Detective Agency: Murder at the Manor

This is not a full review yet, as I have been unable to complete the game so far. But I would like to inform other Steam users about the game's many issues. First, let me address what this game does well: The murder case seems fairly elaborate and quite interesting, there are a lot of details to discover. You'll find clues by interrogating suspects and by investigating objects, the latter is implemented in an especially immersive way - for example, you move objects on a desk until you reveal a book, then you open the book to reveal a clue. Lastly, the graphics and environments look nice (even though there's a lot of copy-pasting going on). Now to the things that the game doesn't do well - this will unfortunately be a longer list. 1. The English translation is terrible, to the point where the text is either unintelligible or gives you false information. For a detective game where information matters, this is unacceptable. In every single dialog, I have to guess what the writer actually meant to say, because the text itself makes absolutely no sense. Here are a few examples: a) The text very often uses incorrect pronouns. The butler tells you that "my wife died 14 years ago", but what he apparently means, is that _the victim's_ wife died 14 years ago. Another suspect talks about "the butler and his brother", but what she apparently meant to say, is "the butler and my brother". Due to these frequent mistakes, a lot of crucial information about the case remains difficult to understand. b) Some of the text remains completely unintelligible. For example, characters sometimes tell you "Are you stuck in a siege" - what? Many sentences seem grammatically okay, but don't make any sense in the context of the game. If these sentences were supposed to have any useful information about the case, then this information is lost in the English translation. c) Many texts are unnecessarily convoluted. For example, the game's way of telling you "click the object to pick it up" is: "According to the gesture operation, click the object to pick up the object". I'm not joking, I wish I was. d) Some words are obviously mistranslated. For example, the interrogation room in the police department is called "trial room" on the map. This is especially bad because "trial" is an established term in legal proceedings, but this room has nothing to do with trials. e) The game tries to give you hints, but they do not work because of the terrible translation. For example, one hint tells me: "On the desk, there is a book that looks like a book". I guess the original text used two different words that made clear which kind of book the hint was talking about - but the translation is obviously nonsensical. f) Even when the meaning of a sentence is clear, the writing is so bad that it hurts. Usually, typos and occasional grammar errors do not affect my enjoyment of a game - I find it easy to ignore them. But in this game, the writing is so bad that this is not possible, for me at least. What do you do with sentences like "Manor owner Bob Hudgens in poor health rarely go out"? g) The game can't even get the names of its characters right. The family name keeps switching between "Huggins" and "Hudgens", often within the same conversation. The aunt is called "Cherry" in most places, but "Cherie" in others. The butler is usually called "Martin Robert", but can also appear as "martin butler". This isn't even a language problem, it is just sloppy work. Additionally, one of the male characters was given the name "Marcy", which is predominantly female. h) The presentation of the text was not adjusted for English. While in a room, characters sometimes speak in "speech bubbles", but these vanish before I even have a chance to read the full text. The timing seems to still be based on Chinese text, which can be read quicker. Additionally, there are some comic-like drawn scenes where a different kind of speech bubble is used - in these scenes, the bubbles often aren't large enough for the English text, so some words appear as dark grey text on a black background. Tutorial messages on the bottom of the screen sometimes don't fit into a single line - and instead of adding a second line, the text just gets horizontally centered and the words at the start and end get cut off. In conclusion - again, I'm sorry, but whoever produced this "translation" has wasted their time. The game's English text desperately needs to be redone from scratch. The current state of the translation is unacceptable even for players who usually wouldn't care about the quality of writing, because the game often conveys incorrect information. 2. Unfortunately, the language is not the game's only problem. After about 1/4 of the game, I'm apparently stuck with no way to proceed. I'm in a room where the game tells me there's nothing to find, "let's go to a different room". There is only one other room on the map that the game lets me visit, and when I enter it, I get the exact same message. So neither room has anything left to find, none of the two characters in these rooms can be talked to, and the "clue wall" tells me that there are no available clues to operate on. Either I'm missing something, or that's a bug. 3. The game's sound design is very sloppy. There are no ambiance sounds at all. The footsteps of your character can be heard, but everyone else's are silent. If you zoom in on an object (like a desk) while you're still walking, then the sound of your footsteps keeps playing for as long as you're zoomed in. The game's music is very repetitive and doesn't fit the game's atmosphere at all. 4. The game does not care about useability or accessibility at all. There is no way to rebind keys, movement is fixed to WASD, and not even arrow keys work - so if you have (for example) a French keyboard, or a Dvorak layout, or use a left-handed mouse, or have a disability or other condition that makes WASD inconvenient or impossible to use, or simply have a different preference, I'm sorry, the developers apparently do not care about any of that. The game also has no graphics options apart from a resolution selector, a fullscreen toggle, vsync, and a three-tier "image quality" selector. The UI is also a mess - for example, many screens have a button with a red "X" and the text "Esc" - and as you would expect, clicking that button closes that screen. But pressing the Esc key does absolutely nothing. 5. The game gives the player very little freedom. If you do not find all the clues during an interrogation, the game won't let you proceed until you have. If you don't find all the clues in a room, you can't proceed either. There are 7 rooms on the map, but most of them are inaccessible until the game decides that you should visit them now. You're not really doing any deductive work, you just retrace the steps that the developers laid out for you - in the exact same sequence, one after the other. This is pretty frustrating - for example, I have a strong hunch about what happened to an important clue (a key), but the game gives me no option to steer the investigation in that direction. Granted, this is probably more a question of a player's preference than an objective flaw of the game - some players may prefer such a closely guided experience. But I'd like more agency. Conclusion: There might actually be an enjoyable story buried under all these problems. The game currently has 3 Chinese reviews and they are all positive - and I found the game's plot interesting enough to play on until I got stuck. But in its current state, the game absolutely is not ready for a global release on the PC platform. The translation is beyond fixing and needs to be redone, and at least some of the other issues would need to be fixed as well. I do not like saying so many negative things about an indie game that may, somewhere, have an enjoyable core. But I think it's important to point these problems out. Hopefully, at least some of them can get fixed.

