A STORM, SOME MURDER, AND HOT COCOA
Murder by Choice: Clue Mystery is a puzzle game created by Nordcurrent. The story beings with a dark and stormy evening on a plane ride to Isla Esperanza. We follow Carla Page, a young journalist invited by billionaire entrepreneur Ruben Navarro to write a profile of him.
There are five other guests: Margot St. Germain, Freddie Wolf, Jax Traynor, Kanie Lim, and Admiral Sam Wilkinson. Navarro has invited each person for a specific reason.
Upon landing on the island, the player is introduced to Georgiana Bird, the chef and housekeeper, Joaquin “Q” Diaz, the groundskeeper, and Lukas Matonis, the security chief.
There is tension between Freddie and Lukas. Moments after settling into the Navarro Villa, there is an accident. Lukas has slipped into the pool and drowned. The guests are distraught! How could Lukas have died? He was so young! Was it an accident?
When the guests arrive to have dinner together, Ruben Navarro falls violently ill. Is this a coincidence? Is there a murderer, or is it two accidents?
Knowing the title of the game helps—Murder by Choice: A Clue Mystery. There is a murderer afoot, and the player must solve it!
FIND THE SHINY
The game thrusts you immediately into its two gameplay styles. There are intricate minigames that never repeat and a repeating hidden objects minigame.
The minigames, while frustrating as they are not accompanied by any tutorials, are always a breath of fresh air, keeping the game interesting and challenging. However, they are few and far between.
The hidden objects minigame can become tiring, but the art style is beautiful and well-detailed. Sometimes objects seem like they should be clickable, but it’s not until the player returns can click on said object. Other times, the object is vague or poorly written. There was an instance of a hidden objects game within the walk-in pantry. The player had to collect four sauces, but each one looked different. Mustard and barbecue sauce do not look the same!
One must also suspend their belief at certain times. Finding every object can destroy the tension caused by the story. Early on, a character named Janet Lim has an asthma attack, and though her inhaler was one of the first objects to be clicked on, the player has to find ten-or-so other objects. If Nordcurrent decided to make the object desired the last thing, it would keep players immersed and keep tensions rolling.
FRUSTRATIONS AND SLOWDOWNS
Tensions rise as the game progresses and keeps the player guessing as to whodunit. But the game is consistently blocked by the lack of Energy. Anyone playing mobile games knows the scam of pumping money into a game to either progress fast enough, earn a card or be privy to bonus scenes. Murder by Choice is no different.
Each hidden object found costs five energy, and with fifteen objects (or more) to find, it costs a total of 75 energy. Choosing dialogue costs ten dialogue, and players can be given up to three dialogue choices within a conversation. The Energy Bar tops out at 200 and quickly runs dry.
Thankfully, there is an exploit. There are endless ads one can watch to recover ten energy. Hopefully, there won’t be a patch soon as Free to Play (F2P) players deserve to have fun and enjoy. Sometimes, the game will attempt to roll you back a few seconds before as they sense a discrepancy, but the energy bar should remain full.
There are times when Murder by Choice runs like a visual novel as everything has full voice-acting. However, there is no autoplay option like in visual novels. It would be helpful to have a hands-free option to listen to and not manually click on each panel.
Although Murder by Choice takes too much energy to play for long periods, the tension of discovery, whether it’s new evidence or stories that don’t add up, keeps players engaged and wanting more.
