean.
* CatsAreMagic: Isis is a black cat who accompanies The Master Detective through her quest through ''Fate's Carnival''. Justified as she's Madame Fate's cat, brought back as a ghost.
* CeilingCorpse: Near the end of ''Dire Grove'', Alison Sterling is found [[HumanPopsicle encased in solid ice]] on the farmhouse ceiling. [[HarmlessFreezing She gets better]].
* Myth/CelticMythology: Features prominently in ''Dire Grove'' and its sequel.
* CheesyMoon: In ''Millionheir'', the secret of astronomer Lee O. Ryan is that [[spoiler:he is addicted to the green cheese from which the moon is made and that he sold Phil's private book collection to be able to get the cheese back to Earth]].
* ChekhovsGag: In ''13th Skull'' - the 7th game from the series - if you click several times on the mirror in the Lawson's bathroom, the Master Detective playfully starts to to summon Bloody Mary before changing their mind, saying they'd rather save this mystery for another time. It remained a mere throwaway joke for 13 years and 19 games... [[spoiler:until ''A Crime in Reflection'' came along, in which the Master Detective is confronted to Bloody Mary for real]].
* ChildByRape: Possibly. A reference in ''Return to Ravenhearst'' has been interpreted by many fans (and Website/TheOtherWiki) as evidence that [[spoiler:Charles forced himself on Emma's nursemaid Rose, resulting in his equally deranged son Victor]].
** In ''Key to Ravenhearst'', we learn that [[spoiler:Charles and Rose had ''three'' children -- the twin girls of ''Return'' are his biological children. Since Rose was married to her husband when she first appears, and he acknowledged the girls as his, it's not clear just how this happened. It might have been rape-by-deception (with Charles impersonating her husband); it might have been plain rape and Rose being unwilling to tell her husband she was raped; or it might have been a consensual extramarital affair.]]
* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Out of all the carnies to return in ''Fate's Carnival'', the only ones not to return are Lucy the Bearded Lady, Twyla Tangle the Contortionist, and Armando the Ringleader.
** Lucy does make an appearance in ''Rewind''.
* ChurchOfSaintGenericus: ''Shadow Lake'' gives us the Bitterford Community Church. In the US, a name like that implies Generic Protestant, and the building is a typical New England church; white-painted wood, clear glass in the windows instead of stained glass. It also has two icon-style paintings at the front of the sanctuary, and the hidden-object scene set there has you looking for bottles of holy water. The psychic vision linked to that area show the pastor (normally a Protestant title) in Roman Catholic vestments and collar.
* CityInABottle: In an in-Verse example, in ''Return to Ravenhearst'': there's a map on the wall of Gwendolyn and Charlotte's home-schooling classroom that depicts nothing but an outline of England and Wales, with "Unknown" scrawled on the vague, fading-out edges of Scotland, Ireland, and the French coast. The only settlement on the map is Blackpool, nearest town to the Ravenhearst estate. This is probably to convice the poor girls that there was nothing outside their underground prison.
* ClassicalElementsEnsemble: The Banshee from ''Dire Grove'' is the vengeful spirit of a young woman, who was sacrificed in ancient times by a farmer (earth), a fisherman (water), a blacksmith (fire), and a hunter (presumably of birds and/or via archery, hence air).
* CliffHanger: ''Madame Fate'' ends with a murderous spirit on the loose wanting revenge on you due to the events of ''Ravenhearst'' and the words "ToBeContinued."
** The ending of ''Key to Ravenhearst'' leaves a few things hanging, including whether the Master Detective survives, although ''Ravenhearst Unlocked'''s release spoils the fact that she does.
* ClockTower: ''Broken Hour'''s main location is Huxley Boarding House, a converted clock tower turned hotel.
* ClockworksArea: The final chapter in ''Broken Hour'' takes place in Huxley's Boarding House's clock tower, which very strongly invokes this trope.
* ClosedCircle: The town of Dire Grove becomes a form of this every winter, according to the brochures The Master Detective reads in that game. Because it's a remote settlement that experiences very harsh conditions, the residents shut everything down in the late fall and stay elsewhere until spring.
* CluelessMystery: ''Madame Fate'', from the game of the same name, thinks one of her 15 employees will kill her at midnight. It turns out that none of them are the real killer -- heck, almost all of them are ''dead'' when midnight comes -- and the one who does off Fate turns out to be a character from an earlier game who was ''never mentioned at all'' in this one!
* ComplexityAddiction: It's revealed that Charles Dalimar suffered a genuinely psychotic obsession with overly complicated locking systems; it first manifested as a child (prompting his mother to institutionalize him) and kept up throughout his entire adult life. This explains why nearly half the doors in his mansion are affixed with RubeGoldbergMachine locks--simple keys weren't enough for him.
* CondensationClue:
** The solution to opening the padlock of Charles caged trailer in ''Escape from Ravenhearst'' is revealed to be written on a bathroom window after the Master Detective turns on the hot water, producing steam.
** A possession-victim from ''Shadow Lake'' scrawls a clue in the fog of a car window, then dies and ''erases the clue'' as his hand slides down the glass. Fortunately, you can review the cinematic as many times as necessary to jot down what it says.
* ContentWarnings:
** ''Escape From Ravenhearst'' has a '''bold, underlined red warning''' on its download page to advise players that it is a "deep psychological thriller" that "may reveal deep-seated fears." This marked the first time that Big Fish had ''ever'' released a game for which they felt the need to make such a warning; since then they have released other games with similar warnings, but the majority of Big Fish Games are much more lighthearted fare, making these instances very noteworthy.
** ''Ravenhearst Unlocked'' comes with a fat bold warning that it's "an intense psychological thriller intended for mature audiences."
* ContinuityNod: This series ''adores'' this trope. Almost all of its games contain at least one, usually many.
** Abe Stinkin, a suspect from ''Prime Suspects'', is seen on a newspaper in ''The Malgrave Incident''.
** Vincent Gavone, another character from ''Prime Suspects'', is said to be a member of a crime syndicate called S.T.A.I.N.. [[spoiler:It is the organization the Master Detective disbanded in ''Huntsville''.]]
** Art the Carny, from ''Madame Fate'', is heavily implied to be Arthur Lugen, a character from ''Prime Suspects''.
** The sequels in the ''Ravenhearst'' arc will usually provide some sort of nod to the fact that they are part of the same arc, even if they focus on a totally different story. For instance, the events of ''Dire Grove'' have nothing to do with the events at the Ravenhearst estate, but the in-game diary opens with a mention of the events of ''Return to Ravenhearst''. Similarly, the diary in ''13th Skull'' references ''Dire Grove.''
** It is eventually revealed that ''all'' of the games in the ''Ravenhearst'' arc are in fact connected to that plot, even the ones that don't appear to have anything to do with it.
*** The collector's edition of ''Dire Grove'' shows that [[spoiler:Victor Dalimar is hiding out in the basement of the grocery store in Dire Grove, plotting revenge against the Master Detective]].
*** ''Escape From Ravenhearst'' reveals that [[spoiler:Charles Dalimar's mother, Abigail, was the daughter of Grace O'Malley and Phineas Crown, the GhostPirate from ''13th Skull'' - ''and'' that Charles used to be part of the Fate Carnival]]!
*** The collector's edition of ''Shadow Lake'' reveals that [[spoiler:the Master Detective is headed back to Fate's Carnival]].
*** ''Fate's Carnival'' reveals that [[spoiler:Charles' father Alister has a deep-seated grudge against Madame Fate, and cursed her carnival after failing to obtain her Ball of Fate for his own purposes. The full extent of his obsession with the Ball is further explained in ''Ravenhearst Unlocked'', where it is revealed to be an AncientArtifact.]]
*** It's revealed in the bonus chapter of ''Sacred Grove'' that [[spoiler:Alister Dalimar was a Mistwalker who was banished from the clan for desecrating one of their sacred rituals into a blood ritual. He's also the one who manipulated the events that led to the feud between the Crowford family and the Mistwalkers in his quest for power and immortality. In fact, Lily Crowford was his ''daughter''.]]
** Madame Fate is the queen of continuity nods, even more so than the Ravenhearst-related things. Aside from ''The Malgrave Incident'', there is ''not a single game'' released after her debut game that doesn't mention the titular fortune teller:
*** At the end of ''Millionheir'', [[spoiler:Phil T. Rich decides to convert his gigantic mansion into an amusement park. The news clipping shown right after the scene shows that said amusement park was Fate's Carnival, and one of the headlines says that "Madame Fate found a home".]] [[spoiler:Although, future entries of the series contradict this, as they show that Fate's Carnival is ''far'' older than that.]]. Also, there is a booth in the gaming room than features some sort of fortune telling machine with a "Madame Fate" panel on it.
*** ''Return to Ravenhearst'', being a direct sequel to ''Madame Fate'', features a photograph of her on the first entry of the case file [[spoiler:with the mention "deceased" under it.]]
*** Also, the bobblehead doll that is featured in ''Dire Grove'', ''Escape from Ravenhearst'' and ''Key to Ravenhearst''.
*** In 13th Skull, the Master Detective references her in the case file when he meets Momma Aimee.
*** In Shadow Lake, she appears on a Pachinko game in the pharmacy (who knows what such a device does there in the first place).
*** She also appears in person in ''Fate's Carnival'', obviously enough.
*** A sticker with the logo of her namesake game is featured on the Master Detective's suitcase (along other stickers referring to all the previous mainstream Mystery Case Files games bar ''Shadow Lake'') in ''Dire Grove, Sacred Grove''.
*** She is once again mentioned on a poster and Alister Dalimar's notes in ''Ravenhearst Unlocked''.
*** A sticker of her head is found on the Captain's wallet found in ''Broken Hour'', and her hands appear on one of the latest puzzles of the game.
*** Finally, she appears in ''The Black Veil'' during [[spoiler:the Master Detective's NearDeathExperience]].
** Fate's Carnival and its carnies are often referenced, too:
*** Puddles the clown appears on a magazine in the Landry's home in ''13th Skull''.
*** Lance, the sword swallower, appears on a memorabilia found in the lighthouse in ''Key to Ravenhearst''.
*** Also in ''Key to Raveanhearst'', the ship captain's diary shows that he went on a trip to Fate's Carnival and he praises Bianca, the daredevil diva, for her performance.
