Whodunnit: the Midnight Murder Mystery Files

Whodunnit needs work. It's not a finished product, and I think the developer made a mistake going for case quantity over quality. There are enough design issues here that I struggled to keep this review from turning into a description of the entire game. - The main menu's white font over a transparent black background layered on a mixed-color image is genuinely difficult to read. The scenario selection screen looks like it was phoned in, a recurring theme throughout this game. It was not at all clear how to start a case, or even that this was a scenario selection screen. Not a label to be seen anywhere. I had to guess that the left side represents difficulty. Maybe that's part of the mystery. I'm really not sure how this menu got through any kind of playtesting. - Once you start a case, there's no explanation of what you're supposed to do to solve it or what your tools are. I wouldn't have figured out how to play if the only other review on this game hadn't laid it out in detail (thanks Sosich!) - The surveillance menu also needs to be redone. It makes no sense that recording and monitoring are separate functions, or that you have to manually select when to record, or that you o…

You are the greatest detective, which makes sense since you share a last name with the most famous sleuth of all time. You have been invited to a hotel where the world’s finest mystery writers are holding their annual meeting. However, one of them is a murderer. There are 20 cases to play in any order. While the core structure remains the same, each case features a different theme. You will always have the same five suspects, the same locations, and the same investigative options, but the clues, conversations, and information in the suspects’ files change. Although certain details repeat across cases, they appear in a different order each time. Your objective is to identify the murderer, the victim, the weapon, and the motive. These elements vary in every case. You have only a limited number of minutes to gather clues, as time never stops. Everything must be solved before midnight, when the killer strikes. Because time is limited, characters move between locations. To keep track of them, you have access to surveillance cameras that monitor every room. This allows you to eavesdrop on conversations or confirm a suspect’s whereabouts before breaking into their room. Characters chan…