A Party to Murder
Author: David Good
Language: Adrift
Genre: Mystery
Score: 6
"A Party To Murder" takes on the tricky task of a murder mystery and falls
a bit short. That's not surprising though, as I feel that mysteries are
one of the more difficult realms of IF to create. The game starts off
with a long cut scene involving numerous pauses and conversation that you
can't control. It's a bit long and frustrating to sit through more than
once.
From there, you move on to the actual party, where you interact with
multiple guests and the furnishings of the house. It starts off well
enough, but then devolves into a morass of confusion as you try to figure
out what in the heck to do next. There's a hidden piece of evidence you
find and according to the walkthrough, if you examine too closely at the
wrong time, you can't win the game. Then there's the bizarre final
puzzle, where the only way to get the information you need from an NPC is
to perform a completely unrelated series of actions. Mind you, there is
no basis at all for believing that doing so will produce ANY kind of
result. This puzzle is a good example of a "guess what the author is
thinking", especially considering that when I examined the items involved,
the game's reply was that they "don't interest me."
Then there were the other technical problems I encountered. An attempt to
examine a woman led to this helpful disambiguation message: "Which woman.
The woman or the woman?" My attempt to "ask billy about the piece of
paper" netted me the response: "You can't talk to that."
At least the guests were interesting. For example, the couple making out
in the laundry room make their way into the girl's bedroom for a little
privacy. Interrupting them may be rude, but damn is it funny.
Too bad scenes like that couldn't carry the rest of the game. A good
mystery is a very formidable beast to create and while I can see that a
lot of effort was put into "A Party To Murder", the author should have
taken a longer look at the game overall before releasing it.
(View this game on Baf's Guide to IF or The IF Ratings Site)
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