Scene Investigators

It's a fun way to spend a few hours, and I appreciate that it doesn't hold your hand, but even the first few cases have instances where you're just supposed to make a leap of logic to assume what happened, with absolutely no guarantee or indication that you're correct. The tiniest threads link some of these characters together and you're expected to see the illicit affair they were having, or ignore the 3,000 words of red herring filler text to pick up on the hint that 'X and Y both own tennis rackets!' which is apparently the key to cracking the case wide open. The leaps of logic it expects are a little unreasonable and they only get much worse as the game goes on. You will go down a dozen wrong routes before stumbling onto the correct one because so many of the clues rely on assumptions that you have no reason to make. It's worth a try, but get it on sale for at least 75% off.

I don't know.... some parts of the game were fun, but too many other parts felt like they expected me to make really drastic jumps in logic that I personally think didn't make a lot of sense. A lot of the time it just turned into a guessing game until I finally got the answers right. [spoiler] Best example was the case where I was supposed to figure out some pills belonged to the owner of the green purse because there was empty space in the purse?? Like, I just thought the purse wasn't full because in real life that happens. Am I going to be accused of murder because I don't fill up my purse to the brim???? [/spoiler] So more times than not, I just got frustrated trying to solve some of these cases.

Relies too heavily on assumptions based on absolutely nothing with no corroborating evidence at all to support some of these conclusions.

I really wanted to love this game. I waited forever to buy it on a decent sale and finally dig in and play it. After *The Painscreek Killings*, I was hoping for another immersive detective/deduction experience, but what I got was a very sterile, heavily confusing game. The idea is great, and the case stories are really good, but the way we’re supposed to find clues and work with them just didn’t do the trick. The UI is also very... weird? It just made it difficult to work and read through everything. There’s no indication that some questions can only be answered by returning to the case later in the game, and nothing makes getting everything right feel satisfying. It left me with a bitter taste... even acing the cases didn’t give me a sense of accomplishment. What a pity. At this point, I would have wished for a *Painscreek Killings Part 2* instead.

THIS GAME IS INCREDIBLE i want to every developer to know how much ive been waiting for something just like these since mystery gaming series like Nancy Drew. this game cuts straight to the chase. Boom you are there. Inspect your surroundings, take your own notes, and come up with your own conclusions WITH YOUR OWN LOGIC. I've play mystery, puzzle, or detective type games with my Mom since i could talk and this is by far our favorite of all time. Ignore the negative reviews, want something that holds their hand and they are not ace detectives ;)

I haven't played much of this because the little that I played so far requires frustrating assumptions that don't make a lot of sense. Spending an hour on one level without having the satisfaction of being confident in your answer is not fun, it becomes more tedious and harken back to the old point and click days where the puzzles just seem contrived. Maybe somebody much more into crime puzzles would like this, but for a casual such as myself I cannot recommend it. I do recommend the old TellTale CSI games for people more casual.

Игра по началу показалась довольно интересной, разбор улик в первых делах действительно вёл к разгадкам. Сам процесс игры затягивал, словно пробираешься через слои информации к истине. Но все положительные впечатления смазывает последнее дело. К ответу на финальный вопрос невозможно прийти логическим путём не потому, что он сложный и нужно быть внимательным, чтобы найти ответ, а потому что игра даёт 0 информации о случившемся, а в некоторых моментах путает. Даже ревью после того, как ответ был найден перебором, не проясняет ситуацию. Как, скажите мне, можно было понять, что кто-то кого-то заранее предупредил о происходящем, чтобы он ушёл, если об этом ни словом, ни намёком не упоминается? Всё, что касается последнего вопроса в финальном расследовании, взято с потолка и нечестно по отношению к игроку. Несколько часов привыкаешь к механике игры, чтобы в конце оказалось, что не улики нужно собирать, а играть в угадайку. Разве нельзя было добавить пару хотя бы косвенно наводящих на правильную мысль сообщений или записок? По итогу игра интересная и необычная, но последнее дело лучше вообще не открывать, чтобы не разочаровываться и не портить общее впечатление.

waste of 15$ the very first preliminary trial didn't even make any sense to me and already had me angry. there is no indication of who did what and its just stupid. based on the info given the answers you can eventually brute force to figure out the answers to the questions don't make sense when compared to the info you are given.

