Murderous Muses

The FMV is great and the actors - and director - do a really good job. But the 3D aspect was a mistake. It's clunky, slow, and turns you off the game. Kinda feels some Unity assets were thrown together to be honest. A misstep in an otherwise great series of games.

I played and really love every FMV games from this developer, but I cannot recommend this one. The FMV and acting are still great, but the game mechanics...man...they're ridiculously tedious and unnecessarily confusing, even with the added tutorials. It's like they intentionally made it as tedious and confusing as possible to make a playthrough longer than an hour. Though, I'd rather just have each run be an hour long where we can easily watch one clip after another, without having to walk a ridiculous amount of distance to play each video. Another complaint is that the game environment gives me a (literal) headache. It's likely because the entire environment is very red with thin black stripes all over, and the walking animation can cause motion sickness easily (even with settings adjusted). I can only play about 30 min before getting too sick to play. Though I pushed through 2 playthroughs because I wanted to see all the videos. Still, I really can't recommend this one. And I hope developers improve game mechanics and environment design for their next game because the acting clips are still great.

Let me start by saying I really enjoyed all of this author's other titles. I always enjoy FMV from way back in the early days. This author has great production quality and it shows. Everything about this game speaks to me and was so promising. I love the thought of the museum, the paintings "coming to life", the rich character stories, the cozy nighttime exploring, the computers the speak to you, the mysterious elements, etc. All of the said, the game play itself was a complete mess. The environment looked like DOOM from the 90's, but that's forgivable. I always say, "great graphics do not a game game make". But it was still super CONFUSING! It was as if the author knew what was going on, so he assumed the players would too. I've played literally hundreds of adventure games, and believe me this is not the case. I really enjoy puzzles of deduction, but even with all of the hints and nudges, still nothing made any sense. Sure I found the picture and the character said a word on the plaques. But so did another picture and character. No sense. We play games to relax, enjoy the experience and be entertained. And sure it's great to excercize your mind, but this was just stressful. I wish the game explained itself better or provided some confirmation to let us know we did something right. And it probably does, who knows, just spending all of that time and energy getting there isn't really fun. Maybe a map would've helped a bit too. And I'm pretty sure because the game is meant to be played through more than once, it probably does get better and eventually make more sense. It's a shame I may never get to experience it. But I don't want to have to work, guess, run around blindly, fail (succeed? Don't really know), solve puzzles along the way (who knows!?) to be rewarded with no clue or what the hell I did or didn't do correctly. Why not just have it make more sense from the get-go? Now make Shape Shifting Detective 2 or Dark Nights 2 or similar magical games like that and I'm right back in!!

I did like playing this game, but it took me a bit. There were times in my first play through that I didn’t understand the mechanics of what I should be doing and some extra things I wasn’t getting. The instruction video helped but I still missed some things. I knew what I was supposed to do – solve a murder, but it was some mechanics and rules of doing things that were vague. However, by the time I finished the first play that took me about 4 hours, I got it and my second play went much better and I was able to discover more FMV scenes in one play through than I did in my first. My second play took about 2.5 hours. As always with this developer, the characters are very quirky and fun. I really liked the story and the layers in it beyond just solving the murders. I still have a couple more plays to go to get the whole picture. I also liked the non-FMV portion that, through the museum paintings, gives both a sanitized and macabre history of the town of Mirlhaven depending on whether you visit the paintings during the day or at night. Initially, I was hesitant on replay value, but the differences in play happily surprised me. Not only is there possibly a new murderer, but the time, place, and cause of death are different. So therefore, are the goals of each night’s investigations. They change due to the new circumstances of the murder, giving new topics and videos that play as well as different messages that come from your boss and the messages you pick up from collecting new urns. Your collectibles and other progress are saved and you add on to what you have collected. Bottom line: After some initial frustration, I was able to sink in and enjoy the game a lot and am looking forward to collecting all the lore and stories the game has to offer. Though I would put out a request that maybe the developers go back to a simpler format for their next game. Maybe something like Contradiction next time?