*** Larry, Tabitha and Fabiano are all featured on a poster in Alister's secret room in the BedlamHouse.
*** In ''The Black Veil'', there is an adhesive featuring Twyla Tangle, the contortionist.
*** And of course, they almost all appeared in ''Fate's Carnival'', the sole exception being Twyla Tangle. (Lucy and Armando, while not seen in the main game, are featured on an achievement fan and a collectible card, respectively.)
** In both ''Dire Grove'' and ''13th Skull'', the letters ''CD+ER'' are carved somewhere. These are the initials of Charles Dalimar and Emma Ravenhearst.
** In ''Fate's Carnival'', there is a ornament in the shape of a skull with a "13" on it dangling from the Master Detective's car's rear-view mirror.
** The deceased captain from ''Key to Ravenhearst'' had visited Fate's Carnival before his death. Also, his wallet is found in ''Broken Hour'', where he is shown to have stayed at Huxley's Boarding House at some point. The is even [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by the Master Detective.
--> "Hey - I know him! The good captain surely had a thing for visiting strange places."
** Benjamin Wright, the [[ParanormalInvestigation wraith hunter]] in ''Broken Hour'' aims at joining the Ghost Patrol crew that was first seen in ''Shadow Lake''.
** Also in ''Broken Hour'', one of the final puzzles feature a picture of each Madame Fate's hands, Gwendolyn and Charlotte in their ''Ravenhearst Unlocked'' appearance, and the 13th skull from, well, ''13th Skull''. How these pictures ended up in the Victorian era Huxley's Boarding House is a mystery.
** The case file in both ''Broken Hour'' and ''The Black Veil'' feature little decorations alluding to ''Madame Fate'', the ''Ravenhearst'' arc and ''13th Skull''.
** Alison Sterling, a student from ''Dire Grove'', reappears as a journalist in ''The Black Veil''.
** ''Moths to a Flame'' is full of continuity nods. The game's BigBad is obsessed with the Master Detective and has re-created scenes from some of her earlier cases.
* CosmicRetcon: ''The Dalimar Legacy'' basically undoes the ''entire Ravenhearst arc'' by having the Master Detective [[spoiler:sent back in time to prevent Charls Dalimar from kidnapping Emma Ravenhearst and construction Ravenhearst Manor]]. While it doesn't erase Alister Dalimar from existence, it does change a LOT of important plot points from the series like the death of Madame Fate, the birth of Charles' children, etc.
* CounterfeitCash: The second case in ''Huntsville'' is about the dissemination in the titular town of bogus moolah.
* CreativeClosingCredits: In the credits of ''Escape from Ravenhearst'', names and headers constantly shift from the real ones to jokes. It makes sense, as the Master Detective has to search for objects that shift between two forms during most of the game.
* CreepyCemetery: A lot of ''Mystery Case Files'' games feature a sinister graveyard:
** The Huntsville cemetery is an ominous and misty place with spider webs, ghosts, bones and skeletons scattered around the place. It also features a mausoleum, which is just as macabre.
** Not much is seen of the ''Dire Grove'' graveyard, but when you enter it, the ghostly hand of the Banshee might come out of the mausoleum and try to grab at something.
** ''13th Skull'' too has a creepy graveyard where [[spoiler:Phineas Crown]]'s mausoleum is. It is old and seemingly abandoned, and is most mausoleums and graves are covered with cobwebs and overgrown vegetation. Lewis feels very uneasy about this place, despite not believing in ghosts.
** The Ravenhearst [[spoiler:(the town, not the manor)]] graveyard is rather ominous and the entrance to some torture chambers is hidden within its grounds.
* CreepyCrows: The Ravenhearst estate has flocks of ravens around the area and Alister created a raven named Tanatos as a loyal servant. Really, at any point you see a raven in the games, you should already know that the Dalimars have something to do with it.
** In ''Sacred Grove'', where all of the Mistwalkers wear unique animal-themed costumes, the villain [[spoiler:who's actually Alister himself]] wears raven-themed garments.
* CreepyCircusMusic: The ''entire'' soundtrack from ''Madame Fate''.
* CreepyDoll: ''Return to Ravenhearst'' has an entire display of old and damaged ones. Most of them even ''blink''. Creepy indeed.
* CreepyTwins: In ''Return to Ravenhearst'', but they become more psychotic and sadistic in ''Key to Ravenhearst''. [[spoiler:Charlotte, in particular, traps the Master Detective in the same mental asylum cell that once housed Alister and she plots to torture The Master Detective.]]
* CrusadingWidow: Samuel Crowford blames Bjorn and the Mistwalkers for the death of his wife and the disappearance of his son, so he tries to rally the townsfolk against them. [[spoiler:Most of the town actually don't want to fight and flee instead. The two hunters who stay behind with Samuel are there to ensure he doesn't get into deeper trouble.]]
* DaddysGirl: Magnolia comes across like this in ''13th Skull''. [[spoiler:The end reveals that she's actually DaddysLittleVillain, as she was in on her family's scheme and was plotting your demise the whole time.]]
* DarkIsEvil: [[spoiler:Alister Dalimar]], no denying that.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: Dear lord, Charles's life was ten types of crazy, it's no wonder he went insane. It almost makes you feel sorry for him when further information about his family is revealed, especially since his father being a lunatic hell-bent on achieving immortality at all costs [[spoiler:including killing his own descendants]] will do that to a guy.
* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Huntsville'' and ''Prime Suspects'' are lighthearted mysteries about silly crimes, with cartoonlike characters (many of whom have [[PunnyName Punny Names]]) and goofy scenes. Then comes ''Ravenhearst'', which features the story of a HauntedHouse, several genuinely disturbing puzzles and objects, and a plot that centers on [[spoiler:a young man who felt so [[EntitledToHaveYou entitled]] to a woman who rejected his advances that he poisoned her, tried to drive her insane, and then ''brutally murdered her with an axe'', trapping her spirit in the manor for over a hundred years]]. It's a massive tone shift that persists throughout the rest of the series.
* DeadPersonConversation: Or rather Dead Person Beration, as Alister has an artifact called the Black Lantern that allows him to talk to the shadows of the dead. He uses it to berate [[spoiler:Charles and Victor for their failures.]]
* DeathByIrony: [[spoiler:The titular Madame Fate foresaw her death and called the Master Detective to help her. Turns out she would've been better off if she ''didn't'' call the Master Detective. See SelfFulfillingProphecy as to why.]]
* DeathOfAChild: Used on four occasions (though we only witness the death once).
** ''Return To Ravenhearst'', Charles [[spoiler:kills Rose's two daughters and locks their souls into his unlife support machine. The girls are definitely pre-pubescent, and look to be younger than 10.]]
** ''13th Skull'', after the final puzzle, there's a cutscene in which [[spoiler:the ghost of Captain Crown drowns the criminals who have been playing the Master Detective for a sucker throughout the game ... including their pre-pubescent daughter Magnolia. Although, as ''Black Crown'' shows us, it turns out this trope is subverted as she ''survived'', becoming akin to a vessel of Phineas Crown and she helped him in his plans to get back to the high seas.]]
** In ''Shadow Lake'', Cassandra's visions show [[spoiler:Billy falling from the school's bell tower to his death]]. The (unbloodied) body is actually shown striking the ground.
** In ''Broken Hour'', it is implied that Fiona and Duncan Huxley might have died a brutal death, driving their mother to complete depression. [[spoiler:Although the circumstances are unclear: they could either have died by the hands of their father, have been hidden away by him or have died because of an accident]].
* DeepSouth: The setting for ''13th Skull'' - Louisiana, specifically.
** ''Huntsville'''s story sets it in Alabama.
* DemBones: The skeleton of the prisoner in ''Shadow Lake'' seems to come alive and then collapses into a pile.
** [[spoiler:After The Master Detective returns the skulls of Captain Crown's crew in ''13th Skull'', they all come alive -- and then [[GangUpOnTheHuman gang up on the Captain.]]]]
* DemonicPossession: [[spoiler:In ''Dire Grove'', the Banshee possesses four graduate students to force them to take on roles in the ritual that will [[SealedEvilInACan release her from her prison.]] It's reversed once the Master Detective banishes the Banshee once more.]]
* DestinationDefenestration: [[spoiler:Meredith Huxley]] dies after getting blasted through a glass clock face and plummeting down the huge ClockTower in ''Broken Hour''.
* DestroyTheAbusiveHome: Charles did this [[spoiler:to his childhood home after escaping the BedlamHouse his gruesome mother sent him into.]] The Master Detective has to mimic that in the house's facsimile in ''Escape from Ravenhearst''.
* DevelopersForesight: Try running tokens from the Collector's Edition of ''Escape'' through the X-ray machine, both before ''and'' after they've been energized.
* DialogueTree: In ''13th Skull'', when conversing with any of the other characters.
** Also featured in ''Sacred Grove''.
* DigYourOwnGrave: Literally in ''Escape From Ravenhearst'', although the grave isn't quite what it appears.
* DinnerDeformation: A kinda gruesome example from ''Madame Fate'', with the reveal of the sword swallower's fate: he inadvertently eats a real sword and the crystal ball shows him agonizing, the handles from the sword deforming his throat in a matter that can't possibly be survived.
* DisneyVillainDeath:
** In ''Madame Fate'', this is the prophetized death of the acrobat twins Mao and Amber Tan, who would fall to their death during a performance according the Madame Fate's CrystalBall. [[spoiler:They however reappear as antagonists in Fate's ''Carnival''... only to be actually ''seen'' plummeting to their doom from a tower courtesy of a flock of ravens]].
** Lena Caldwell was murdered that way in ''Key to Ravenhearst'' when [[spoiler:Gwendolyn]] pushed her from the top of the lighthouse.
** At the end of ''Broken Hour'', [[spoiler:Meredith Huxley gets blown through the clock tower's glass dial and tumbles down to her demise]].
