Ambroise Niflette & the Gleaned Bell to chime in later this year

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Charming hand-crafted, stop-motion mystery in a miniatures-inspired French village coming to PC on Steam

Church bells are used for many reasons, whether to mark the hours, signify the start of services, commemorate the dead, or celebrate joyous occasions, among others. But what if a church bell goes missing? As unlikely as that sounds, being awfully hard to pilfer, this is exactly the conundrum we'll be facing in Ambroise Niflette & the Gleaned Bell, the upcoming cozy mystery adventure from indie French developer Topotes Studio.

The titular protagonist is the "cutest detective ever" (take one look and it's hard to argue the point), who is called to the small village of Touvoir for perhaps his strangest and most perplexing case yet: the theft of the church bell. Its loss has a profound effect on the town, bringing life there almost to a standstill, as without the bell it is "impossible for the villagers to celebrate their annual ... thyme and apple festival." Fortunately Ambroise is as smart as he is adorable, as he'll need all his wits about him in a place "where secrets and deception reign supreme." To identify the culprit and retrieve the purloined bell, players will need to make good use of their "trusty detective notebook" to investigate, exploring the town thoroughly to interrogate the locals, find discrepancies in  their testimonies and "take pictures of suspicious stuff." 

If that sounds like fairly standard mystery fare (albeit a rather surprising target for thieves), it's the incredibly cozy, delightful presentation where Ambroise Niflette & the Gleaned Bell really stands out. Inspired not only by quirky adventure game whodunits like Professor Layton, Ace Attorney and Paradise Killer, the developers were also heavily influenced by their love of "toys and/or clay figures" and stop-motion animation in films by the likes of Aardman and Laika, treating this game as a kind of homage to the classics in that style. The characters here are all toys, and the hand-crafted rural French village setting is inspired by miniatures, accompanied by music rooted in "traditional French musette," with each character’s shop or house having "its own musical atmosphere, reflecting their personality." 

There will be more than twenty characters to talk to in town, which means twenty potential suspects, each with their own distinct characteristics, as well as "friendships, lovers and enmities." Key to your progress is Ambroise's notebook, which serves as multi-use inventory for "every quote and every object or Polaroid you gathered," all of which you'll need to "navigate through dialogue options, organise your thoughts with stickers and notes, find inconsistencies in villagers' speeches and peculiar behaviors, and connect the dots." Along the way there will be puzzles to solve as well, both day and night as time progresses, as "some places and events are only available at certain times." The townsfolk won't give up their secrets easily, but outsmart them and "one of them is sure to give themselves away in the end."

After a successful Kickstarter campaign in summer 2025 that raised over €25,000, Ambroise Niflette & the Gleaned Bell is due to be launched on Steam sometime before the end of this year for Windows PC.