制作组是不是自己没有玩一下游戏？ 这游戏简直智障 1、物品记录里面，鼠标移动上去可以看到物品说明，但是，最右边的物品，只能看到一半说明！！ 2、NPC在房间里走来走去，玩家要走动，还得给NPC让路绕着走，如果不绕路，那就尬着吧！ 3、我不知道什么毛病非要搞这种伪3D！真3D难道不应该是镜头可以旋转的吗？？固定视角的3D，除了给玩家搜证带来妨碍，有什么用？ 有什么用？ 有什么用？ 你给我个房间图片，然后我鼠标点点不行吗？？？？ 4、真凶对峙不是靠推理，是靠wasd???? 怎么的你们开发人员当年都是劲舞团出来的？爱玩比手速的动作游戏，就去做音乐节奏游戏，别做什么推理游戏了行不行！！！！ 5、开过的抽屉一定要把抽屉放回去，否则，想再次看看抽屉里的东西，就会发现被挡住了，很难走到可以互动的范围内！！！！至于为什么要再看看抽屉里的东西，当然是因为，物品收集里面的物品信息只能看个简介，这个物品如果在最右边，简介都只能看一半！！！

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典型的什么都想做，什么都没做好。 1）剧情过于好猜了，没什么悬念可言。 2）线索非常难收集，3D经常卡视角导致无法交互，可调查物品也无高亮。 3）后续模仿弹丸论破、波洛侦探薄等玩法，但是都是毛毛雨，很无聊。 4）警长的提示没啥用，我在姑妈房间说有线索，到了又让我赶紧审判。

推理难度一般，操作比较难受

名侦探既视感。 非常不错的游戏，有点挑战，对话安排的挺有意思的，剧情也比较稳，画面看上去比较细腻。 让我想起逆转裁判和弹丸破伦。 难度适中，引导部分有点过快，线索文字量有点大，不仔细看容易忽略掉线索。但是对于这类游戏的爱好者而言还是十分喜欢这款游戏。

剧本杀既视感很强，解密体验很好，但能看出经费有限，考虑到价格，还是很值得一玩。 坏消息：缝了很多 好消息：缝的还可以 但是有些操作实在是反人类

19%左右，剧本大概已经猜的差不多了，但是！作为一个侦探游戏，理解你们做一些物品交互的原因，但是能不能差不多点，有些地方不好点、划、拖动鼠标就算了。姑妈房间电视柜里的书拖到屏幕边缘也打不开，这有必要么，一个打开鼠标点一下或者稍微拖一下完了，这。。真的无语，没法玩下去。

This game is super cute, creative and fun! The English translation is unfortunately awful and really the only thing that is keeping me from playing through the game multiple times. I managed to complete my first attempt in three hours and had a great time, but most of the time I was barely able to comprehend the gist of the story. In the end I wasn't able to catch the killer and it felt more like it was because I didn't understand the mechanics of the clue system OR what anyone was saying! I'm praying the developers hire someone to really iron out the English, at which point I'll definitely start my second attempt!