Great movie, bad gameplay. To be honest I am super conflicted about my opinion on the game. Let's start with the good. You get all the D'Avekki goodness. These excellent British actors that (from a couch) bring you into a mysterious town which oozes atmosphere. You get all the D'Avekki tropes... Aislinn De'Ath playing a lady to die for, Rupert Booth voicing the policeman, Cameo-Girl gets a bigger cameo this time and so on. As a fan of D'Avekki, it feels like the family has yet again brought you another wonderful few hours to lose yourself in - and I'm pretty greatful for that. Tim has also learned to not overdo it with the jumpcuts this time^^. Compared to the other titles, the characters are a bit less subtle and a bit more on the nose this time. But the tone has been hit very well. If there's one complaint I can bring forward in terms of the whole world-building then it's that for the first time, then, for the first time in a D'Avekki game, the lore has been spiked with animal cruelties, which for me personally is something that drains the enjoyment out of the game. In fact I'm quite angry about that, and especially Sally's remarks in that regard makes this game trash-bin material for me. For me, it's a biggy, but I'm aware this will be irrelevant to most players. Anyway, let's address the elephant in the room - the gameplay. Now one D'Avekki trope is certainly to take bad UI design and make it the sole gameplay loop. Which kinda works weirdly enough for most of the games, this time though, it's a bit too cumbersome. So, there are 6 suspects in the game. There are three days, at each day, each suspect will be asked one question by the police, which amounts to "are you guilty in this aspect" and the subject will answer with yes, no or maybe. You pick out the person, which answered yes to all three and tadaaa... you win. All other information is irrelevant. It's unimportant who had the strongest motive and who would be the most capable or just any other background information. It's just these three questions and their answers that matter. Where the irrelevant fluff information gets used is in unlocking these police questions. Each suspect has three fluff-topics which need to be activated in order. To do that, you hang a painting onto a slot with the corresponding topic and a cutscene will play. The contents are irrelevant, you just need to match the topic. The painting have an ammo-counter, which needs reloading after 6 questions and ammo is scarce. So you can't just ask them all the topics. And the other thing that happens is that the slot will change to show another topic now. It's not difficult, it's not challanging, it's not compelling, it's not deep, it's just annoying. It feels like they didn't want to make it perfectly easy, so they put the topic-change mechanic in and they wanted the possiblity for the player to fail so they put the ammo-counter in. Now there are some secrets and some unlocks on repeated play-throughs. So, you're incentivised to play through the game multiple times. There's some randomization going on, but really, even that is done very half-backed, you see the assets not lining up perfetly and so on. Speaking of assets, which the artworks and videos are pretty great, the regular textures and environment certainly aren't. I dig the idea of the art gallery, but the execution is... questionable. Also of course, controls aren't rebindable and a lot of options, such as the fov-slider lack don't show their values. So, to summerize, this game is an odd mix of the very good and the very bad. It's something where new ground was tested and some aspects sink and some swim. While the atmosphere is stellar, the gameplay is just nothing I could honestly recommend. If you're a fan, I won't read this and will have bought this anyway, which is fine. But if you're new and haven't played the other games yet, start with those.

I really liked your previous games, for me they're even some of the best that the FMV genre has to offer. But this one doesn't hit my nerve at all. Shortly after the tutorial I already had no desire to continue playing. Too much "escape room"-esque gameplay + puzzles and too little FMV. In addition, both the story with all the different names and places as well as the puzzle mechanics completely overwhelm you at the beginning. I will not refund the game to support you, but hopefully the next title will be more in the direction of the predecessors, preferably in the same universe, too.

Made me dizzy. No clear directions, annoyed the hell out of me.

