Remastered Death off the Cuff makes scheduled release on Steam

Written by Jack Allin — January 18, 2021 at 12:06

The best part of any whodunit is the big reveal in the parlour at the end. But ... what if the detective doesn't actually know who the killer is? This is the dilemma in Simon Christiansen's Death off the Cuff, a 2014 text adventure that has just been upgraded and released in a remastered version.

Players control the famed Antoine Saint Germain, a "great French Detective" who has never been defeated by a crime before. This time, however, as the members of your audience "all stare at you expectantly, like children waiting to be told a bedtime story," you have no idea who committed murder in your latest case, no "brilliant deductions" to expose the killer. Fortunately, you know from experience that "most of the time when you do this the murderer breaks down and confesses half way through your speech anyway." All you need to do is bluff long enough and "wait for the guilty party to slip up." 

Inspired by Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot mysteries, Death off the Cuff is a short text adventure in which you must "type in the topics you want to talk about and watch as the game generates your own unique detective monologue." You can also try various verbs to see which prompt a response; some of them will be necessary to proceed, such as examining people and things for closer inspection, though most available actions are simply for flavour purposes rather than driving the story forward. 

Originally released as a text-only game in the 2010 Interactive Fiction Competition, Death off the Cuff was later updated with illustrations and released commercially on itch.io for PC, along with the App Store for iOS and Google Play for Android devices. This new "Remastered" version is available exclusively on Steam for Windows, with a presentation much like that of the indie developer's simile-centric 2015 adventure PataNoir, including an "animated book interface," music, "more options and things to talk about," and the ability to "click on words to receive more information."