* DisappearsIntoLight: When attacked by his skeletal crew, [[spoiler:Captain Phineas Crown]]'s ghost disappears into a blindingly white light that takes over the whole screen.
** Also, [[spoiler:Madame Fate and Isis]] go up a moonbeam before dissipating into it at the end of ''Fate's Carnival'''s bonus gameplay.
* TheDisembodied: Both the ending and the bonus chapter of ''Incident at Pendle Tower'' reveal that both [[spoiler:Millicent and Bobby]], who were thought to be bonafide ghosts for the whole game, are actually this: [[spoiler:Dr. Corman's experiment didn't ''kill'' them per se, but turned them into spirits. And, as shown by the endgame, this is ''reversible'', as both regain their physical bodies when the experiment itself if reversed by the Master Detective]]
* DreadfulMusician: Matilda Fitzgerald, one of the suspects from ''Prime Suspects'', is said to be an ''atrociously'' bad singer. Her alias even is "Tone-deaf Tilly".
* DrPsychPatient: In the bonus game of ''Key to Ravenhearst'', Benedict Caldwell arrives in a mental asylum, but the staff seems quite... ''off''. Quite understandable since the doctors he meets are the ''lunatics'' He later discovers the actual staff BoundAndGagged.
* {{Druid}}s: The Mistwalkers are druids that serve the forest around Dire Grove. [[spoiler:They were mistakenly believed by the townsfolk to be the cause of the winter and it was actually the Mistwalkers who summoned The Master Detective. They also save the hunters from a wolf and bear attack.]]
* DudeWheresMyRespect: You may be the Master Detective, but almost nobody in ''13th Skull'' is willing to give you any information (or the time of day) until you complete some sort of annoying FetchQuest for them. The only exception is the librarian in the bar, who becomes very helpful once you beat him in TabletopGame/{{checkers}}.
* ElementNumberFive: Items representing the five elements are needed to defeat the BigBad in ''Dire Grove.'' According to the context of the game, the fifth element is represented by [[spoiler:mercury]].
* EntitledToHaveYou: Charles Dalimar certainly felt this way about Emma Ravenhearst. After courting her for a few months, he proposed marriage, and she politely declined--but he wasn't going to let a little thing like what she wanted stop him from getting his way...
* EquivalentExchange: This is one of the Mistwalkers' most sacred rules of their creed. [[spoiler:A young Peter Crowford]] offered himself to the Mistwalkers in exchange [[spoiler:for saving his brother Derek's life.]] As an adult [[spoiler:Derek]] planned to abuse this rule, [[spoiler:kidnap their sacred fawn and force them to return Peter. The bonus chapter reveals that Alister Dalimar manipulated the entire incident.]]
* EverybodysDeadDave: Everybody -- except you, of course -- is dead and/or "doomed" in some way at midnight in ''Madame Fate'', [[spoiler:including Madame Fate herself!]]
* [[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep Everyone Calls Her The Master Detective]]
* EveryoneIsASuspect: Every single carny in ''Madame Fate'' has a strong motive to kill the titular fortune teller. [[spoiler:In the end, none of them did: the murderer is a character that wasn't even mentioned in the game before!!]]
* EvilDoppelganger: The Shade from ''The Countess'' is a variation of this trope: it started as a malevolent MirrorMonster with its own appearance, but it gradually took the shape of Lady Gloria Codington when feeding on her creativity over the years. It now appears as a black and ''very'' creepy doppelgänger of the benevolent Lady Codington.
* EvilIsDeathlyCold: The mere awakening of [[spoiler:the Banshee]] in ''Dire Grove'' is enough to freeze the titular village and its surroundings. [[spoiler:Should she be freed from her mystical tomb, she would freeze the entire world.]]
* EvilPoacher: A downplayed case. Ted, one of the two hunters that accompany Samuel, admits he was a poacher for extra money, but after an encounter with a Mistwalker [[spoiler:or possibly Alister]], he was so spooked he gave up poaching. He asks The Master Detective to not tell Samuel about it.
* EvilWearsBlack:
** Alister Dalimar is never seen without his BlackCloak. His son is also always wearing black clothing in his appearances.
** In ''The Countess'', the Shade gradually took the appearance of Lady Gloria Codington while feeding on her creativity, and now appears as a very creepy doppelgänger of hers wearing pitch-black dresses.
* EvilSorcerer: Alister Dalimar. He's blatantly called a "dark sorcerer" in a magical news flyer. [[spoiler:He had also been teaching Charles, but when Charles met Emma, he drops his lessons.]]
* ExcusePlot: The plots in all the games are basically excuses to look for random objects in cluttered scenes.
* EyeScream: One of the lock-puzzles in ''Escape From Ravenhearst'' requires you to [[spoiler:click a series of realistic, moving eyes. Each time you do so, there's an audible yelp of pain, as if you've genuinely poked someone in the eye.]]
* FaceHeelTurn: The Tattooed Man, the acrobats, and Doctor Goodwell betrayed the carnival for Alister Dalimar.
** The twins, Gwendolyn and Charlotte Somerset, also choose to join their grandfather in ''Key to Ravenhearst,'' despite being rescued and aiding the Master Detective previously.
* FeatheredFiend: Tanatos, Alister Dalimar's raven familiar, often impedes the Master Detective's investigations, most notoriously in ''Fate's Carnival''.
* FeaturelessProtagonist: The {{player character}}, although as noted below, the character's gender is revealed after the events of ''Madame Fate''.
** A bobblehead of the Master Detective can be collected in ''Fate's Carnival'', but her face and body are heavily cloaked by trenchcoat, hat and scarf.
** ''Sacred Grove'' now presents the player with the option of choosing the Master Detective to be male or female. One puzzle in the game (which refers to the original ''Dire Grove'') identifies a female puppet as the Master Detective, though.
*** The puppet is male if you choose to play as the male Detective actually. In other words, the puppet changes depending on which gender you chose in the beginning of the game in your options menu.
* FictionalDocument: Emma's diary in ''Ravenhearst.'' Most if not all of the books in the library in ''Dire Grove.''
* FightingFromTheInside: Implied with [[spoiler:Allison in ''Dire Grove.'' Though the Banshee ends up successfully possessing her to perform the ritual that will undo the binding spell, the last video tape in the ApocalypticLog--which details how to defeat the evil spirit--is found near the site of that ritual. Since the entrance to the site is only opened to the world after Allison has been possessed, she must have dropped it there ''while'' she was traveling to it, meaning that she was actively resisting the Banshee's influence.]]
* FirehouseDalmatian: One Dalmatian is found in the Huntsville Firehouse in ''Huntsville''.
* FishOutOfTemporalWater: Implied for the end of ''Escape From Ravenhearst''. [[spoiler:Emma, Rose and her daughters have been dead for more than a hundred years, and now they've been brought back to life. It's unclear, at that point, whether a future game will show how well they adapt to the 21st century.]]
** Unfortunately, the twins [[spoiler:make a HeelFaceTurn when they choose to assist Alister in ''Key to Ravenhearst'']].
* {{Foreshadowing}}: The last line Madame Fate states before the game begins? "Find the soul that seeks to kill Madame Fate." [[spoiler:The killer ends up being Charles Dalimar... who's already dead at the point in the story.]]
* FortuneTeller: The titular ''Madame Fate''.
* FountainOfYouth: The entire plot of [[spoiler:''The Malgrave Incident'']] revolves around this. [[spoiler:Winston Malgrave asks the Master Detective to gather some rejuvenating dust around Malgrave Island to cure his wife Sarah's deadly illness]]. [[spoiler:As it turns out, though, Sarah has been dead for a long time and the elderly Malgrave only wanted to gather the dust in order to become a young man again.]]
* FourIsDeath: Four graduate students get themselves trapped in Dire Grove. [[spoiler:All four are stuck in frozen stasis and brainwashed into performing an ancient ritual to free the banshee.]]
* FullMotionVideo: ''Escape From Ravenhearst'', ''Return to Ravenhearst'', ''The 13th Skull'', and ''Shadow Lake'' are the only games in the series that use live actors in the game settings. ''Dire Grove'' also use live actors, but any of the clips featuring the actors are simply videotapes that the Master Detective picks up as part of the story.
* GhostPirate: Suspected to be behind the disappearance in ''13th Skull''. He's got a GhostShip too.
* GhostTown: Bitterford, Maine (the setting of ''Shadow Lake'').
* GirlsWithMoustaches: Lucy the Bearded Beauty from ''Madame Fate'', obviously enough
* GoIntoTheLight: In ''The Black Veil'', [[spoiler:the Master Detective is stabbed by Richard Galloway and experiences a NearDeathExperience during which he has to go through the memories of her past cases. Each time she goes forward, the cursors indicate "Go toward the light".]]
* GoneHorriblyWrong: [[MadScientist Dr. Corman]]'s experiment in ''Incident at Pendle Tower''... didn't go as planned, to say the least. [[spoiler:What was intended to enhance Millicent Keaton's psychic powers instead fully turned her into a spirit and opened a rift to the spirit dimension, to both Millicent's and Dr. Corman's horror.]]
* GratuitousLatin: A sign outside the reconstructed Ravenhearst gates in ''Key to Ravenhearst'' says "Ex cineribus resurgam" (Rise out of the ashes) at the bottom.
* GuiltBasedGaming: The quitting screen in ''Fate's Carnival'' reads "Are you sure you want to leave? Madame Fate will be disappointed."
* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: The Amazing Larry is found in this condition in ''Fate's Carnival''.
* HarmlessFreezing: In ''Dire Grove'', the four graduate students are frozen solid, but still alive and able to recite an ominous MadnessMantra once they're found. [[spoiler:At the end of the game, they're also able to walk to the site of the Banshee's imprisonment and perform a ritual to free her.]] [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] since the freezing is [[AWizardDidIt magical in nature.]]
** Averted in ''Broken Hour'', where [[spoiler:Harold]] is killed by Meredith by being encased in a block of solid ice.
* HauntedHouse:
** Ravenhearst Manor, which is inhabited by the ghosts of Emma, Rose, her twin daughters and Charles Dalimar.
** Subverted with Huxley's Boarding House in ''Broken Hour'', as Meredith Huxley is very much alive...
* HedgeMaze: In ''Black Crown'', the Crown Estate features a very large hedge maze, and the Master Detective has to use a dog's guidance to avoid getting lost within it.
