- An Investigation of Our Own: Your Opinion on Inspector Schmidt - 27 May 2025
"The Ebbing" is the recently released second installment in the "Inspector Schmidt" series. In this short survey, we’d like to ask you about your experience with one or both of the games ("The Ebbing" and/or "A Bavarian Tale") and hear your thoughts on various aspects. It won’t take long – and you have our sincere thanks for taking the time! Take our survey!
- ⚓ Now, let's get real - have you played The Ebbing yet? ⚓ - 14 April 2025
The last few months here in the studio have been pretty awesome. Not only have we released an incredibly ambitious game, but we've also been working on three other amazing projects. The fact that Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing is finally being played by you and is constantly improving thanks to your constructive feedback is still an incredible feeling a week later. We are being funded by the FFF! What's also incredible is that the FilmFernsehFonds Bayern is supporting us with production funding for the development of our next but one game! This means that the existence of our studio is secured beyond 2025. In the current highly uncertain times in the games industry, this is an absolute blessing and motivates us immensely to continue to give our best. Many thanks to the FFF, but also to our players and community. Your support shows the industry that we are worth supporting because you lo…
- Set sail: Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing is released on Steam! - 7 April 2025
The big day has finally arrived: Our second game sees the light of day and is available NOW on Steam. We are incredibly proud, excited to see how you like it - and very, very tired. :D Nevertheless, our release party with the whole team is about to start on Discord! From 17:30 (UTC+1) we will celebrate ourselves, play a part of the game and then join a few streamers who will stream Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing live on Twitch. We would love to have you join us! This way to the release party! Of course, we'd be even happier if you gave the game a go yourself and left us a review on Steam. Our bug channels on Discord and Steam are also open and await your reports. As always, we try to fix bugs as quickly as possible and are very grateful for your feedback. But for now: Cast off, off to Havstedt! Best regards from the Active Fungus Team
- We're celebrating the release of The Ebbing - Are you joining us? - 4 April 2025
In just three days we will finally be releasing Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing. This needs to be celebrated! We cordially invite you and your friends to our release party on Discord! When: 07.04.2025, 17:30 (UTC+1) Where: On our Discord-Server in the Ebbing-Events channel What: We'll play The Ebbing ourselves before we drop in on other streamers on Twitch and play a round of stream bingo (we'll explain what that is ;)). We would be very happy if you join us! This way to the release party By the way, if you haven't wishlisted the game yet, now is the perfect time. The Steam algorithm pushes games that have a lot going on on the Steam page in the week before release. Feel free to tell your friends about us - we appreciate any support! Best regards from the Active Fungus team
- 📣 World Premiere - Steinwallen plays Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing tonight! - 3 April 2025
We're super excited to have Steinwallen, a fantastic history streamer, for an exclusive stream. Tonight he will be the first to play the full version of Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing. We will of course be in the chat and are already very excited! When: 03.04.2025, 20:30 CET Where: https://www.twitch.tv/steinwallen ⚓ Are you going to be there to watch? ⚓
- Dev Talk: Character face and body animations in The Ebbing - 2 April 2025
In today's video, Elli and Julia talk about how we animate our characters in Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing. Which programs do we work with? Why do we need to be careful not to get lost in detail? Why is efficiency the most important skill as an indie dev? Have fun watching! By the way, if you haven't wishlisted the game yet, now is the perfect time. The Steam algorithm pushes games that have a lot going on on the Steam page in the week before release. Also: Have you heard about our release party on Discord yet? We'd love to celebrate our second game together with you! When: 07.04.2025, 17:30 (UTC+1) Where: On our Discord-Server in the Ebbing-Events channel What: We'll play The Ebbing ourselves before we drop in on other streamers on Twitch and play a round of stream bingo (we'll explain what that is ;)). We would be very happy if you join us! This way to the release party Best regards…
- What type of gamer are you? - 31 March 2025
We know that there are many different types of gamer. Some people need lots of action and adrenaline, some want to really rack their brains to solve a quest, some just want to enjoy themselves and indulge in the story. Of course, there is no game that really satisfies everyone. That's not our aim either. It's clear that we cater for players who enjoy story, excitement and puzzles. Nevertheless, for The Ebbing we thought it would be nice to give our players a few options to customise their gaming experience. Different game modes for all types In story mode, the quest log gives you plenty of clues as to what you need to do next to solve the case. It is ideal for people who simply want to immerse themselves in the story and solve exciting puzzles. Detective mode gives you fewer clues in the quest log and you are responsible for writing down your findings yourself and not losing track. Who…
