Like most people, part of my 2020 was spent rekindling my love of all things True Crime. Granted, we were all in lockdown and found ourselves with a lot of time on our hands, but even now I find myself gravitating toward the True Crime genre. Murder Mystery Machine makes you feel like a real sleuth, solving crimes and making connections between evidence and witness testimony.

In Murder Mystery Machine, you play Cassandra Clarke, a recent graduate of the police academy who finds herself joining the District Crime Agency. She is teamed up with Nate Huston, a detective who is reluctant to have a partner and is initially resistant to her attempts to help him. What starts as a seemingly simple investigation into the death of a politician, leads to a series of connected crimes that are more than they seem.

Each case (or episode) is split into multiple scenes, where you find yourself in a different location. Sometimes you may return to the same location but at a different time of day, with new things to find and new people to interact with. The dioramas for the environments are meticulously done and actually look pretty fantastic. In each location, you must speak to NPCs who may be witnesses or people related to the victim/subject of the case.

In addition, you must also search the dioramas for items that may help you find clues. Some dialogue options and items cannot be interacted with until you make deductions on the mindmap, which works similarly to the Mind Palace in the Sherlock Holmes games. You have several elements to the mindmap, but ultimately it boils down to a simple method. In each scene, the game will ask you a question, and you have to find the evidence and make connections to answer it.

By connecting clues and points of interest in the mindmap, you can unlock new dialogue options and make deductions that help you solve whatever the question at the center of the scene is. It may be as simple as finding a new lead or as complex as finding a motive and a suspect. Currently, the only way to tell if you are making correct connections is whether it unlocks new dialogue or not. However, the developers are working on patches to streamline this and add confirmation that you made the correct connections.

There are also hints available, but if you use them it lowers your final score. Murder Mystery Machine encourages you to do things without the hints and to get a higher ranking if you can. There are costumes for Nate and Cassandra that you can get for finding certain hidden items or getting the highest rank on each scene. Currently, you can’t go back and redo scenes, but that will also be added at a later date.

At the end of each scene, you are given a score based on correct deductions, evidence found, and whether or not you were correct in your deductions and assessment of the question. As previously stated, using hints lowers your score, as does making incorrect deductions or not making all the deductions in a scene.

In between scenes you can interact with things in your basement area of the DCA, and learn a little bit more about the overarching story as you discuss what you’ve learned with your partner. The story is intricate, and the investigation sections really make you feel like an actual detective. My only main complaint, aside from not always knowing whether your connections are correct, is that sometimes you don’t know if you’ve gotten every item or all the dialogue in a scene.

It is also somewhat annoying to have to use a hint because you made a correct connection, just not to the specific place the game wanted you to, in order to unlock the dialogue you need to progress. Sometimes the pickiness of the game mixed with the vague nature of the clues almost requires you to use hints or do trial and error on all your connections.

Overall, I think Murder Mystery Machine is a fantastic experience if you like True Crime or crime-solving experiences. It really makes you feel like you are a detective solving the case. It is also great to take on the go or play in short bursts and is a perfect gift for the crime/mystery fan in your life.

A Nintendo Switch review copy of Murder Mystery Machine was provided by Microids for this review.

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Murder Mystery Machine

$19.99 USD

8.5

Score

8.5/10

Pros

• Fantastic Puzzle Design
• Makes You Feel Like a Real Investigator
• Interesting Storyline
• Engaging Gameplay
• Devs are Working to Patch Issues

Cons

• A Bit Too Much Trial-and-Error
• Hard to Tell if You've Gotten all Dialogue and Evidence
• Hard to Tell if Deductions are Correct