* HellHotel: Hotel Victory in ''Rewind'' is the theater of some weird, ''disturbing'' things...
* HiddenObjectGame
* HilariousOuttakes: ''Return to Ravenhearst'' has this at the credits.
* HonorBeforeReason: The original Master Detective, Ellen, decides to tie up and misdirect the current Master Detective in an attempt to keep him/her from interfering in "her" mission, so that she can personally stop Alister and atone for her previous mistake.
* HopeSproutsEternal: After the Master Detective finally destroys Ravenhearst Manor in ''Return to Ravenhearst'', pink flowers bloom from bare tree branches while Emma, Rose, and the twins exit the burning mansion.
* HumanPopsicle: When you find the four missing graduate students in ''Dire Grove'', they've each been turned into one of these. [[spoiler:Remarkably, they all survive.]]
* TheIgor: [[spoiler:Victor]], in ''Return to'' and ''Escape From Ravenhearst'', crosses this with OverlordJr.
* ImmortalityImmorality: You would not believe all the horrors the Dalimar family achieved in their quest for eternal life. [[spoiler:Or the ones Meredith Huxley and her father did to ''stay'' immortal.]]
* ImmortalityInducer: [[spoiler:Jacob Huxley's robotic hearts, which were implanted on both his wife and father-in-law.]]
* ImmortalitySeeker: There are many in this series:
** Alister Dalimar. All of his crimes and the abuse he inflicts on his descendants is all because his lust for power and immortality.
** Also, his son Charles Dalimar pursues the same goal, as shown prominently in [[spoiler:''Return to Ravenhearst''; in that game, he has built a monstrous contraption that allows him to stay alive feeding on the souls of Emma Ravenhearst and Rose, Gwendolyn, and Charlotte Somerset.]]
** [[spoiler:Winston Malgrave from ''The Malgrave Incident'']] also seeks this by the mean of a rejuvenating dust.
** Jacob Huxley, from ''Broken Hour'', was obsessed with finding a way to defeat death. [[spoiler:He actually succeeded when he created a mechanical heart which he transplanted into both his wife Meredith (to save her from a certain death) and his father-in-law. Unfortunately, since Meredith became insane after the transplant, she, along with her father, killed him, as well as his assistant.]]
* IntercomVillainy: In ''Escape from Ravenhearst'', Charles guides you through his nightmarish underground complex and narrates his own life through intercoms while he is spying on you.
* IronMaiden: In ''Fate's Carnival'', Lance Pierceman, the sword swallower, is found imprisoned in one. He is still alive, so the Master Detective must save him.
* ItsPersonal: [[spoiler:Why Madame Fate was killed; because the Master Detective freed Emma from Ravenhearst Manor and also because Charles wanted vengeance for being labeled a freak while he was in her carnival.]]
** Retconned in the bonus play of the ''Fate's Carnival'' [=CE=]: [[spoiler:Madame Fate had imprisoned Charles's father Alister, so he killed her and imprisoned her soul.]]
* ItWasWithYouAllAlong: In ''Fate's Carnival'', you wanna know where that special black diary that was needed to stop Alister Dalimar was? [[spoiler:Surprise, you've been holding it since the beginning of the game!]]
** And also [[spoiler:the means of destroying it: your Master Detective badge, which you've presumably been wearing ''since the series began''.]]
* JabbaTableManners:
** Franco possesses them. He is renowned as the pie-eating champion.
** Abigail Dalimar (or at least the mannequin representing her) can be seen lazing about in her bed upstairs, with discarded snacks and untouched leftovers all around her. And the way she gobbles down the [[spoiler:dynamite pie]] is just not right.
* JumpScare: In a series that often flirts with gruesome and disturbing, some of these are to be expected.
** [[spoiler:The creepy mannequin in the bathtub]] in ''Return to Ravenhearst'' delivers one heck of a fright.
** ''Shadow Lake'' is littered with those.
** ''Fate's Carnival'' has some too, but in lesser number.
* KarmicDeath: All the workers of ''Madame Fate'' are dead/doomed in different ways:
** The Amazing Larry (magician): A hack magician who [[spoiler:ends up ''hacking'' himself in half.]]
** Lucy the Bearded Lady: Famed for her glorious beard, [[spoiler:which ends up getting chopped off.]]
** Marlena the Mermaid: Married to Dante the Tattooed Man, she's currently in a LoveTriangle with Fabiano, the Strong Man. [[spoiler:She gets ''caught'' in a net for her troubles.]]
** Art the Carny: Madame Fate has been reducing his cigarette smoking, [[spoiler:and so he dies stuffing his mouth with cigarettes.]]
** Twyla Tangle the Contortionist: Known for twisting her body and getting in and out of tight places, [[spoiler:she gets trapped in a capsule underwater and can't escape.]]
** Bianca the Daredevil Diva: Has tried to get a replacement daredevil due to getting migraines, [[spoiler:when she performs, she gets blown up.]]
** Fabiano the World's Strongest Man: Known for his incredible strength [[spoiler:and then he is unable to lift a very heavy object and dies from suffocation.]]
** Lance the Sword Swallower: Swallows fake swords as part of his act, [[spoiler:then dies when he swallows a ''real'' one.]]
** Armando the Ringmaster: Believes that he should be the one upstaging Madame Fate, [[spoiler:and dies after someone poisoned his drink.]]
** Tabitha the Lion Tamer: Wants revenge on Madame Fate who killed her favorite lion, [[spoiler:and then she ends up under the jaws of her ''other'' lion.]]
** Franco the Excessive: Madame Fate's son who is being pestered to find a wife and thus is making him lose appetite. [[spoiler:He then becomes so hungry that he eats a horse.]]
** Dr. Goodwell the Medicine Man: A snake-oil salesman who takes more of his fair share of funds from the carnival. [[spoiler:He is then captured by his own snake and about to be devoured.]]
** Puddles the Clown: A SadClown who believes that the circus is going cheap and wants it to be like the good old days. [[spoiler:Gets killed when he accidentally shoots himself with a real gun instead of a Bang! flag gun.]]
** Dante the Tattooed Man: Using his body to advertise different circuses, [[spoiler:he dies by hanging himself by the only place without a tattoo--his tongue.]]
** Mao and Amber Tan, the Acrobats: Brother and sister duo who are known to be pickpockets when not performing. [[spoiler:When they do get to perform they fall to the ground without a net to save them.]]
** [[spoiler:Madame Fate: the fortune teller who finds out that she's dying and asks the Master Detective to help find her murderer...only to find out too late that she died ''because'' she brought the Master Detective to solve the case!]]
* KilledOffForReal: In ''Fate's Carnival'', [[spoiler:Franco, Art and Tabitha have been killed off, as all that's left of them are their bones.]]
** [[spoiler:The acrobats are implied to have plummeted to their doom after The Master Detective wakes up all the ravens in the tower.]]
** [[spoiler:Charles and Victor as well, since Alister was seen berating their ghosts with the Black Lantern and don't show up in ''Sacred Grove''.]]
** [[spoiler:''Ravenhearst Unlocked'' has Alister stab his granddaughter, Gwendolyn, to death.]]
* KlaatuBaradaNikto: This is the name of the bogus alien impersonated by Doris Blevins to terrorize locals in ''Huntsville''.
* KleptomaniacHero: Averted in ''Dire Grove'' -- the Master Detective has to break into the inn's safe to retrieve a key, but scolds "herself" if the player clicks on the stack of money that's also there.
* LateArrivalSpoiler: ''Rewind'', being some sort of revisit of the entire series, manages to spoil the rather surprising ending of ''Huntsville'' [[spoiler:(the identity of the BigBad as a sweet old grandmother)]], the first game of the series, ''sixteen games and thirteen years later''.
* LateToTheTragedy: The more the Master Detective explores the depths of Ravenhearst Manor, the more she learns about the horrifying events that took place there... back in 1895. And the more eager she becomes to free the victims and to punish the perpetrators.
** Also, in ''Dire Grove'', she gets in the eponymous village and slowly learns (via an ApocalypticLog) what happened to a group of students just a little while earlier.
* LeakingCanOfEvil: In ''Dire Grove'', the Banshee is still safely imprisoned in her frozen tomb, but she's able to exert enough influence on the surrounding area to both cause an unnaturally cold winter and possess the graduate students who came to investigate; her main goal is to totally undo the seal binding her and destroy the world as revenge for being locked away in the first place.
* LighthousePoint: Literally in ''Escape From Ravenhearst'', where the lighthouse's beam ''points'' at the entrance to [[spoiler:the underground prison Charles built for the Master Detective]].
** The same lighthouse reappears in ''Key to Ravenhearst'' and ''Ravenhearst Unlocked''.
* LivingDollCollector: Charles Dalimar captured Rose Somerset and her daughters [[spoiler:(which, as shown in ''Key to Ravenhearst'', also are his ''own'' daughters)]] and trapped them in a nightmarish complex hidden beneath Ravenhearst Manor), where they seemingly had to play the role of his "family". [[spoiler:Although it turns out they were mostly abducted as their souls were needed to fuel his SoulJar]].
* LivingPhoto: In ''Shadow Lake'', a JumpScare involves a woman on a photograph suddenly rising up and lunging toward the player, toppling the photo frame and revealing a clue hidden within.
* {{Lobotomy}}: Downplayed in ''Escape From Ravenhearst'', where the Master Detective must perform a simulated lobotomy on an ''animatronic'' "mental patient" so she can beat him in a card game. Even then, said lobotomy consists solely of rotating a switch.
* LockAndKeyPuzzle: Near the end of ''Ravenhearst'', you have to search the entire manor for keys scattered throughout.
** Same deal in ''Return'', except this time it's [[spoiler:jeweled hearts]] you need to collect.
** In ''13th Skull'', you need to collect [[spoiler:thirteen skulls]]. In a change, you can collect them earlier in the game [[spoiler:and thereby not have to put up with the BigBad yelling at you to hurry up]].