- Finally a game for people with everyday lives! - 28 March 2025
Are the days of barricading yourself in your teenage room for weeks on end, playing your favourite new game, gone forever? Have unnecessary distractions such as work, friends, family or sport crept into your everyday life in recent years and increasingly outstripped gaming? How annoying. It happened to us, too. We often just don't have the time to really immerse ourselves in the big, epic stories of the big game studios. How nice it would be if there were compact RPGs with a gripping plot and gameplay that wasn't overly complex ... hang on, is that what The Ebbing is? Well, yes! Yes it is :) Developed by people with the same problems as you, Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing can easily be split over several evenings. Our quests are structured so that our Inspector Schmidt questions one suspicious person after another in order to solve the case. Always the same drill ... Where are nuances?…
- How our characters and 2D illustrations are made - 25 March 2025
Only two weeks until the release of Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing! As a little sneak peek, we want to give you a few insights into our working methods - and talk about what has changed compared to A Bavarian Tale. In today's video, our communications person Julia spoke to character and 2D artist Hanna about the creation processes of our NPCs and the Choose Your Own Adventure parts in The Ebbing: What do our creation processes look like? How and where do we research in order to portray people historically accurately? How do we translate the 3D character models into a coherent 2D version? What have we learnt and done differently for The Ebbing? Who is Hanna's favourite NPC? Have fun watching! We look forward to your comments and follow-up questions, either on YouTube, here on Steam or on our Community Discord.
- What's new in the game play of Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing? - 19 March 2025
Only a few more weeks until Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing is released! We're looking forward to it - are you? We've taken a lot from the feedback on our Ebbing demos and of course A Bavarian Tale. It's really amazing how much you get into a tunnel yourself and no longer perceive things neutrally. That's why your feedback, which reaches us either via Discord or here on Steam, is incredibly important to us! As a result, we've reworked some aspects of the gameplay, added new mechanics, but also let things go. And of course, some things have stayed the same. At least 5 different endings In The Ebbing, your decisions also influence the outcome of the game. Depending on who you make friends with in Havstedt, you will gain information that will help you solve the case. Even more detective work With the revised Detective Sweep, you can make sure that you haven't overlooked anything in a room.…
- Now available: Free prologue to Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing! - 11 March 2025
Hello everyone, Our old demo was gone for a moment - and now it's back: From today it's called “The Ebbing - Prologue” and is available again as a free, polished mini-game with three hours of playtime! Wanna give it a go? This way, please! What has changed? The game now has exactly the name that best describes it: The plot is actually the prologue to the events that take place in the main game in tranquil Havstedt. From the moment Valentin leaves the ship, the story continues in The Ebbing. This means you can get in the mood for our release on April 7th by playing the prologue! You can also leave us reviews for the prologue now. We'd love to hear your feedback so that we can take it into account when developing the main game. What's the storyline of the prologue? Accompany Valentin on his well-deserved vacation from the Bavarian civil service to the North Sea. Right at the beginning, th…
- Tonight: We stream the demo of Inspector Schmidt – The Ebbing! - 27 February 2025
Our demo is now two weeks old - now the developers are playing in the livestream themselves. We'd love you to join us! Bring snacks, a thirst for puzzles and all your questions. When: 27.02.2024, 6:30 pm Where: On our Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing store page and on Discord This way to the official watch party on Discord. We look forward to seeing you there! The Active Fungus Team
- We're part of Next Fest with Inspector Schmidt – The Ebbing! - 21 February 2025
Hello everyone! Our demo has now been out for a week and has been played by several streamers! We’d like to say thank you – your support helps Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing reach more people. We joined several streams live in the chat and had a great time with the communities, especially when unexpected bugs led to some hilarious moments. Here’s a list of all the Twitch streams that have played The Ebbing so far. In the meantime, we’ve fixed a lot of bugs that were reported to us via Steam, Discord, and the Twitch community. If you’ve been waiting for a smoother gameplay experience, next week is a great time to check out the Ebbing demo. From February 24th to March 3rd, Steam Next Fest is happening – and we’re part of it! Why is this important? During Next Fest, Steam showcases demos of unreleased games to a large audience. The more people support us during this time by adding us to th…
