Adventure Gamers - Forums

*ahem*

I would imagine Murder in Tehran’s Alleys 1933 is a good example of realistic detective work - boring, tedious and not really worth the effort.

Henke - 25 October 2017 02:19 PM

That was an interesting read. Only skimmed through it but it seems to me that the author was more focusing on how to best adapt Holmes as a literary figure to a game than how to make the best possible detective game. Frogwares latest two is the best ones on that very subject IMO and they were released after that paper was written.

I agree. It was an interesting read (thanks for sharing, Phlebas). I kept thinking, while reading the various proposals made by the author, that the more recent Sherlock Holmes games have answered her concerns almost point by point: reconstituting past scenes through “visualisation” sequences, activating an enhanced “detective sense” (though you don’t have to resort to injecting or snorting anything to switch it on), building a character’s portrait based on observations (especially in the latest instalment, in which the player can get stuck with an “incomplete” portrait if she judges poorly), making connections between clues and their interpretation litteraly in Holmes’s brain… however, despite all these innovative factors, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I felt like the two latest games, especially, were leading the player by the hand even more than in previous opera, thus taking away part of the “acting like a detective” fun that was quite pregnant in The Lost Files games. I guess there’s no simple step-by-step recipe to recreate that feeling that you’re in charge and have to do all the deducing by yourself; perhaps a combination of the features found in the latest games and the freedom to unravel the story left in the earlier ones would finally lead to a grand opus.

Since the paper was about Holmes, I couldn’t help making a parallel with Toby’s Nose, in which, more than in any other Holmeverse game, the player actually assumes the role of a detective, if a canine one. The simplicity of the interface forces her to rely solely on her “little grey cells” to quote another legendary confrere, with nothing else but her keen sense of smell working for her. All the connections that are to be made must be made outside of the game system. Features like folders storing important documents or advanced examination systems and even progressing dialogue trees work as crutches to help the player progress, although, I must say, they work wonders to immerse one in a detective-like atmosphere and add a lot to the feeling of taking on that role. Personally, I agree with the author that the Phoenix Wright games work great in that regard and have been a paramount addition to the detective genre. In a different way, I thought that the Sydney segments in GK3 provided a great context to exert investigative and deductive mechanisms.

I have yet to play the Black Watchmen or any game involving RL actions, but I have a feeling I would enjoy it a lot.
And Grundislav, I’m really looking forward to playing Lamplight City