* LockedDoor: Several are found in ''Ravenhearst'', though instead of traditional locks, there's a bunch of freaky, [[SolveTheSoupCans nonsensical puzzles]] in its place. The in-game diary makes the locks plot-relevant.
** Lampshaded in ''Return to Ravenhearst'', in which a document about Charles Dalimar being sent to an insane asylum comments on his "strange lock obsession".
** In ''Escape from Ravenhearst'' it's explained that somehow Charles gained the ability to put locks on people's souls.
** When she comes across yet another object-shaped lock in ''Sacred Grove'', the detective is so clearly done with them. "Oh great. I'm going out of my skull with all these locks around here!" (Doubles as a StealthPun because the lock required a skull-shaped signet key.)
* LogoJoke: In the opening credits for ''13th Skull'', Felix the Fish (the Big Fish mascot, who always appears in their credits) shows up as a skeleton fish with "XIII" carved into his skull.
* TheLostLenore: It's clear that Samuel loved his wife Lily dearly, and blames her death on the Mistwalkers [[spoiler:as she was a former Mistwalker herself and Bjorn was in love with her.]]
* LoveMakesYouCrazy[=/=]LoveMakesYouEvil: Charles's StartOfDarkness in ''Ravenhearst'' seems to have been caused by Emma rejecting his marriage proposal.
** [[spoiler:Subverted in ''Escape From Ravenhearst'', where it's clear he was six kinds of AxCrazy before he even met her.]]
** [[spoiler:Alister blames all the trouble that befell Ravenhearst and the Dalimars on Charles falling for Emma, because if he hadn't, Charles would have continued his dark magic lessons with Alister.]]
* LovecraftCountry: ''Shadow Lake'' takes place in Maine.
* MadameFortune: Most Fortune Tellers in the series are named "Madame ''x''". This includes Madam Fleiss and more importantly Madame Fate.
* MadnessMantra: The ice-trapped students from ''Dire Grove''. Taken to DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment levels with [[spoiler:Sarah]], who recites [[spoiler:"I am the Hunter"]] ''[[BrokenRecord eleven times in a row]]''.
* MagicalComputer: In the first three games, your computer can quickly determine who caused a crime, where someone was during a crime, and even recreate long-lost diary entries! Well, [[GameplayAndStorySegregation after you find some random objects, of course...]]
** In ''Dire Grove'', this happens literally when [[spoiler:supernatural forces cause your computer to spontaneously display the unlocking-code for a portal]].
* TheManBehindTheMan: When you first play the Ravenhearst arc, you're led to assume that Charles Dalimar is the BigBad, given all the torment he's inflicted. As you continue playing, you realize that it's his ''father'', Alister, who's been creating these events.
* TheMarvelousDeer: The Forest Spirit from ''Dire Grove, Sacred Grove'' manifests as a blue-white stag with antlers made of ice. [[spoiler:Its child has the form of a fawn with budding ice antlers.]]
* {{Matricide}}: Commited by [[spoiler:Charles Dalimar. With a pie stuffed with dynamite, no less.]]
* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: [[spoiler:While Charles Dalimar himself is clearly supernatural, it's unclear in ''Escape From Ravenhearst'' whether he was actually communing with his father's ghost at the insane asylum, or just imagined it while listening to a raven croaking.]]
* MirrorMonster:
** In ''The Countess'', the Shade is a corrupting, evil entity that dwells in a creepy, pitch black mirror. Once guarded dutifully by an AncientOrderOfProtectors, it was found centuries later by Lady Gloria Codington, on whose creativity the Shade was kept fed. It also trapped anyone coming close to it into its mirror dimension, where its hapless abductees were enslaved until death and even in their afterlife.
** Bloody Mary from ''A Crime in Reflection'' also haunts a mirror dimension as a ghost, and just like the Shade she has the ability to drag hapless victims into it.
* MirrorScare: In ''Shadow Lake'', when the Master Detective opens the bathroom cabinet in the burnt home, you briefly see the reflection of the owner's horrifying ghost in the mirror.
--> "I don't think I will be closing this cabinet any time soon."
* MisplacedWildlife: Wolves and bears no longer live wild in Great Britain. Presumably the Mistwalkers from ''Sacred Grove'' acquired their animals elsewhere; the wolf from ''Dire Grove'' may have been a feral dog transformed by the same curse that froze the land.
* MonochromeApparition: The ghosts of Emma Ravenhearst and the Somerset family are solid white, and so is the Banshee in ''Dire Grove''. Also, Captain Crown's spirit is blue.
* MouthFullOfSmokes: This is how Art the Carny goes out in ''Madame Fate''. Guess even a chain-smoker like him couldn't handle ''this'' many cigars at once.
-->'''Madame Fate''': "I always said those things would kill him".
* MultipleEndings: In ''Prime Suspects'', the main culprit will change with each new game you play.
** The same goes with both the heir and the traitor in ''Millionheir''.
* MundaneMadeAwesome: ''Key'' has a cut sequence in which the Detective finds Benedict working on the rebuilt manor's extended blueprints. The ''player'' views some rapid motion-sequences of gears, passages, and ghosts being funneled down them in Benedict's racing thoughts, accompanied by suspenseful music; the Master Detective just sees some dude scribbling at a desk with his back turned to her.
* MustacheVandalism: In ''The Harbinger'' Marge's diary includes a picture of Aisling with devil horns and a mustache drawn on it.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:Derek has this reaction after Forest Light, the leader of the Mistwalkers, reveals himself to actually be Peter, and persuades his brother to drop his gun.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:N-Z]]
* NeverMessWithGranny: In ''Huntsville'', you have to put an end to a crime spree in a small rural town. [[spoiler:The brains of the operations? The elderly town librarian (who is seen ''knitting'' in the crime syndicate's weapon-loaded headquarters!)]].
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: You have to literally smash through the bathroom floor in ''Dire Grove'' in order to reach the locked office.
** The Master Detective uses scissors to cut open a bag of garbage and several paintings in ''13th Skull''.
** A non-literal example occurs in ''Escape From Ravenhearst'', where your determination to keep poking around in the ruins [[spoiler:gets Emma and the Somersets re-captured, at least for a while]].
** Because the Master Detective returned to the carnival, she [[spoiler:inadvertently frees Alister Dalimar from the Ball of Fate and it's up to her to re-imprison him again.]]
* NightmareFetishist: Ever since he was graced by Ankou, the Goddess of Death, Richard Galloway has been completely ''obsessed'' with death, desperately longing to finally be at Ankou's side forever.
* NoAnimalsWereHarmed: The ending screen from ''Madame Fate'' states that "No actual carnies were harmed in this production". [[spoiler:Ironic, since they almost all perished.]]
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: One of the twenty characters in ''Prime Suspects'' is a blonde debutante who carries around a chihuahua, films a reality show called ''The Simpleton'', and is named Holly Day Inn after a famous hotel. [[Creator/ParisHilton Three guesses as to who she's supposed to be.]]
* NonHumanSidekick:
** In ''Fate's Carnival'', The Master Detective is accompanied by a beautiful black cat named Isis. She's actually Madame Fate's cat and is there to provide help to The Master Detective. One of the bonus features is being able to purchase toys and accessories for her.
** Alister himself has Tanatos, a black raven he created as a display of his power.
** The bonus chapter of ''Sacred Grove'' has an unnamed little red squirrel tasked by Ulf the Mistwalker to help The Master Detective. He only does anything if she feeds him an acorn.
** At the beginning of ''Moths to a Flame'', the Master Detective gets a RobotBuddy. Called a M.A.C. (Mechanical Automated Companion), it's a sort of robot scarab beetle with a shell that matches the [=MCF=] badge, that can fly to retrieve items for her. [[spoiler:It was built by The Archivist as part of his bait to trap the Master Detective. M.A.C. gets broken once she's trapped.]]
* OccultDetective: Ever since ''Ravenhearst'', the Master Detective's investigations have pitted her against ghosts, curses, and dangerous mystical artifacts. Cassandra also declares her intention to become one in the aftermath of ''Shadow Lake''.
* OffingTheOffspring: [[spoiler:Alister killed his daughter Lily with a curse and manipulated it so that Samuel and Derek would blame the Mistwalkers for her death, which plays into his plans for resurrection. And given that he's been around for centuries, who knows how many more descendants he may have killed to keep himself alive.]]
* OldNewBorrowedAndBlue: In ''Escape from Ravenhearst'', each music box the Master Detective has to wind up to reveal the wedding gazebo has a plaque reading respectively "Something Old", "Something New", "Something Borrowed" and "Something Blue".
* OminousPipeOrgan: At the end of ''Escape from Ravenhearst'', Charles Dalimar himself plays a sinister version of the series' main theme on a pipe organ [[spoiler:(which is powered by a machine sucking out ''life energy''))]]. He also owned another, bigger pipe organ as seen in ''Ravenhearst'' [[spoiler:and ''Fate's Carnival'']].
* OnceForYesTwiceForNo: At the end of ''Escape from Ravenhearst'' , Emma and the Somersets give you the code to shut down the central mechanism with their eye movements.
* OopNorth: The three main games in the Ravenhearst arc takes place in a fictional version of Blackpool, as well as the upcoming ''Spirits of Blackpool'' spin-off game. The timeline and use of Celtic mythology in ''Dire Grove'' also places it somewhere in northern England.
* OpenDoorOpening: Many games start out with the Master Detective unlocking a gateway, or approaching the door of a manor. Notable examples include the Ravenhearst gate in ''Return to Ravenhearst'', Fate's Carnival's entrance in ''Fate's Carnival'' and the Lawson's mansion in ''13th Skull''.
* OurBansheesAreLouder: The main antagonist in ''Dire Grove'' is referred as "The Banshee". She doesn't have a scream attack, but when you can freeze an good chunk of England solid while still being mystically bound in a cavern, do you ''really'' need one?
* OurMermaidsAreDifferent: Marlena the Mermaid, one of Fate's Carnival's carnies. Although she isn't a real one as implied in ''Fate's Carnival''.
** In ''Millionheir'', [[spoiler:the aquarium tour guide Marina Fobic is an actual mermaid. The Master Detective reveals her true form by soaking her with a bucket.]]
