Set developed by SporyTike, guide written by benit149

Hello, and welcome to my short walkthrough for Meitantei Conan: Karakuri Jiin Satsujin Jiken, or Detective Conan: The Mechanical Temple Murder Case. It has a direct sequel, Meitantei Conan: Kigantou Hihou Densetsu, which I've also written a guide for if you would like to play that as well.

This is a visual novel where your primary protagonist is Conan Edogawa, the alternate identity of the renowned high school detective Shin’ichi Kudo who had been forced to take a drug that inadvertently shrunk him to a child. Despite this, he still manages to solve near-impossible crimes while keeping his identity secret from all except for a select few. During the game, you can swap to three other characters, each who have their own benefits and drawbacks as you progress through the story.

Ran Mouri: the main heroine of the Detective Conan franchise, she is Shin’ichi’s childhood friend who is completely oblivious to the fact that he and Conan are the same person. She isn’t used much except for a couple of specific instances. Ran’s biggest weakness is that she cannot think about Key Words (I’ll get to this shortly) due to her not being a detective

Kogoro Mouri: Ran’s father, and renowned as the great detective Sleeping Kogoro, but only because Conan puts him to sleep with a tranquilizer and solves the case by disguising his voice with a gadget in his bowtie. Otherwise, Kogoro tends to be inept at his job (unless he tries really hard). Due to his reputation, he is useful for a section where you need to interrogate a large number of suspects who will not take the younger characters seriously

Heiji Hattori: the Great Detective of the West hailing from Osaka (as opposed to Shin’ichi being the Great Detective of the East residing in Tokyo). He is more hotheaded, but no less a fantastic high school detective in his own right. He is aware that Conan is Shin’ichi and helps protect his identity while solving cases together. If you know how to play this game, then Heiji’s play time is nearly non-existent

To swap characters, you need to be Conan first. Go to where they’re standing and talk to them. A speech bubble with the word SWAP will show up, which you need to press the Select button. If you want to stop playing as them, you have to go back to being Conan. Ran, Kogoro and Heiji cannot swap between each other.

The other main mechanic this game has is the Key Words option in the menu. As you gather enough evidence, you will hear a chime. This means an entry has been added to the list of Key Words. In the translation, Ran calls this mechanic Considering. To make progress with the case, you need to analyze the Key Words as they come up. You can’t use Ran for this, so I always stuck with Conan for this job. Heiji can do this as well, but I never tried it with Kogoro.

The storyline itself isn’t too long, but since this is a visual novel, it can get a bit wordy. Luckily, you have an option in the menu to speed up the text to a faster speed and have it auto-advance itself so you don’t have to worry about mashing. Don’t use this option on your first playthrough. Just enjoy the story and learn what the route is to prepare for the speedrun I know how to solve a mystery achievement.

I’ll omit major story details and just explain the steps you need to do to make progress. Some of these triggers are a bit vague, so I’ll provide detailed explanations when needed. The story is told through specific time intervals across a two-day period. Some of the steps are inherently spoilery, so take heed of spoilers if you intend to use this guide.

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Walkthrough

Togawa House

• examine the sword in the entrance hallway, then speak to Miki
• examine the bookshelf in Satomi’s room, then speak to Miki again
• you will be presented with a choice of whether or not you understand the Key Word system. Ran will explain how it works if you choose “No”
• consider the words “Mark” and “Magazine”
• speak with Ran, then leave the house

Book Shop

• select “Magazines”
• select “Examine roof”
• select “Guide books”

Temple Grounds

• select “We got lost”
• follow the head priest through the hallway
• examine the hanging scroll in the upper right of the room
• leave your room and go through the left entrance, continuing to head left three screens until you come upon the temple’s main doors (it has two large red partitions on either side). Speak with Noriyuki, Tokiko, Shuuichi and Yuuji

Day 1, 7:20 PM

• leave your room and go to the upper right of the next screen. You’ll see a pair of earrings in the corner
• speak with Miki

Day 1, 11:30 PM

• go back to the same spot where you found the earrings and try to move left
• inside the secret passage, just keep moving forward until you hit a cutscene trigger

