This one’s been in early access for a while, but it’s finally hitting 1.0. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s a procedurally generated murder mystery immersive sim. A murder happens, you scan for evidence, track people by their address in the phone book, and make connections with red string yourself. When I played the demo a while back, someone came home while I was snooping in their apartment, so I escaped in a vent and ended up in the apartment on the floor below them. I waited for that resident to finish preparing their dinner and sit in front of the TV so I could leave through their front door and get out of there. This game is awesome.
This is the first game to truly solve the problem of “criminal investigation” as a game mechanic. There’s no detective vision, and the character doesn’t automatically spout off conclusions when you scan enough clues. When you find a fingerprint on the murder weapon, it’s just that; a fingerprint. It’s up to you to figure out how to connect that to a suspect. You have to actually think about what you’re doing, there’s no handholding. You can peruse security cameras footage, canvas for witnesses, follow leads that will dead end sometimes, stake out a person’s home or job, track down the sales records for a murder weapon, identify a suspect by their footprints… The array of tools at your disposal is incredible. And the murder board is just the best thing ever; you even get to scribble your own notes and make connections with different colours of string, and it’s not some game mechanic, it’s literally just a tool for you to assemble the evidence like a real detective would, so that you can figure out your next move.
I am going to bang on so many apartment doors until the old lady that lives inside doddles over to answer and when I hear the key rattling in that lock I will flying kick that door off the hinges, blasting her unconscious, so thar I can take everything out of her wallet and her safe.
What was that? Is she a suspect? …Suspect in what? Hey did you see my cool apartment? I can afford a new sofa now!
I was just thinking about how much I’d like to play the full release of this last week! good to hear I won’t have much longer to wait.
I found it a little too confusing. Hopefully the full release will be more noob friendly.
I had a fun time playing in early access, even with the bugs. I should check it out again when it hits 1.0. I recall generating a new location and immediately falling through the ground to my death and deciding i would wait a bit to play more.