"Murderous Muses" is a short (2-3h per playthrough) but replayable detective-style puzzle game focused on short video clips with real actors (FMV). It features an interesting narrative with cosmic horror elements, deliciously weird characters, and many surprises, but the graphics outside of the FMV content are extremely crude. [h2]1. Story & Setting[/h2] You play the single night guard of an art gallery that exhibits paintings of an artist who was murdered a year ago. While the circle of suspects could be narrowed down to the six people he last painted portraits of, the killer never got caught. As you spend your nights in the gallery, the paintings come to life and seem to show you memories of the artist, mainly snippets of conversations that he had with the models. These conversations are short, and you never hear the artist himself. Often they start as a response to something that the artist may have said. They cover a wide range of topics, and you'll gradually unveil that almost all characters have something to hide. Also, over time, elements of cosmic horror are gradually seeping into the game. You'll never see anything scary or even just supernatural, but the information that you get about the characters and the small island they inhabit make it very clear that these are far from "normal" people and places. After three nights, the game will end and you get the opportunity to accuse one of the suspects of murdering the artists, based on the information you have learned throughout the game. Some elements of the story are randomized and every suspect could end up being the killer. I found the characters very interesting, and enjoyed replaying the game several times until I had unveiled their complete story arcs. The horror elements are skillfully wrought into the story and contribute to an eerie (though never frightening or scary) atmosphere. The writing succeeds in portraying the characters' emotions and delivering the occasional witticism, even though it is mostly focused on providing information. [h2]2. Gameplay & Mechanics[/h2] The game is effectively one big "whodunit" puzzle, with a few optional puzzles on the side. There's also a "collectathlon" element to seeing all the videos, which should appeal to completionists. It's a bit hard to talk about this game's mechanics because one reason why I had so much fun with it, is that I deliberately ignored the instructional in-game "Stuck? Keep watching..." video and experimented with the environment to figure things out myself. After unraveling the game's puzzle structure, it does become rather formulaic and potentially less enjoyable. I therefore recommend watching this video only if you're really stuck, and I don't want to spoil anyone's enjoyment, so I'll remain vague here. The game is divided into three nights. Each night, you'll have the opportunity to hear the suspects talk about several topics, which are somewhat randomized. You're supposed to figure out how to obtain information from specific subjects about specific topics, and once you do, you get additional information that will help you find the killer. However, hearing a suspect's thoughts consumes a limited resource called "eyes", and you won't be able to ask everyone about everything in a single playthrough. Additionally, you will have to remove one of the six suspects for each of the last two nights, i.e. one of them will not be available for "questioning" (but you get to choose which one). There are optional puzzles in the game that give you more "eyes" and access to more information. These are very easy, but get repetitive very quickly, as there's only a handful of them and you'll see three different ones in each playthrough. Another optional puzzle revolves around assigning other paintings to spaces with their names during daytime, this is also very easy - especially since you need only about 3 playthroughs to see all the paintings and learn the correct associations. After the third night, you will (if you played well) have accumulated enough knowledge to safely determine the killer, whom you can then accuse. This ends the game. If your accusation was wrong, then the real killer gets revealed. The game offers good replayability by randomizing the killer, the crucial information that will reveal them, and some of the topics you can "ask" about. There are also a few secrets to discover. The "infinite replayability" mentioned in the product description is, however, an exaggeration. Once you've understood the game's puzzle structure (which shouldn't take more than 3 playthroughs), you'll always know what to do in order to reliably find the murderer. Though if you're interested in finding all the juicy little details, then this can keep you engaged for another dozen playthroughs, but you'll then see a lot of repetition. A special area in the game tracks how much you have revealed about each character and what you might still be missing, it also offers you a way to view statements about related topics in chronological order. [h2]3. Graphics & Presentation[/h2] The FMV clips are competently filmed and acted. Visually there's not a lot to them, as most of them just show a person sitting on a green couch and talking into the camera, but the characters, their clothing, and their make-up are very distinct. The game also mixes things up a bit by varying the suspects' postures, as well as the viewing distance and camera angle. However, the gallery - a 3D environment that you move around in between the video clips - is horribly crude. With its muddy, detail-less textures and primitive lighting, it looks like a 3D game from more than 20 years ago. I'm not too fond of the paintings either - the filter that was used to create the painterly style, removes contrast and distorts the image so much that I often couldn't determine what exactly I'm looking at in my inventory, even on a 43" monitor. The sound effects are fairly primitive as well, but they get the job done and fit the respective action. There is background music, but I found it too obtrusive and a bit annoying as time went on, so I muted it. The actors generally deliver good performances, though there wasn't much opportunity to truly shine since there's no interaction and barely any dramatic scenes. Some elements might be a bit overdone, but I think they still fit the atmosphere. [h2]4. Usability & Accessibility[/h2] The game's settings include selectors for resolution and screen mode, a vsync toggle, sliders for FOV and brightness, and a head bob toggle. Bloom, chromatic aberration, and ambient occlusion can be toggled on or off individually. Four separate volume sliders are provided. Subtitles can be switchen on or off, and changed in size (but not color or background). The game is controlled with mouse and keyboard. Unfortunately there is no way to rebind keyboard controls. Movement is fixed to WASD, not even arrow keys work. Your input never needs to be particularly quick or precise, but this is still a deplorable omission in an otherwise well-rounded product. All video clips are skippable (a crucial feature for FMV games), and most can be repeated as well. There is only one save state, which gets overwritten automatically whenever you take an action. [h2]5. Conclusion[/h2] I liked this game a lot and recommend it to fans of puzzle games, slow-burning cosmic horror, and full-motion video, provided that they can accept the very crude implementation of the 3D world. The game currently has "Mixed" reviews, and I think that's underselling it - but I can understand where this is coming from. The lack of explicit handholding (which I appreciated) apparently left many players confused as to what to do, though the in-game instructional video (added in a recent patch) should address that. Additionally, the inclusion of a crude 3D world, by developers cherished for traditional FMV games, may have caught many fans on the wrong foot. But I think it's definitely worth a shot.

