7th
Blue Toad Murder Files
The latest release from the makers of party quiz game Buzz! hits The Playstation Network very soon, exclusively on the PS3, and it’s a bit of a departure for Relentless studios.
Blue Toad Murder Files is a memory/logic puzzler, set in the idyllic and aptly-named village of Little Riddle. Episodic in nature, you play as one of the four members of the group known as the ‘Blue Toad Detective Agency.’
After you choose your character and enter the village via train, you’re immediately confronted with the heinous murder of the town mayor – a crime you’re expected to solve yourself, after interviewing several different upstanding members of the town, prodding and probing their paper-thin alibis and motives.
Most of the game finds you wandering around the game map following up on leads, but this is very much window dressing - albeit very charming, charismatic window dressing – to the meaty puzzles that make up the main facet of gameplay.
For example, the Basil Fawlty-style hotelier needs you to help him with his booking ledger before he’s able to tell you about the old lady who lives near the river.
In the town hall, the clerk needs you to work out precisely how mayor spent his last few hours alive using sounds she remembers hearing, before she’s able to help you with finding someone else.
These sections come in the form of either memory, word, or logic puzzles – very reminiscent of the old Osborne ‘Choose Your Own Adventure Books’. Graphically, it’s a real charmer, with superb voice acting throughout. All done by one man, incredibly, which gives it a gentle Saturday morning cartoon feel.
There are six episodes in total, each one lasting around an hour (longer if you’re a nitwit like me,) with a plot twist at the end of each one, after you’ve picked one of the residents out of a line up.
As a sub-20 quid package it’s a very decent purchase indeed, coming as it does as the full 6 episode ’box set’. It’s out on the 9th of April on PSN – ideal to chew through as a family on a rainy day.
