The Murder Mystery Machine

https://store.steampowered.com/app/930280/The_Murder_Mystery_Machine/

This looks like a cool idea. Procedural crimes, "thought cabinet" deduction board, you solve 'em. My interest was particularly piqued when I saw that the developer is Blazing Griffin, who originally published The Ship, a cool murder mystery type game that ultimately fell short for me due to its reliance on multiplayer. Then they became proper developers, remastered The Ship, and additionally developed a spiritual sequel, Murderous Pursuits, which (judging from reviews) improved the formula in some ways and declined in others. Intriguing as another "find your target, anticipate your hunter" type of thing, but again the multiplayer focus makes me less interested. But I find this whole type of game, where several possibilities exist and you must be perceptive and thoughtful to prevail, very stimulating.

This time around it's about single-player investigation and deduction. Hopefully without the millstone of multiplayer around their neck they can make a good detective game. I'd like to see what they've learned about what makes information gathering and deduction fun. Will be keeping an eye on this.

 

I always have wondered if procedural detective cases can be done. But then it has been done before twice, apparently.

 

I loved the idea of Murder on the Zinderneuf as a kid ... even by 1983 standards though the interface was awful and trying to play it was a chore. (It's also possible that I was too young and stupid to appreciate it, but anyway that's how I remember it.) Making this idea actually playable is an exciting prospect for me.

 

I finished Murder on the Zinderneuf atleast dozen times and, for me as a kid in general, there was no such thing as a bad interface, only a interface you need a bit more time to get used to.

In Zinderneuf randomness was the biggest plus but also the biggest flaw of that game since scenarios could go all over the place.

Like this one time a victim was murdered with a army knife and there is only one soldier among the crew (I think his name was Jack London) so you solve the crime in 5 seconds or in another game get a single vague clue that doesnt help you one bit.

Still I had so much fun playing that game, picking between multiple detectives and trying different approaches in solving the mysteries.

 

They make a bold claim in the following tweet, can you spot it?

 

Neat blog post detailing the inspirations for the game. Instead of a broad-based game with lots of different activities they decided to do fewer things and do them right. I like the direction they're taking this.

 

The first blog post detailing gameplay concepts. I really like the "workspace" concept. Hit the link if you want to see the video where the guy shows an example case being solved, it's worth seeing.

 

looks fucking great

 

thanks for sharing Zombra, will keep my eye out for this moving forward

 

This sounds interesting but it seems like the core aspect of the gameplay, or perhaps I should call it the core gimmick - the Story Construction - is something that players will just do in their head anyway. So if the only thing you have to do to solve a case is present your answers to the same three questions, then there's no need for this entire mechanic other than looking neat, but if the mechanic is integral to the very ability to present the answers, as this suggests: "The aim is to connect evidence you think is related to tell us your story about what happened and in doing so you will unlock the ability to make a final accusation", then the Story Construction will be annoying to everyone who can mentally connect clues in creative ways other than how the developers envisioned it (even worse considering it's procedurally generated).

The mission complete screen has counters for Key Discoveries: evidence, queries, and links, so what would normally be an organic thought process of figuring things out appears to have been completely externalized, which might lead to the game being more of a mechanical than cognitive exercise at best, and a mere guessing game at worst.

 

Did you play Crimes & Punishments? Was there no pleasure in revealing new clue elements and then combining them to "spawn" new conclusions? Personally I thought it was a blast. Personally I don't see how it would be possible to have a "clues and conclusions" type of game that all takes place "internally", unless the game just said, here's the crime scene, now figure it out and click on someone to accuse them. That doesn't seem very fun.

 

That's how the item/inventory aspect of the traditional point&click games functions, you're supposed to figure out which items are used for what and how, and how to combine them to get other items, and you get hints on how to do it from various sources: from talking to NPCs, looking at the visual part of the game, listening to the sounds, and so on. Now imagine a part of this being externalized, for example searching the scenery (the infamous pixel hunting) - through the ages it turned from something the player is supposed to do, and the game designers are supposed to pay attention to (so that the backgrounds have enough visual hints that something is supposed to be there), to something that the game engine just does by itself when you press the "reveal interactive points" key. What if every single aspect of a traditional point&click game was externalized and all its inner workings were exposed like that, is it still fun?

Sure, Crimes & Punishments had this element, but it also had a lot of object manipulation and other traditional adventure game elements. Maybe this is just something that should be a part of a real game, not a game in and of itself.

 

I only played The Devil's Daughter are the other Frogwares Holmes games good? I thought it was decent.. nothing amazing but was a nice game to play w/ my morning coffee.

 

Not sure about the direction things are going. The new preview video on Steam has a lot of "conversation" where it looks like you just click through a bunch of questions. However I like the look of this evidence board.

 

Sadly, the game has suffered severe decline, giving up on its most ambitious intentions. You'll notice that the linked devblogs above have been deleted. The Twitter account is also gone.

It is now a normal, prescripted adventure game, though at a glance it still has the same evidence board/thought cabinet interface.

Game is technically out ...... for mobile. Also, just the first 3 episodes of a planned 8? Hopefully it will at least be successful enough to develop all planned content and eventually release for PC.

Website is still up with sketchy details
https://www.murdermysterymachine.com/

I posted on the Steam forums in an attempt to verify the state of the game. The devs still seem to be responsive there, or were a couple months ago, so we'll see.
Pending confirmation, here's how things look:

• The first few chapters of the game are currently available, but only on some weird mobile storefront
• Game is no longer procedural
• Game still has "web of clues" gameplay format
• It is still possible for the player to mess up, i.e. accuse the wrong person and deal with consequences
• Game is in "episodic" format
  - Episode One has five scenes (will all episodes be at least this length?)
  - Episoes Two and Three are also out now
  - There are a total of eight episodes planned
• Game is more "adventurey", with emphasis on the protagonist personalities and their story
• Game will be released on "other formats" (i.e. Steam) at some unknown point in the future

 

Oh, that's a shame, because the original concept was absolutely amazing. It doesn't sound too bad now, minus the apparent mobile focus. (always a good sign) I do wish devs would realize that the episodic format is trash though. There's not a single game that was the better for it, and as we've learned, it doesn't pay the bills much either.