Day 2, 9:00 AM

• choose “Ran”, then “Miki”, then “Ai”
• select “Scissors”
• go into Rie and Tokiko’s room and examine the luggage
• head left toward the main building, but at the screen before the main entrance, go up onto the veranda and examine the spring trap
• from the main entrance, keep going down along the temple grounds until a cutscene between Rie and Tokiko occurs, then speak to Rie afterward
• enter the main entrance and examine the obvious hidden door entrance to the right of the statue

Day 2, 7:45 PM

• MURDER!
• examine the body, and you will have a bunch of options presented to you. Methodically go through every one available until you exhaust all of them

Day 2, 9:30 PM

• swap to Ran first, then have her speak to Tokiko to find out her alibi and motive. Tokiko will not talk with any of the other playable characters, so get this interrogation out of the way first
• now swap to Kogoro and talk to the remaining suspects (Rie, Noriyuki, Shuuichi, Yoshie, Haruo and the head priest) in the same manner. Miki is not a suspect since she was with Ai at the time, so don’t talk to her
• go back to being Conan and consider the key words “Alibi” and “Motive”
• speak to Kogoro

Day 2, 10:00 PM

This is where the bulk of the game’s investigation will occur. While you can find this evidence mostly in any order, the steps needed plus the locations of some of the clues can be a bit out of the way, so I suggest sticking to what I outline here.

• at the crime scene, examine the projector and the screen
• go to the next room on the right and examine the extension cord and the camera next to it, then speak to Shuuichi
• swap to Ran, then from the main entrance, go onto the temple grounds and head left to find the Kikimuras’ home. Go into the kitchen and examine the fan. I’m not sure why Ran is needed for this part, but the guides I’ve read say to use her. If this part can just be investigated with Conan, please let me know so I can drop this particular step. Otherwise, I’ll add a relevant step tied to this later on
• this clue is the trickiest one to find. Swap back to Conan, then return to the temple grounds, but don’t go into the Kikimura house. Instead, head up one screen (you’re on the right side of the house) to be behind the main building where Heiji is located, then immediately examine the veranda on the right. You should find a crossbow there. I’m not sure if you can only be Conan for this since he needs to crawl under the veranda, whereas the others would be too big for the job. If someone could confirm this for me, it’d be appreciated
• OPTIONAL: go inside the main building where the head priest is and examine the upper left window, which is the only one covered with a bamboo screen. It doesn’t provide a key word, but is a point of contention for the overall mystery, if you’re interested
• in the yard where Heiji is, there is a dead tree. It can be viewed from multiple angles, but only one has a relevant clue – examine the tree from the very upper left to find some odd scratches
• you’ve gathered a bunch of Key Words by now, so consider “Shadows”, “Camera”, “Extension”, “Crossbow”, “Wound”, “Lines” and “Scratches”. All of this will open up new avenues for you to explore
• from the dead tree, go right to the next screen with a well. If you don’t do the aforementioned steps, Noriyuki will prevent you from going further. With the steps done, talk to him and have him be knocked back by the spring trap you discovered earlier
• with Noriyuki out of the way, examine the well to find something inside it
• go back to the Kikimura house as Conan and examine the fan
• consider “Fan”
• remember the secret passage Conan found the previous night? Go back there, speak to the policeman guarding it to have him move, and head into the furthest room to retrieve the item in the well
• go back to the crime scene and speak with Inspector Megure

Reasoning

This is a series of 12 questions you are asked that will help lead you to the truth. They’re really designed to see if you’ve been paying attention to the story. Just choose the answers outlined here. You should get a better idea of who the killer is by this point.

1. Knife
2. With a crossbow
3. Kitchen
4. Lowered after
5. Extract fan
6. Be near the window
7. Someone moved it
8. An edited film
9. Two
10. Time of death
11. Door
12. Yuuji’s

Resolution

• watch the long cutscene of Sleeping Kogoro solving the case
• enter the hidden door to find Satomi
• go into the next door

With that, it’s case closed. Some more scenes will play after the credits, then you’ll receive a Sleuth Score. If you're going for the speedrun achievement, you need to wait for the credits to finish and see your score.

That should be everything you need to know to quickly master this game, especially if you’re someone doing Peak Streak. Apologies if some of the information isn’t 100% accurate. I essentially whipped this guide up without looking into everything, so any clarification about things I didn’t understand would be great. Nothing else to say except happy cheevo hunting!

• benit149, August 2025