[H1]《侦探万事屋》：颇具沉浸感的国产推理游戏[/H1] [quote]关注[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/36224058/]老实人鉴赏家 [/url] [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/laoshirenLSR]老实人评测[/url]：独立游戏爱好者聚集地，黄油绅士交流中心。 不错过游戏的亮点，不放过游戏的槽点，带给玩家最直观的测评感受。[/quote] 　　侦探万事屋是由成都独立游戏工作室吉祥如意推出的一款解谜作品，老实讲它带给了我不少惊喜，尤其在「推理类作品」稀缺的国内市场，本格味十足的《侦探万事屋》更是能让推理迷心满意足。 　　可惜的是，在游戏的操作方面存在不少问题，而这给玩家带来的糟心之感或许会直接摧毁在推理方面的新奇体验。 [H2]平稳的剧本和不错的推理体验[/H2] 　　由于成本问题，《侦探万事屋》目前只做了一个剧本，采用的是经典的暴风雪山庄舞台设计，从搜证到推理过程、伪解答、双重凶案等展开都十分的古典——而通常古典，也意味着老套。不过这倒没什么问题，即使剧本没有太多新意，但作为推理作品而言，也没有太多漏洞，基本上做到了逻辑自洽，而[B]玩家在扮演侦探的过程中也切实能体会到绞尽脑汁去推理的感觉[/B]，这点是许多推理游戏做不到的。 　　在游戏中，由凶案入手，然后是搜证、盘问、搜证、再盘问，最后拼凑出案件的真相。整个过程本格味十足，对于事件的还原基本上需要靠玩家自己，尽管在操作上颇为难受，但是推理体验还是十分优秀的，比许多「选择题推理」要强很多，但也更为硬核，对于部分玩家可能不太友好，而游戏的引导又做的不好，期待制作组能优化这部分。 [H2]反人类的操作设计[/H2] 　　虽然《侦探万事屋》在推理的部分我觉得做的很好，但是在游戏的部分却做的有待商榷。[B]首先是引导的缺失[/B]，比如你会在故事中段卡关或者停滞——然而你的“雷斯垂德”却并不能给你什么有效指引，基本上是在旁边自说自话。 　　[B]其次，游戏的3D视角和交互操作非常反人类[/B]，在设计上或许是参考了《明星大侦探》的小房间布景和搜证，游玩体验上也比较相像，但到了游戏中，一款锁视角3D对于玩家无疑是比较遭罪的，而许多交互操作对于键鼠党来说更是折磨，比如开门/抽屉的设计明显能感觉到更加便利移动端。 [H2]颇具诚意但仍有巨大提升空间[/H2] 　　不管怎样，制作组的诚意还是没话说，从简介页面也能看出这是一群有热忱的人，摸着石头过河做出了一款素质还算不错的作品。尽管体验见仁见智，但他们的确是有好好在做游戏，从目前的市场反馈来看显然不尽人意，不过这或许也是制作组开发经验不足，资源分配有些头重脚轻而导致。 　　因为是热情之作，所以制作组在游戏里也加入了许多致敬——比如最后对峙阶段的QTE。但是，这样的致敬在游戏中真的是有效的吗？或许会让部分老玩家会心一笑，但就实际体验而言，我觉得与游戏的整体氛围有些割裂。 　　或许是想借此强化演出效果，用强迫玩家操作的QTE搭配上动画演出显然会比干巴巴的文字更有说服力，比如在游戏的某些质询环节中，基本上是柯南式的「一哭二跪三忏悔」，侦探出示证据，罪犯就开始自承罪状了，如果在推理小说中，这种情节是被严厉杜绝的，因为[B]解答篇应该是侦探的秀场，而非罪犯们的自白书[/B]。 　　[B]大概这就是成本限制下的无奈选择吧。[/B]从质询到解答中的过程太短暂，会削弱扮演沉浸感；为了强化演出效果或者是出于致敬设计的QTE又与游戏的整体氛围稍显割裂，无论采用哪种办法都没有很好的效果，只可能继续加大文字量和交互设计——但成本却是有限的。 　　那么期待制作组能在此基础上，继续优化游戏中的不足，创作出更多有诚意的剧本。