- Land in sight: We'll release Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing on 07.04.2025! - 13 February 2025
Moin! Some things always remain exciting as an indie studio: We're finally announcing the release date for Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing AND publishing a completely new demo today! With two hours of playtime you can play the first quest of the main game and get to know (almost) all gameplay mechanics - and of course the story. We would be very happy if you played it and left us a review. We can fix and improve everything you report until the release on April 7, 2025. Thank you! Tonight, Flom and Corviskiddo will be playing the demo on Twitch. We will watch the streams together on our Discord server from around 18:00 CET and mingle in the stream chat - you are very welcome to join us! What's new in The Ebbing? In the tradition of other detective games, you will now find exciting number, picture, search and combination puzzles to crack in The Ebbing. The first puzzles can already be play…
- Get the character handbook ‘The Residents of Havstedt’! - 2 January 2025
Moin moin, you landlubbers! Happy New Year - off to a good start, because we've landed a shipload of presents for you! If you sign up for our regular bottle mail at this link, you'll receive three treasures from Havstedt: Free character handbook - With space for all your secret notes! So you can keep track of even the craziest Havstedt intrigues. Historical facts - We take you into the exciting world of the 19th century and give you historical context to the fates of our NPCs. Extremely accurate personality test - Find out which of the three NPC archetypes you correspond to. Are you an overly-correct general, a completely over-educated scholar or a clueless juggler? ... what are you waiting for, sailors? Subscribe, but quickly! Your Active Fungus crew
- Oh, look: We updated our key art! - 18 December 2024
Mei, so nice! To make sure the sun is still shining somewhere in Bavaria in the gloomy December fog, we're releasing a new, summery key artwork just in time for Christmas. Hopefully, a look at your Steam library will warm your heart over the holidays! We wish you happy holidays and a great start to the new year! The Active Fungus team P.S.: By the way: On 02 January 2025 there will be an update at The Ebbing that might interest you ... wishlist as a precaution so that you don't miss anything!
- Beta testers wanted for Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing! - 22 November 2024
Hello, dear hardcore detective gamers! We are nearly finished with the story and with most of the gameplay mechanics - and now we’re looking for people who would like to test it all. Meticulously. We are especially interested in testers who have played a lot of detective games. You know the genre well, you know what excites and frustrates you and you have an opinion on games and always wanted to share it with people making them? Then you're hired! If you want to help, we’d love you to sign up for the Beta: https://activefungus-studios.de/afs-beta-sign-up/
- Feature Request: What would you like to see in Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing? - 23 October 2024
Hello, dear community! Today, we are reaching out to you because we need your support. We are slowly entering the final phase of development for ⚓ Inspector Schmidt - The Ebbing⚓. To ensure we deliver a game that you'll be truly excited to play, we’d love to know from you: In which detective games did you feel particularly engaged? What contributed to that feeling? Are there any game mechanics or features that frustrated you in other detective games? How would you improve them? What do you feel is currently missing in the demo? Was there anything you missed in A Bavarian Tale? Are there features from other games that you would like to see in ours? Are there any games that come to mind when you think of an Inspector Schmidt game? What are the similarities or differences? We would greatly appreciate your input – your feedback could influence our game development over the next few months.…
- Inspector Schmidt - A Bavarian Tale wins "Best Story" Award at GDD 2024 - 14 August 2024
This is now an award winning game! We won the GDD award 2024 for "best story"! A heartfelt thank you to everyone who was involved in making Inspector Schmidt - A Bavarian Tale. That is a lot of people: We started as a group of friends who didn't know the first thing about writing a game, learning the ropes by just doing it. The fact that our very first story driven game now has won an award for - THE STORY - is absolutely insane and unbelievable! Now, in 2024, we are a team of 20 people working on four different projects. Seems like we now know a bit better what we're doing, but none of this would have been possible without the effort of the bunch of crazy people who poured their (mostly unpaid) energy into the first game. This award belongs to you! Who's gonna celebrate with us at Gamescom? Find us at Home of Indies E010 - D011 - Hall 10.2! This time, we present the sequel of A Bavaria…
- Inspector Schmidt on Summer Sale - 9 July 2024
