The Incident at Galley House to be (re)opened in 2026

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Creators of The Roottrees Are Dead co-producing updated reimagining of free text game Type Help 

What's that expression: If at first you succeed, do it again? Something like that, anyway, and it's certainly the guiding principle for Robin Ward. After successfully collaborating with Jeremy Johnston to update and launch a commercial version of The Roottrees Are Dead earlier this year, now the pair are back with their indie publishing label Evil Trout and looking to the same with a similarly enhanced reimagining of William Rous's Type Help. 

In March 1936, a group of people "made their way up the long, muddy track to Galley House," thought to be abandoned for decades. Instead of an empty building, however, what they discovered there was "the bloody aftermath of something horrific." Despite widespread press coverage drawing attention to the event, the police were never able to solve the grisly murders uncovered there, so eventually the evidence was removed and the case went cold. Until now. Many years later, you decide to tackle the unsolved mystery with help from a "peculiar machine – one that lets you listen in on echoes of the past."

Inspired by Return of the Obra Dinn, Her Story, Unheard and, yep, The Roottrees Are Dead, William Rous's Type Help is a purely text-driven mystery in which players input commands or click highlighted links to proceed. The goal is to "investigate the files on an old computer that once belonged to a mysterious outside agent." While still retaining the original storyline and "haunting game of deduction," the updated version will include a host of enhancements, including hand-drawn visual novel-styled graphics (Henning Ludvigsen returns from Roottrees as artist), full voice acting, an "eerie original soundtrack" and a completely redesigned interface. Better yet, there will be brand new "content, puzzles, and pathways to explore," as the new format allows Rous to try "certain things that [he] couldn't do with the original game." 

How it all comes together we'll need to wait until 2026 to find out when The Incident at Galley House is released on Steam for Windows, Mac and Linux. In the meantime, you can still see for yourself how it all started, as the original Type Next remains available to play in your browser on itch.io.