Mini Murder Mysteries

A fun little mystery game. Each puzzle doesn't take too long, and I think it plays best when you space them out over a few days, rather than binge them all at once. Definitely worth the price. I would like to be able to review old cases though, as sometimes I missed a bit of dialogue, or a clue, and once you solve a case there's no way to go back to it.

Mini Murder Mysteries feels half-baked. There's some good ideas here but they're at their most shallow and the result is an unsatisfying experience. The comparisons to The Case of the Golden Idol or Return of the Obra Dinn are unavoidable and unfortunate. This is the same type of game but worse. Less ambitious, pocket sized, but mostly just worse. Less ambitious and pocket sized would have been fine but worse is a killer. With each mini mystery offering exactly one sentence to solve, the result is less mechanical depth than a dollar store mad-libs book. There's not much detective work to do, either. You'll examine evidence and witness statements but you don't solve a mystery so much as you describe a motive. It just doesn't feel like an acomplishment. Each puzzle offers 3 hints which, with incredible consistency, feel like they should have been their own puzzles to solve to complete each mystery. The writing is just as shallow. Each mini murder mystery is about a murder but always seems strangely apathetic about the human condition. As if murder is just something that happens to people and solving it is just what detectives do. It would be fine if the protagonist was cold-blooded but even the narration doesn't seem to care. I don't need a harrowing dive into the depravity of man to enjoy myself (although it helps) but this was as satisfying as drinking air. There's not even a minimum of world building. Not a shred of life or authentic humanity to be found. Mini Murder Mysteries doesn't need to rival the greatest puzzle games of all time to be memorable but it's got to bring more to the table. There's something interesting about the idea. It can work. It doesn't need more systems or more complex visuals, it's just got to do more with what it's got. Mini shouldn't mean shallow. I offer the following unsolicited advice: Add distinctions for nouns, adjectives, and verbs to the game's UI and add sorting for these types. Remove the "solve the puzzle" button, or at least make it only appear after a dozen failed attempts. These might seem minor but, in my opinion, would be an improvement. Give your players tools to succeed instead of ways to opt-out of playing. This is also the most important lesson for the developer to learn: Engage fully and enthusiastically with your mechanical and narrative systems instead of looking for ways to avoid depth.

A fun little mystery game. Not too hard and quick to solve

I enjoyed this game. In some ways it is a proof of concept for what I would expect to be a larger game, but it is priced fairly for its scope. It feels like an early work by a studio that has the chops to produce a longer game with the format presented here. I like games like this and this is a very competent entry and fun to play.

Not perfect, but a good bit of fun and worth the price of admission.

This was cute! Maybe I'll have more to say later but I'm typing this on the deck, so for now: -some typos here & there -case challenge level seemed inconsistent in terms of a ramp

This was a cute little game. Not too hard or too easy for me. I liked doing maybe one or two cases at the time while waiting for dinner to cook or last thing before bed. It's not a long game, but it doesn't need to be because I was happy with what I got. That said, I wouldn't hate it if more cases were added or a small dlc or so was released in the future.

A simple but excellent murder mystery. I play many games like this and this one falls a bit more in the Golden Idol school of mystery solving, though quite a bit more streamlined in it's problems. There are nine cases, each taking between thirty minutes and an hour. There is genuine cleverness in a few of the cases, although I think the overarching framework of each case having the same number of pieces of evidence and interviews does diminish the uniqueness of each case. There isn't really a progression of mechanics or difficulty, so some of the earlier cases stand out for me much more than the latter. That said, it's a fun set of puzzles and certainly worth your time if you like detective games.

Such an incredibly low price for a few hours of really enjoyable detective gameplay. The visuals are nice, the music is perfect, each case feels similar yet unique enough to be interesting each time. Having an over-arching story was a great choice. Really well made!

A good, laid back (easy-ish), and ultimately quick detective game. I wish it was more complex, but for its low price it was worth the fun regardless.