INTERN PERMIT No. 295

Test puzzles only.
Real artifacts: NOT YET.

ON PROBATION

Barely a Detective: Congratulations, you're hired. Sort of.

A seated VR puzzle game you play with your bare hands. You're the new intern at an agency that guards history's most precious finds, and nobody trusts you with anything older than your coffee. Crack the puzzle boxes on your desk until you earn the right to hold the real thing.

Wishlist on Meta Quest Join the Discord

Early Access planned for December 2026

Your Job

You sit at a desk in a rainy office made of wood and brass. Everything is within arm's reach, and everything is done by hand.

  1. Call a case

    Type a case number on the brass keypad that slides out of your desk. The archive hatch opens and a conveyor belt brings you the box.

    "There they are. Ten fingers. Please keep all of them."

  2. Solve it

    Press, tap and grab until it gives in. Its drawer opens with a note, and on the note is the number of your next case.

    "Practice boxes only, so if you break one, nobody cries. Except me."

  3. Order your own keys

    Hold the magnifying glass over a keyhole to reveal its hidden marks, look them up on the chart, and order the key from the Lockworks downstairs. It arrives in a brass capsule through the pipes. A wrong key rattles in the lock and gets spat back out.

    "The mechanical department would like to know what you're doing with all those keys."

  4. Ask for help

    The hint station has a task and tiered hints for every case. The narrator has opinions about how many you use.

    "It's a hint station, not a slot machine."

Your Case Load

The first boxes are practice. After that the puzzles are built around real finds from Bulgaria, from the Thracians to medieval Preslav to the Varna gold.

TEST

The Trial Boxes

Press-down plank grids with row and column clues, and a sliding-tile marble box. They teach your hands everything you need.

"Pass them all and you get the real artifacts."
REAL
HISTORY

St. Theodore

A 5×5 sliding-picture puzzle of the 10th-century ceramic icon from Preslav.

"Found in pieces, and now put back together by an intern."
REAL
HISTORY

The Goat Rhyton

Rebuild a gold rhyton from the Thracian Panagyurishte Treasure, piece by piece. Read the names carefully.

"That gold survived over two thousand years underground. Give it a few more minutes."
SEIZED

Three Unbeatable Games

A private collector kept the drawings for three games rumored to be unbeatable. Each one is played with a single row of brass keys.

  • Thief & Constable A turn-based chase. Get the thief out through the gate before the constable reaches him.
  • Tomb Run Program up to 12 moves, press RUN, and watch the archaeologist meet the spikes.
  • The Sleepwalker Turn the town's turntables in real time to steer him home, past canals and open manholes.
"The Lockworks built all three, and couldn't beat a single one."
NO SUCH
FILE

Grave 295

A grave at the Varna Necropolis that officially doesn't exist. Sixteen pieces of the oldest worked gold ever found and one wooden arm, because interns don't touch Varna gold.

"Grave 295? Where did you hear that number? ...Never mind. Back to work."

Evidence

  • First-person view at the desk: two wooden hands with their fingers spread, and the projector board behind them reading: First, your hands. No controllers? Good.
    Ten fingers. Please keep all of them.
  • Two puzzle boxes on the conveyor belt at the desk, with green banker's lamps and brass stamps around them.
    Your desk. Try to keep it that way.
  • The hint station's Task page for case 376, explaining the plank puzzle, beside the magnifying glass on green felt.
    The hint station. Not a slot machine.
  • The selector box with its key chart and three dials, behind the case keypad with Roman numerals, as a wooden hand presses a key.
    Any key in the building. Just say which one.
  • A wooden hand holds the magnifying glass with its purple lens over the desk, next to the service bell and the ticker tape reading: Museum counts its gold. Twice.
    Look closer. Then a bit closer.
  • The St. Theodore box on the conveyor belt: a scrambled sliding-tile picture of the icon, with the whole icon on the open lid.
    St. Theodore. Some assembly required.
  • Thief and Constable, a wooden board game with a striped thief and a blue constable on metal rods, controlled by a row of brass keys.
    Thief & Constable. Guess who you are.
  • The Grave 295 box: a carousel of gold pieces, a wooden arm and a clay face, on red felt.
    Grave 295. You saw nothing.

More evidence is on its way. The intern dropped it.

Terms of Employment

Position
Seated. Everything is within arm's reach.
Tools
Your bare hands. Controllers work too.
Headset
Meta Quest 2, 3, 3S and Pro
Staff
One intern. Single player.
Narration
Spoken in English, written in English, German, Spanish, French, Bulgarian, Polish and Japanese.
Breaks
Progress saves after every step, in one of three files.
Start date
Early Access planned for December 2026

"Controllers work too. I don't judge. Much."

Wishlist on Meta Quest Join the Discord For creators

Other Agency Files

Two more cases from the same studio, for when you want to leave the desk.

Oldest Golden Treasure key art: a detective in a long coat beside a glowing time portal.

Oldest Golden Treasure

A full detective, a missing colleague and the world's oldest gold.

Played with controllers.

Meta Quest Steam Website
Escape Room: Bank Robbery Gone Wrong key art: an open vault door with stacks of banknotes inside.

Escape Room: Bank Robbery Gone Wrong

The only customer left in a robbed bank. Find your way out.

Played with controllers.

Meta Quest Steam Website