Detective Worden

[b]Detective Worden[/b] is pretty much just Wordle with a side of murder mystery. Seriously, I could end the review here and you'd get the gist. I won't, but I [i]could[/i]. [h3]Story + Gameplay[/h3] In May 1985, our eponymous detective investigates a murder in Room 204 of Riverside Hotel only to discover ties to a similar murder four years before. In story mode, each clue is followed by a round of 4-6 letter Wordle: you have seven tries to guess a word using the process of elimination, where orange indicates a correct letter in the wrong spot, and green means correct letter in correct spot. [b]Controls. [/b]Keyboard + Mouse only. [b]Playtime. [/b]Story mode is ~2 hours. [b]Settings/Options. [/b]Full screen or windowed, audio sliders. Optional "retro look" and "camera bobbing," which I wish I'd known to turn on before playing. [h3]What Works For Me[/h3] ✅ Interesting (if convoluted) mystery. ✅ Real human voice actors and subtle background music. ✅ "Daily Challenges" is Wordle minus the [i]NYT[/i] subscription. ✅ Free mode is a customizable (word length, time limits, etc.) endless mode. ✅ Word length! Who knew 6 letters is weirdly hard? ✅ Leaderboards for the …

Neat concept, good execution.

If you hope this will be a detective game because of the name, you will be sorely disappointed. It's wordle set to the rhythm of a relatively tropey detective story, where the context of what's presently being discussed in the case is (usually) a clue to the word you're trying to guess. If you fail enough during the story, you get a bad ending. It starts out with 4 letter words, and goes up to 7. I'll be honest, I don't really care for Wordles with over 5 letters, and actively dislike 7+. That said, predicting the answer based on the context of a case feels pretty satisfying, and adds a dimension to the wordle puzzle style that helps offset this game from the work it derives from.

Way too short and ends on a cliffy. I'm guessing this was a market test. Great idea, good beginning to a story. Many reviews complain about the words not making sense but I found they made perfect sense. Some clues are written at the bottom of the page and can be hard to read, but everything made sense to me. Please tell me there's more!

brilliant idea that 100% fumbles it in the first step. supposedly, the wordle gameplay is related to the "clues" they give you about the case, but it really isn't. every answer feels either cheap or out of left field. does it want me to talk about the body in the picture? or the wine bottle in the back of the picture? in no way would I ever have guessed "pose" was supposed to be about the body, because he does indeed look like a guy who got stabbed and fell to the ground dead. I have no idea where this detective is going in even one of his thought processes. the tapes are meandering and boring and then nothing's written down or left on the screen after they end; if I wasn't listening, I have to listen to the entire tape again. there could 100% be a written log of what's on the tape instead, and I get that they're going for drama, but the detective story seems like it's being told to me in the background of me trying to play wordle, entirely unrelated to my surroundings. the UI is neat & the sounds of the typewriter are crisp and pleasing, but holy cats batman I get better luck 100% guessing random words than trying to play with the detective on a case angle. eta also, devs: "log …

If you like detective stories AND word games, you won't feel bored with this game. However, if you are hoping to play an adventurous detective game to find the culprit, this is not the game you are looking for. After all, the answer is not entirely related to the case. There are many possible words associated with the given clue, but there are specifically only one or two that are correct. If you take the case in this game too seriously, you will only get frustrated, and it's still a long way to reach your intended solution. If you play as a word game lover, you will probably achieve more than the player who tries to solve the case.