* OutOfTheInferno: At the end of ''Return to Ravenhearst'', Emma, Rose, Gwendolyn and Charlotte walk out the burning remains of Ravenhearst Manor. Although, them being ghosts might have helped.
* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish: When you find the missing keys for the crafted typewriter, [[spoiler:the password you have to enter is always "victor".]]
* {{Patricide}}: In ''Broken Hour'', [[spoiler:Harold Wallace]] gets iced by [[spoiler:his completely unhinged daugter Meredith]] because he did not follow the house rules, even if it arguably wasn't his fault. And we mean ''iced'' as literally as possible.
* PhonyPsychic: Madam Fleiss in ''Prime Suspect'' is dubbed a "Fraudulent Medium" in the case files.
* PirateBooty: The central plot point of ''13th Skull''.
* PixelHunt: Some of those items can be pretty teensy...
* PlotTumor: The Ravenhearst story arc could be considered this. It could have been perfectly fine as a one-time game and yet 9 subsequent games were more or less linked to it. It also gained more insanity and complexity with every entry.
* PointAndClickMap: Most of the games have one of these, though the full functionality of the trope doesn't kick in until the series goes to [=IHOG=] format in ''Return To Ravenhearst''. (And in ''Black Veil'', the map doesn't work until the Master Detective finds a replacement battery for it.)
* PollyWantsAMicrophone: ''13th Skull'' features Mr. Crickets, a talking parrot belonging to Charlotte Landry.
* PrematurelyMarkedGrave: In ''Escape From Ravenhearst'', the Master Detective finds a tombstone with her title on it, and a date-of-death that matches the real life date on which the scene is played.
* ProphecyTwist: [[spoiler:''Escape'' establishes that Madame Fate was '''right''' that one of her carnival workers would murder her; she was only mistaken in thinking it was one of the ''current'' crew, rather than the "Freak Boy" from generations earlier.]]
* PsychoElectricEel: Hidden within the depths of Huxley's Boarding House from ''Broken Hour'' is a laboratory with tanks hosting some electric "eels" (although they resemble lampreys far more than they resemble eels). [[spoiler:Sebastian's body is found floating in one of these tanks, having been either electrocuted by said eels, or drowned.]]
* PungeonMaster: Believe it or not, Madame Fate. Each and every reaction she has when witnessing the (invariably gruesome) fates of her carnival workers contains at least on pun, sometimes even more.
* PunnyName:
** In ''Huntsville'', there is a lunatic whose name is... [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Luna H. Tick]].
** Many characters in ''Prime Suspects'' have one, including:
*** Constance Noring, a narcoleptic
*** Annie Buddyhome, a housewife [[spoiler:and master thief]]
*** Crystal Ball, a fortune teller
*** Pierce Hart, a fake doctor...
** Basically every character from ''Millionheir'' have one: Sherry Blossom the gardener, Phil T. Rich the filthy-rich millionaire, Justine Time the clockmaker, and so on.
* RapidAging: In ''The Black Veil'', the town of Dreadmond falls to a mysterious illness that cause the townspeople to age from approximatively sixty years in a heartbeat. [[spoiler:It turns out this is the deed of the town "benefactor", Richard Galloway, who worships the Goddess of Death.]]
* Really700YearsOld: The Mistwalkers have the ability to request to have their lives extended by the Forest Spirit, so it's unknown how old the Mistwalkers whom the Master Detective meets really are. [[spoiler:Averted with their leader, Forest Light. He's really an adult Peter Crowford, so he's at least in his mid-20s. As a (banished) Mistwalker, Alister Dalimar has probably been around at least the 1700s or earlier, as Dire Grove was founded in 1712 and Charles lived around the 1800s. It's unknown how old Lily really was when she met and married Samuel.]]
** ''Unlocked'' establishes that [[spoiler:Alister was actually born in ''1547''. Even the Mistwalkers probably had no idea how old he really was when he joined them, and Lily was probably only another in a long list of offspring he'd killed to postpone his death while seeking permanent immortality.]]
* RedEyesTakeWarning: Tanatos, Alister's evil raven familiar, is recognizable at his red eyes resembling those of a snake. Encountering him usually mean that danger (i.e., the Dalimars) is lurking around.
* RedHerring:
** While ''Incident at Pendle Tower'' has us think for the entire main game that Doctor Corman is an evil mad scientist that actively plotted to cause the sorry state of the tower and Millicent are in at the present time, the bonus chapter reveals that the plot was not driven by some malevolent scheme: it happened due to ''sheer bad luck'': the doctor was genuinely trying to advence psychic science and was as horrified as Millicent when his experiment went wrong, even trying to stop it before it was too late and disappering in the process.
** The basic premise of ''A Crime in Reflection'' (a victorian MirrorMonster - that looks a lot like Gloria Codington - abducting people into a mirror dimension) just screams "''The Countess'' sequel" to many veteran Mystery Case Files players, and the game even acknowledges this numerous times. However, the Shade has no part in this plot, the villain being an entirely new character.
* RevenantZombie: A revenge-driven one spreads terror in the town of Avondel in ''The Revenant's Hunt''.
* {{Revenge}}: [[spoiler:Alister blames Madame Fate and the Master Detective for destroying Ravenhearst. He somehow also blames Madame Fate for not stopping Charles from falling for Emma.]]
** [[spoiler:Samuel Crowford and Bjorn both blame each other for the death of Samuel's wife Lily (a former Mistwalker) and attack each other when the tension got too much. The entire reason the curse of the Forest was brought down on Dire Grove was that Samuel's son Derek kidnapped the Mistwalkers' sacred fawn in revenge for Lily's death and Peter's disappearance.]]
* RevengeOfTheSequel: ''Return to Ravenhearst''. And then ''Escape from Ravenhearst''. And then ''Key to Ravenhearst''. And then ''Ravenhearst Unlocked''.
* RidiculouslyHumanRobots: The secret of [[spoiler:Auda Maton, the waitress from ''Millionheir'', is that she is a robot (her name gives that away from the very start, though)]].
* RoomFullOfCrazy: The convict's cell and train tunnel in ''Shadow Lake''. Bonus points for the scrawls on the wall being in an obscure Native American script.
* RubeGoldbergDevice: Website/TheOtherWiki compares the door puzzles in ''Ravenhearst'' to these. The complex puzzles in the other games may also qualify, as well.
* RustRemovingOil: Used liberally in the series: when an object is rusted, expect to restore its usefulness with some oil.
* SamusIsAGirl: The Master Detective you play as is revealed to be female at the end of ''Madame Fate''. [[spoiler:It makes the AccidentalMarriage scene in ''Escape from Ravenhearst'' very unsettling.]]
** Inverted as of ''Fate's Carnival''. You can collect bobbleheads of most of the characters from ''Ravenhearst'', ''Dire Grove'', ''13th Skull'', and ''Fate's Carnival'', including the Master Detective. The bobblehead's appearance and laugh are definitively masculine, but as of ''Sacred Grove'', you can play the detective as male or female.
** Switched back as of ''Key to Ravenhearst'' -- hardly surprising, since female protagonists are something of a house style for Eipix.
** The Archivist from ''Moths to Flame'' refers to the Master Detective as "he". Either he's even crazier than his actions in the game suggest, or the M.D.'s gender has flipped ''again''.
* SavageWolves: The plot of ''Sacred Grove'' is that supernatural wolves, as well as the ice, have been plaguing Dire Grove and a desperate group of hunters have asked The Master Detective for her help. In ''Dire Grove'', you must bribe a wolf with a microwave-thawed steak to get past it.
* ScaryScarecrows: There is an eerie scarecrow with a pulsating red light inside its eye socket at the entrance of Fate's Carnival. When the detective gives it a heart, it hisses at them and opens its mouth to reveal a mutoscope reel. The scarecrow is later burned when it is hit by lightning.
* SceneryGorn: Starting with the Ravenhearst arc, the abandoned settings of each game look increasingly unsettling. Elephant Games and Eipix Entertainment are well known for this in their own spooky games.
* SceneryPorn: But on the other hand, much of the abandoned settings and the zoomed-in scenes are so well made and colored that it looks beautiful with a sense enchanting and surreal. Even the fact that the emptiness of the settings can arguably make it a case of the BeautifulVoid.
* ScheduleFanatic: Huxley's Boarding House has ''very'' strict rules for its guests when it comes to daily events, with a strong emphasis on time. [[spoiler:This is a result of Meredith Huxley's insanity, which came with an obsession with rules, clocks and routine]]. You'd better be in your bed at 9:30, or else...
-->'''[[spoiler:Meredith, before stabbing Rachel]]''': No one breaks the rules!
* SealedEvilInACan: [[spoiler:Alister Dalimar is trapped inside the Ball of Fate. His attempt to escape is what brought the Master Detective back to the carnival and when she touched the artifact, she freed him. Madame Fate's ghost tasks her to re-capture him.]]
** The Banshee of ''Dire Grove'' is also this, although it's suggested that she [[CreateYourOwnVillain wasn't evil to begin with.]] Rather, the ancient people of the area thought that the only way to undo a particularly harsh winter was sacrificing an innocent young woman by locking her away in an icy tomb. The process drove the woman insane and turned her into a vengeful spirit determined to destroy the world as punishment.
* SeashellBra: Marlena the Mermaid, from ''Madame Fate'', wears one
* SecretDiary: The entire plot of ''Ravenhearst'' depends on you recovering missing diary entries.
* SelfFulfillingProphecy: ''Madame Fate'' is about trying to prevent her murder and she asks the Master Detective to help out. [[spoiler:She ends up dying ''because'' she asked The Master Detective for help. Unknowingly, The Master Detective was followed by the spirit of Charles Dalimar, who is not only angry at The Master Detective for freeing Emma, but also has a grudge against the members of Fate's Carnival for how he was treated when he was one of them, as shown in ''Escape From Ravenhearst''.]]
* SequelHook: The end of ''Return to Ravenhearst'', which [[RiddleForTheAges leaves a plot thread dangling]] in the form of [[spoiler:Victor's escape]].
