Clue: Murder by Death is a mystery game inspired not only by the board game, but also classic British literature, with a fun humor to it. You play as John Smith, a detective summoned to solve the mystery behind Lord Anderson’s murder. You’ll explore the manor in which the murder took place by travelling between the 166 rooms, uncovering secret tunnels, interacting with plenty of characters, and examining many items and weapons.
However, there’s a time limit; you only have two real-time hours to finish your work before Scotland yard arrives. Once these two hours are up you will reveal the murderer, the motive, and the weapon.
But that doesn’t meant the game’s complete; you’ll need to play over 20 hours to work through all of the possible paths.
Clue: Murder by Death begins with a call from the manor’s butler who announces the murder and asks for your help. A quick tutorial shows how to move, examine items, talk to suspects, and interact with items. You are also given the opportunity to select two suspects to help you in your detective work. These partners are extremely helpful as much of the game is spent traveling around the manor, which is easier when split between three characters. Each character also has three inventory slots to hold items, although detective Smith holds a flashlight and magnifying glass, limiting his slots for extra items to only one. You will have to provide evidence when submitting your case, so having extra hands is nice. Some of the suspects even come with their own bonus items, such as the butler with a master key.
From here on, your job is to navigate the manor and search for clues.
This is easier said than done. Not only does the manor have 166 rooms, but the game is really buggy. In my time playing, I had to start over four times, twice due to major glitches, twice due to unfortunate controls.
The glitch seemed to exist within the action of checking the map. The two times I had to restart were after I finished looking at the map and returned to the game, where I was met with not one character, but a bunch spawning all over the room, as well as the inability to use any controls.
The unfortunate controls glitches both happened during the tutorial where a skip option is available. For some reason, it was automatically set to on. So, when I went to first interact with an item, it instead skipped the tutorial.
These glitches are compounded by excessive load times that happen frequently as you move from room to room. There were also a few grammatical errors throughout the game, but those were easy to ignore.
The design of the game, however, was quite fun. With a cartoonish 3D look, Clue: Murder by Death’s vibe of goofiness comes to life. The characters are fun to look at, as are the settings. Each suspect’s look matches their role very well; the detective wears a trench coat and cool hat, and the maid wears a cute bun and a white apron. Each room, while the same in style, is fun to explore. You’ll find rooms filled with plants, others with suits of armor, some with old artifacts, as well as bedrooms, kitchens, and dining rooms.
Clue: Murder by Death is an engaging, narrative-driven game in which you really explore the story and its setting in depth. It’s charming, thrilling, and really fun to explore. The numerous glitches make it hard to fully recommend, but it’s otherwise a great game for fans of whodunits, demanding replays so you can view the manor from the eyes of different suspects.