I wish I could recommend this game, as I've enjoyed the other games from this studio, but I unfortunately can't. Most of the game was enjoyable, and the acting is great (just like all of the games by this studio), but what did it in for me was the game mechanics. More specifically the one of the blood orbs. Having only a VERY limited amount to spend on each of the suspects over the course of three nights was nowhere near enough. If you're like me, you only get to see about a quarter of what the characters have to say before you get to the end of the third night. By then you don't have enough info to make a guess on who the culprit is, pretty much making you have to stab in the dark. It also didn't help that at the beginning of night two and three you were forced to select one paint to give to Sasha. Meaning you were locked out of viewing that painting for the night. Either there should've been more orbs to spend, or have us spend a few extra nights there instead. In a whodunit game like this, mechanics like that really hold it back and prevent the player from piecing it together without any substantial evidence. I guess it makes for good replay value though?

I played this for about 90 minutes, really trying to get into it, but I'm not having fun. I actually enjoyed the start of the game the most, weirdly enough, despite the lack of FMV's. Things made sense and I got a bit invested in the lore. But after getting to the dream world and making it to the part where you put up paintings to watch FMV clips, it stopped being fun. It works like this: You put up paintings from one of the six(?) main characters on the wall. There's a lot of places where you can place them, and there's a one word description under each place, like "murder" or "desire", and you will then view a short FMV from that character related to that word. After you remove the painting the word under it changes to another word. You can place and remove the same painting like six times, and then it goes back to the original word. Why it works like this is beyond me. There's several galleries to put up paintings in and you can find the same word multiple times in different places. That's not the only confusing aspect of this game. Before you got to the gallery you had to solve a puzzle. I'm not sure what this puzzle was supposed to be about, but I did solve it by just clicking on things. I put up the same painting on the wall multiple times. I got a red orb. I restored the painting (whatever that means) and got a key for some reason. Puzzle solved! There's also a lot of weird buttons to press later on in the gallery that didn't make sense to me. There's more restoring of paintings (I think), and orb, and I don't know. But the main reason why I can't keep playing is because the story is out of order. Some people might like this approach, to piece the story together by their own, but for me it's too much. You can see one character talk about events and people that I know nothing aobut, and the only way to find out more is to watch more random FMV's, and they in turn contains even more information I have to keep track on. I have to rewatch these FMV's over and over in hope of understanding anything. That's the main reason why I can't get into games like "Her Story". I think stories in general can be hard to put together by their own, with events and characters you have to learn about and puzzle together along the way. When everything is completely out of order I have a hard time keeping track. Re-watching clips over and over isn't fun to me. This combined with the clunky interface and unfun puzzles made me realize that this game isn't for me. I've liked all other games D'Avekki has made, so I'm pretty disappointed with the way this one turned out.