** And the dangling thread is ''finally'' picked up in ''Rewind'', although given how that game involves [[spoiler:TimeTravel and wonky time-vortices]], it's ambiguous as to precisely ''how'' it ties off the loose end.
** The {{bonus material}} in the collector's edition of ''Escape From Ravenhearst'' provides The Master Detective with a 'souvenir' of the events in the form of two mysterious sketches of an unknown man. Their existence may suggest that the Ravenhearst arc has one more story to tell.
** By collecting all the morphing objects in the bonus gameplay of ''Shadow Lake'', The Master Detective [[spoiler:receives a ticket to Madame Fate's Carnival, meaning they still have work to do there...]]
** ''Fate's Carnival'' is revealed to be another story in the Ravenhearst arc, because [[spoiler:its BigBad is Alister Dalimar, Charles's father.]]
*** Fate herself drops some hints cryptic about the next game, and completing ''Carnival'' opens a bonus-content "Secret Room" revealing another sequel, this time to ''Dire Grove''.
** The end of ''Sacred Grove'''s bonus chapter hints that [[spoiler:the Master Detective's battle with Alister is not over, as Tanatos has escaped and is clutching Alister's medallion in his beak.]]
* SevenDeadlySins: One of the puzzles in ''Fate's Carnival'' is themed after this.
* SharedUniverse: It hasn't been mentioned in these games, but the MCF games actually take place in the same universe as several of the game series made by Creator/ElephantGames (who were the developers for two of the MCF games). In the bonus chapter of Elephant's ''VideoGame/GrimTales: The White Lady'', it's revealed that Richard Gray, the father of series protagonist Anna Gray, once attended a school for dark magic run by Alister Dalimar.
* ShootTheShaggyDog: The whole point of ''Madame Fate'' is for you to prevent her murder at midnight, and find out who her would-be killer is. Although you find out who did it, TheReveal occurs only ''after'' she dies!
** [[spoiler:Also, the missing man you search for in ''13th Skull'' turns out to be a villain, whose equally-villainous family knew where he was all along. Finding him gets you threatened, then him and his family killed by a vengeful ghost.]]
* ShoutOut: It seems the designers are huge fans of Creator/RachaelRay, and include at least one reference to her in each game from ''Return to Ravenhearst'' onward.
* SigilSpam: In ''Huntsville'', the culprit in every crime has the same symbol--a black blob with a cartoon skull in the middle--somewhere nearby; two people have it tattooed directly on their bodies, others have it emblazoned on their clothes, and the rest have it on an object they use to commit their misdeeds (such as a laptop or a barrel). It turns out that this the skull and blob is the sigil for the crime organization S.T.A.I.N., and all of the villains in town work for it.
* SignificantAnagram: In ''13th Skull'', a key to discovering the truth about the old mansion lies in the fact that [[spoiler:the original owner's name, Ashwin Poncer, is an anagram of Phineas Crown, the pirate - they're the same person.]]
* SingleMindedTwins: Gwendolyn and Charlotte Somerset in ''Return to Ravenhearst'' and ''Escape from Ravenhearst''.
* SkeletonCrew: Captain Crown's crew.
** Jack Dancer, a notorious gambler.
** John Ward, a filthy drunkard.
** Enrique Brower, who never lost a duel.
** William Knave, the double-crosser.
** Roberto Confresi, the dandy one.
** Rachaeli Ray, the crew cook.
** Howell Davis, an astronomer.
** Bryce Carver, the enfeebled one.
** James Bowen, a wealthy veteran.
** Lawrence Prince, the minstrel.
** George Booth, the chronicler.
** Edward Shortshanks, a dwarf.
** Grace O'Malley, the nurse and the wife of Captain Crown.
* {{Sleepwalking}}: The narcoleptic Constance Noring, from ''Prime Suspects'', faced numerous arrests in the past because of her tendency to steal cars while sleepwalking.
* SlowMotionFall: Meredith Huxley gets one after getting blown out of the clock tower at the end of ''Broken Hour''.
** Also, Billy's fall from the bell tower in ''Shadow Lake''.
* SmallNameBigEgo: Jack Talon in ''Shadow Lake'' is an in-universe example.
* SnakeOilSalesman: Dr. Goodwell, Fate's Carnival's "Medicine Man" is explicitly called this. [[spoiler:Then karma comes into play and he gets killed by one of the snakes he uses to create his bogus nostrums.]]
* SnapBack: The ending of ''Ravenhearst'' shows a colorful and happy version of the manor after Emma's spirit is released. But in ''Return to Ravenhearst'', the mansion reverts back to its frightening, insalubrious self.
* SnarkKnight: An option in ''Dire Grove''. On the main menu, you can determine whether the Master Detective's inner monologuing will be Normal, Motivational, or Snarky.
** The options for ''13th Skull'' are Normal, Southern, and Snarky.
* SnowMeansDeath: Implied for ''Dire Grove'', where an ancient curse threatens to freeze the entire world.
** Played literally in the climax, [[spoiler:when you go to the world of the dead and discover that it is cold and icy, just like your world has been becoming lately]].
* SolveTheSoupCans: Many of the weirder puzzles in the later games.
* SoulJar: Both [[spoiler:Charles' device]] in ''Return to Ravenhearst'' and [[spoiler:Alister's black diary]] in ''Fate's Carnival''.
* SpeakInUnison: Rose's twin daughters.
* StockYuck: Played with in ''Return to Ravenhearst'', where a sign in Charlotte's and Gwendolyn's part of the underground prison states that they cannot get broccoli before they finish their cauliflower. Talk about a child-unfriendly diet.
* StoppedClock: When [[spoiler:Madame Fate dies at midnight]], the clock at the back of her trailer freezes.
* StringTheory: The coroner in ''Shadow Lake'' used this method to try to puzzle out the chain of deaths.
* StupidityIsTheOnlyOption: The Master Detective usually avoids this trope, but in ''13th Skull'', she runs into it headlong. [[spoiler:The librarian looks up the names on the fake [=IDs=] she found while exploring the swamp, and calls to tell her that the husband and wife she's supposed to be helping are really con artists and murderers. He urges her to get out of there before they kill her. Nope, she's off to the swamp to confront them... where she finds that they have a gun and she doesn't. Surprise.]]
** It gets dumber; [[spoiler:if you play through the whole DialogueTree for the "hermit in the swamp" (a.k.a. the disguised husband), he draws the gun when he tells you to leave him alone. There's ''no'' excuse for being held at gunpoint by the villains at that point.]]
* SuddenlyVoiced: The player has now been given the option to play the Master Detective with a male or female voice in ''Sacred Grove''. (She has been female up to this point.)
* SundialWaypoint: In ''Ravenhearst Unlocked'', repairing a stained-glass window causes a beam of sunlight to fall through it onto a flagstone in the floor, which conceals a needed item.
* SwissArmyTears: This trope is utilized in the following games:
** In ''Dire Grove, Sacred Grove'', the Mistwalker leader Forest Light needs two ingredients to create a potion that will enable him to track down [[spoiler:Derek]]: a flower from the Banshee's cave and the tears of the Forest Spirit.
** However, the tears are more or less metaphorical in ''Escape from Ravenhearst''. To solve one of the puzzles at the facsimile of the asylum, the Master Detective needs to create a mixture consisting of "blood, sweat, and tears". The (fake) liquids can be found at each location she's visited in the underground chamber thus far in the game: [[spoiler:blood at the hospital, sweat at the asylum, and tears at the facsimile of Charles's childhood home]].
** Again in the figurative sense in the bonus chapter of ''A Crime in Reflection''. Carol encounters a lizard decoration on a chest lodged in ice crystals and takes its jeweled eye. She then uses the eye's orangeish, oily "tears" as an ingredient for a fire potion to melt said ice crystals.
* TakeThatAudience: Try using an item at the wrong place in ''Return to Ravenhearst'' (or in either ''Dire Grove'' or ''13th Skull'' when Snarky Mode is activated) and you'll be greeted with sarcastic messages in the likes of "Perhaps it's time we hired another detective" or "Somewhere, a town is missing its idiot".
* TakeYourTime: At the end of ''Dire Grove'', [[spoiler:the possessed graduate students successfully free the imprisoned Banshee, who immediately begins her revenge plan of [[EvilIsDeathlyCold freezing the entire planet in a perpetual winter.]] The player can take as long as they want in defeating her, though--there'll never be any consequence for delaying the final puzzle.]]
* TearsFromAStone:
** At one point in ''Fate's Carnival'', the angel statue lighting the path to Madame Fate's trailer [[JumpScare suddenly starts shedding thick, black tears]].
---> '''Master Detective''': "Great, now the angel's crying. The angel ''statue'', that is."
** A ''precious'' stone, no less, in the bonus chapter of ''A Crime in Reflection''. When Carol retrieves a jewel resembling a lizard's eye, she uses the yellow-orange, oily substance it "cries" as an ingredient for a potion.
* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Downplayed. [[spoiler:After discovering Derek is the cause of the curse, Samuel and the hunters reluctantly team up with the Mistwalkers in hopes of talking Derek down from his plan. Samuel and the hunters still don't trust them, but the safety and future of the town is more important than their grudge. Once the truth about Peter and Derek comes to light, the Crowfords and Mistwalkers make peace.]]
* TickTockTerror: Several rooms in the gruesome Ravenhearst manor have deep, old-fashioned clock bongs as part of their ambient soundtrack, even if there is no clock seen in the room. Also used quite extensively in ''Broken Hour''.
* TimedMission: All of the levels, in the first four games. Fortunately, they usually take place between twenty and ''forty'' minutes, so you can still TakeYourTime.
** Averted in ''Return to Ravenhearst'', where a clock is running but only for high-score purposes.
** Also averted in ''Dire Grove'' and ''13th Skull'', though if you're playing the Collector's Editions, you can earn an achievement for finishing within a time limit (6 hours for ''Dire Grove'', 10 for ''13th Skull'').
* TimeTravel: Factors into ''Escape From Ravenhearst''. When [[spoiler:Victor escapes]] at the end of ''Return,'' he actually goes back in time and sets up just about everything that happens in ''Escape''.
