Jake Hunter

The first game of the series, Shinjuku Chūō Kōen Satsujin Jiken (新宿中央公園殺人事件, Shinjuku Central Park Murder Mystery), was released in 1987 by Data East for the Family Computer Disk System, featuring advanced graphics, sound effects, and distinct hardboiled scenarios to set itself apart from other contemporaneous adventure games. The series employed a number of advanced game mechanics, developing techniques which would later find popularity in the industry at large. Time played an important role in the games, with each command selected by the player causing a certain amount of in-game time to elapse; failure to solve the mystery during the allotted time period resulting in a bad ending. This time system would feature in all four of the original games, and would later be revived in the series' 7th installment. The fourth game would also introduce the ability to switch between independent playable characters at will, allowing for more diverse and idiosyncratic methods of play. The scenario for the series' 3rd and 4th installments was written by a fledgling Kazushige Nojima.

Production was halted after the 4th installment, but would be revived internally when Data East took on series fan Tatsuya Saito. Saito would become scenario writer for the 5th game in the series, directed by Eiichi Nishiyama, who would become series producer from the next installment, and released on the PlayStation and Sega Saturn in 1996. This fifth entry would see several developments on the original games made possible by the use of the CD-ROM: an overhaul of the series' graphics and sound, including an opening movie featuring an animated prelude, voice acting for the first time, 3D-rendered mini games, and the inaugural installment of a sub-series known in Japan as the Mystery Casebook games (Jake Hunter Unleashed in English releases), featuring super-deformed caricatures of the main trio encountering small-scale mysteries involving extra challenging gameplay, which would be included alongside mainline games.

Most of these features (barring the use of polygonal gameplay) would become standard for the series, with the 6th installment, written by Hirotaka Inaba, replacing the previous game's stylised character design with a painted realist style produced by original character designer Katsuya Terada, and adding a new "password" mechanic, involving hidden codes in the main game which could be used to unlock bonus content. Both this game and the next, released exclusively for PlayStation with the newly christened series subtitle "Detective Adventure Game", would feature opening movies directed by Shimako Satō.

In 1999, a financially troubled Data East licensed out the series to WorkJam, to which Nishiyama's "Team Jingūji" would transfer when Data East went bankrupt in 2003. With previous scenario writers unavailable, writing duties for the series' eighth installment, developed for PlayStation 2 in 2002, fell to WorkJam founder Yutaka Kaminaga. The series continued with a further game for the PS2 and reimaginings of the Famicom games released as mobile phone applications. The transition between studios marked a shift in game design: storytelling became more linear and perspective shifts scripted, setting the formula for later games in the series. The final game of the generation, co-developed by Marvelous Interactive for the Game Boy Advance, marked the series debut on handheld platforms.

Beginning with a special 20th anniversary release for the Nintendo DS, WorkJam would work with Arc System Works in development of console games, now released exclusively on handheld platforms in the form of the Tantei Jingūji Saburō Detective Story line and an additional PlayStation Portable release. WorkJam licensed a series of PlayStation Game Archives releases of the original Data East games to Expris, and continued their mobile game line, featuring contributions from writers such as Kazutaka Kodaka, to a total of twenty-four releases before it was retired.

In 2011, WorkJam began to wind down production, with full responsibilities for the ongoing development of a special 25th-anniversary game for the Nintendo 3DS falling to Arc System Works. Several WorkJam staff, including Nishiyama and planner/scenario writer Mitsue Kaneko, would form a new studio, Orange, while rights to various company properties including the Tantei Jingūji Saburō series passed to Expris. For the next five years the series would remain largely dormant, aside from Game Archives rereleases of WorkJam's two PS2 games from Expris, and a cameo by the title character in Inuwashi Urabure Tantei to Ojou-sama Keiji no Ikebukuro Jiken Fairu, a mobile game developed by Orange and scored by longtime series composer Seiichi Hamada.

In 2017, Arc System Works announced that plans for a 30th-anniversary revival had led to its obtaining of exclusive rights to Expris' WorkJam-inherited properties at the end of the previous year. Since then, the company has worked with Orange and Neilo to publish several titles for handheld and home consoles, while exploring new avenues for PC delivery and reviving the mobile line for smart devices.

Voice acting was first used in certain game scenes in the 5th installment, and has been implemented in most subsequent releases, excluding those released for mobile, GBA and DS. Jingūji has been voiced by Yukimasa Kishino, Akio Ōtsuka, Jūrōta Kosugi, and Kaoru Katō; Yōko by Tsumugi Ōsawa, Yōko Saitō, Fumiko Orikasa, Kazue Nakamoto, Seiko Yoshida, and Mamiko Noto; and Sanzō by Fumihiko Tachiki, Kōji Ishii, Masaaki Tsukada, and Naomi Otome. Current cast are in bold.

The mobile games began development under WorkJam for flip phones in 2003. The first four games were remakes of the original Famicom games, featuring (often significant) reworking of their stories. Following Arc System Works' acquisition of the series in 2017, the original games were collected in a smartphone app, and the line relaunched with a new series beginning in 2019.

The series has been accompanied by a plethora of tie-in books, the first of which, a choose-your-own-adventure style gamebook for young adults, was released in 1988. After the series revival at Data East, Tatsuya Saito would pen a prequel novel documenting the first meeting between Jingūji and Kumano. A further novel would be published in 2000, followed by a novelisation of the eighth game. Another prequel, telling a story set during Jingūji's schooldays, was published by Dengeki Bunko in 2004, followed by a brief sequence of releases at Sesame Books, ending in 2007.

Manga adaptations of the third and sixth games were previously made available online, and several game guides were published prior to the series' shift toward handheld platforms.

Several soundtrack CDs have also been released, featuring a range of music from across the series composed by series stalwart Seiichi Hamada and others. A Drama CD featuring three short vignettes was included with early copies of the sixth game.

The first four games in the series were released on the Wii's Virtual Console exclusively in Japan.