* TinCanRobot: 1011001, one of the suspects from ''Prime Suspects'', is a jobless welding robot who was fired when its employer found out that humans require less electricity than robots, and who "knocks off convenience stores to support his 10w40 addiction".
* ToBeAMaster: This trope is the main goal of the very first game, ''Huntsville'', where the detective is a new recruit aiming as becoming a Master Detective.
* TooDumbToLive: Arguably, the graduate students in ''Dire Grove'', who persist in entering the closed-off titular community and breaking into the locked-up bed and breakfast (which has no electricity or heat) in order to solve their mystery. It's like they were begging for the plot to happen to them.
** Smack talkin' ghosts of prisoners in the maximum security wing? Yeah, real smart there, Jack Talon.
* TheTragicRose: Rose Somerset. [[spoiler:The poor woman was abducted with her daughters Gwendolyn and Charlotte by Charles Dalimar, kept in a gruesome hidden complex beneath Ravenhearst Manor while being separated from her daughters, and her soul powered Charles's immortality device for over a century. Even worse, ''Key to Ravenhearst'' reveals that she is the mother of Victor Dalimar, and that Charles also fathered the twins (quite possibly through ChildByRape). All three of her children sadly inherited the Dalimar madness and became some of the most murderous monsters the Master Detective ever faced.]]
* TreasureMap: A map of the surroundings of the Poncer mansion leading to the treasure of the legendary pirate Phineas Crown is at the center of the plot from ''13th Skull''.
* TrickedIntoSigning: At the very beginning of ''Black Crown'', the Master Detective is asked to sign some administrative papers by Dr. Nathaniel Norton in order to see one of his patients. [[spoiler:She really should have read it before signing, because Norton was one of Phineas Crown's minions, and the paper was in fact a contract that bound her to join the pirate's crew.]]
* TroubledAbuser: Charles Dalimar, through and through.
* TVHeadRobot: TV Head ''Mannequins'' are something of a staple element of games involving Alister or his assorted evil descendants.
* UnexpectedGameplayChange: After you're done looking for stuff, you'll have to solve a puzzle that usually has nothing to do with looking for objects! These started out as simple tile-switching jigsaws, but became weirder and more abstract with each successive game... much like this series as a whole, come to think of it...
* TheUnfettered: Alister Dalimar, ''full stop''. The man devoted his entire life solely into the search for immortality. He spent more than five hundred years seeking it, and nigh everything he ever did was driven by this goal. His quest led him among others to search for an AncientArtifact on the entire globe, conduct some a wide number of gruesome experiments, brainwash and even kill many innocents, sink his own hometown into the sea, and kill his very own offspring (at the ''very least'' his daughter Lily and his granddaughter Gwendolyn) - it was even hinted that he had children solely to use them as pawns in his plans in the first place.
* UnfinishedBusiness: The ghosts of Charles's victims have a form of this; they're trapped in the house until the Master Detective steps in to make things right.
** Charles himself has this throughout the series, since the end of ''Escape From Ravenhearst'' explicitly states that he will never stop hunting the Master Detective.
*** It also reveals that [[spoiler:Charles's unexpected appearance in ''Madame Fate'']] was also this trope.
** After the events of ''Fate's Carnival'' and ''Sacred Grove'', Alister has taken over the vendetta against the Master Detective.
* UptownGirl: [[spoiler:Frances Boyle]] in ''The Revenant's Hunt'' was a very wealthy heiress who fell in love with [[spoiler:Avondel's resident reject Alvin Croaker]]. Things did not end well.
* UsingYouAllAlong: [[spoiler:The Lawson family (real name Blanstons) made up the entire story about the father disappearing in the swamps. They only wanted the Detective to find The PirateBooty before getting rid of her and fleeing.]]
* VanityLicensePlate: The Master Detective's car has one in ''Escape''.
* VillainProtagonist: The player uses Alister in Ravenhearst Unlocked's bonus mode, where their final objective is to capture and incapacitate the original Master Detective
* VillainousRescue: In ''13th Skull'', [[spoiler:when Captain Crown kills off the entire family of villains, he inadvertently saves the Master Detective - who was about to be murdered by them - in the process.]]
* VillainTeamUp: At the end of ''Ravenhearst Unlocked'', [[spoiler:Alister and Baron Ravenhearst]] agree that while they hate each other, they hate the Master Detective [[spoiler:(both of them)]] more.
* VirginSacrifice: Part of the {{backstory}} of ''Dire Grove''.
* TheVoice: The Queen, at the end of ''Madame Fate'', via telephone.
* TheVoiceless: While the Master Detective ''does'' speak, she isn't given a voice actor until ''Sacred Grove''.
* WashMeGraffiti: In ''Prime Suspects'', the words "Wash Me" are written in the dirt in the upper-right corner of Millie the Milliner's front window.
* WeAreExperiencingTechnicalDifficulties: Early in ''Shadow Lake'', a news report is interrupted when a screaming, hollow face [[JumpScare suddenly appears]] on the screen. We briefly see a technical difficulties sign right after it.
* WealthsInAName: Phil T. Rich from ''Millionheir'' is, well, filthy rich.
* WealthyPhilanthropist: Phil T. Rich, from ''Millionheir'', is one. Doubles as an UnclePennybags.
* WelcomeToCorneria: Try to talk to any of the [=NPCs=] in ''13th Skull'' when they don't have the yellow exclamation point above their heads, and this is the sort of result you can expect.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: [[spoiler:Derek Crowford kidnapped the Mistwalkers' sacred fawn in order to force them to return his brother, Peter. In a case of miscommunication, his ransom message was lost and the Mistwalkers and the Forest Spirit had attacked the town.]]
* WhackAMonster: The Whack-a-Troll mini-game in ''Return to Ravenhearst'' is one, and it apparently drove the Master Detective completely nuts. It is mentioned again in ''Escape from Ravenhearst'' and ''Key to Ravenhearst''.
* WhamLine: In ''Madame Fate'':
-->'''Madame Fate:''' ''(to The Master Detective)'' I was wrong! [[spoiler:It wasn't them [the carnies]! It was you! This is all YOUR FAULT!!]]
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The missing Blackpool folks in ''Escape From Ravenhearst'' are seen [[spoiler:tethered to the final house]], but you don't actually see if they got loose after [[spoiler:it blows up and you meet the ex-ghosts in the garden]].
** If you open your casebook after that scene, [[spoiler:they all died.]]
** In ''Ravenhearst Unlocked'', the Master Detective locks [[spoiler:Charlotte]] in the Asylum's storage room. She's well and alive, and responds to the Master Detective's taunts after Tanatos's departure; but she isn't mentioned at the end of the storyline, even with [[spoiler:her sister's death]].
* WhenTheClockStrikesTwelve: ...Madame Fate will die in the eponymous game. Used verbatim at the reveal of Twyla the Contortionist's fate as well.
-->"Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, Twyla. When the clock strikes twelve, you'll be fit to be tied!"
* WhereItAllBegan: The Master Detective returns not once, but twice, to Ravenhearst Manor. And even after it burns to the ground, she comes back ''again'' to the site when it's been reconstructed as a morbid museum.
* WhisperingGhosts: In ''Ravenhearst'' and ''Return to Ravenhearst'', the ghosts of the people imprisoned in the manor are sometimes heard whispering at the Master Detective, either pleading for help or warning her that the place is ludicrously dangerous.
* WhoMurderedTheAsshole: ''Madame Fate'' is all about preventing this trope from occurring. The titular character claims to be an innocent victim of an impending doom...which she blames on her staff, who she outright declares "miserable lackeys." Investigating each suspect reveals that Madame Fate is a BadBoss who mistreats the carnies. Some of them [[LaserGuidedKarma have their deaths coming]], but others seem genuinely innocent or have simple desires, like Bianca the Daredevil, who has been suffering migraines and wants to stop performing some of her stunts to heal (she's perfectly willing to do safer ones), or Tabitha the Lion Tamer, whose favorite lion was poisoned ''by Madame Fate herself'' just because she didn't like cats. As such, it's hard to feel much sympathy for the good Madame considering what a {{Jerkass}} she is to anyone who mildly annoys her, [[spoiler:even when she does die at the hands of Charles Dalimar at the end of the game.]]
* WhoWantsToLiveForever: While they did some really gruesome things to maintain their eternal life, [[spoiler:both Meredith Huxley and her father Harold hate it. Harold outright states that it is a curse, while Meredith has been driven completely insane by this life she did not want in the first place. She sees it as a string of "broken hours", where she is continuously forced to remember that she is alive while her beloved children are dead.]]
* WhodunnitToMe: The whole plot of ''Madame Fate'': the fortune teller foresees her own death and asks the Master Detective to find the murderer before it is too late.
* WindmillScenery: An ominous old windmill lies near Elmore's farm in ''The Malgrave Incident''. It has been modified to be the main source of electricity on the island.
* WitchDoctor: Momma Aimee in ''13th Skull.''
* WrongGenreSavvy: At the end of ''13th Skull'', [[spoiler:the young girl]] says mockingly, "Stupid detective, there's no such thing as ghosts." ...right before being killed by a ghost.
* YouCantFightFate: Madame Fate calls in the Master Detective to prevent her murder. It turns out [[spoiler:the killer is at Fate's Carnival ''because'' the Master Detective is there and because Madame Fate requested the Master Detective in the first place. Talk about irony]].
** Shouldn't that be [[{{Pun}} You Can't Save Fate]]?
* YouCantThwartStageOne: In ''Dire Grove'', Allison is still free from the Banshee's possession at the beginning of the game, and can be heard desperately begging for help on a radio the Master Detective finds. But no matter how quickly the player works, Allison ''has'' to end up frozen and possessed by the time they find her.
* YouLookLikeYouveSeenAGhost: Invoked verbatim at the end of ''13th Skull''.
* YouWontFeelAThing: At the end of ''Broken Hour'', when Meredith tries to stab the Master Detective:
-->'''Meredith''': "Stop! Death brings no pain. Come with me!"
* YourHeadASplode: Downplayed in both ''Dire Grove'' and ''Escape from Ravenhearst'' where the bursting heads are animatronic ones.
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