100% honest review. I will censor anything that could potentially spoil stuff. There are things I did like about this game. I liked that the cases were all different. It wasn't the same kind of case just slightly different. I got to go into it with a fresh mind and look on it and get to know the characters of that specific case. Graphics are quite nice. Glad I'm not moving like a sloth unlike the movement speed in their other game (I also played and reviewed that one). Overall, it was ok. I would say buy it on a sale though. I appreciate that this time there was an option to either have hints included or have it so you had to look around and observe to find evidence on your own. I chose option one as their other game was horrible when it came to help. But I'll talk more on this later. Things I didn't like;- I felt like some of the questions asked about the case I had to guess the answer. Which I guess I somewhat expected since it literally said sometimes you will have to trust your intuition. Which honestly? Awful idea. Because of the whole "trust your intuition", I was stuck on one casefile for an embarrassingly long time because there just wasn't enough info to 100% solidify your answer and know you have it right. Their "hint system" is awful. It literally only tells you if you have found all the evidence in a specific room. There is no hint to whether the evidence you found is actually going to be useful or not. I would have appreciated if the hint system would you know, give you hints towards finding out who did it, who was involved, who was there etc. Not give me a list of how many things can be found in a room. As seen by a few other people, which I fully agree with them on, their "trust your intuition" approach is just not good. Like what do you mean [spoiler]the lady who owns the green purse is the killer because there is an empty space in her bag where the tub of pills should have been? It's a woman's bag ffs![/spoiler] There was also a LOT of filler text in quite a few of the case files. At some points I got bored of reading people's life stories which was the worst thing I should have done, because it led me to miss that 4 word tiny bit of information to help the case. I just felt so lost. Even with the "hint system" and having every bit of evidence from every room, I still had no clue what was going on which led me in a massive circle re-reading everything about 20 times. This game had so much potential. It really did. But it just got frustrating/annoying after a while having to just guess answers and hope for the best. It's also, surprisingly, not as immersive as The Painscreek Killings. That game had quite a bit of immersion and atmosphere whereas this one was just: 1. Go into case 2. Run around and find clues 3. Guess almost every answer with lack of clues/evidence 4. Hope you're right 5. If you're wrong, go back and either re-read everything or guess new people/things. Honestly? If you like these kinds of games then go for it. But expect to get stuck fairly often.

I was really excited for this game and was enjoying it. The UI could use work and what's garnered as the 'hint' system isn't really hints, just a list of evidence you need to collect. There's no way for beginner, or even advanced puzzle solving players who want help or direction, to get any feedback on their answers being correct other than starting the level again. It messes with the pace and immersion with what they were trying to do with a 'detective diving into generated world to solve past cases' theme. However, that's not what ultimately made me decide to write this. This is: After the preliminary you are set to Floor 4 that has 3 cases. The 3rd case, room 403, is about a party with highschoolers. You find a paper that shows the deceased was accused of sexual assault/harassment and is suspended for investigation. I, as the player, would automatically believe the victim of the assault in this situation until more evidence arose. When I solved the case, I assumed Jack, the assault victim's brother, had killed Brian (the one murdered) as payback for what he did to his sister. Turns out, when you finish the chapter, you get an entire page about how the assault victim, Kristy, lied about being raped/assaulted because she was...jealous of his girlfriend??? The entire page reads like a "we have to be careful of allegations because we could ruin this young man's future". It's incredibly victim-blaming and gross. If they wanted to add a false allegation, whatever, but there was NO supporting evidence saying the SA/SH was a lie other than Brian's girlfriend, who already didn't like Kristy, calling her a liar. IN FACT, I'd say there's evidence pointing to the contrary: Kristy didn't show up to school for a week, that she filed a formal complaint and an investigation was launched and police were called, and she seemed timid in her police interview. No, you are just supposed to find out about the assault from the paper, hear of it through messages, and conclude it was a false allegation with no evidence. I, as the player, assumed it was true, or at least serious enough to warrant police involvement. If they wanted to show it was a false allegation, they should've shown hidden messages from Kristy, or an interview with Brian corroborating his alibi, not a jump in logic. Even still, that would've been a worse story than if the assault actually took place because it still feeds into the idea that false allegations are common enough to be represented in media regularly and undermines actual victims. No one is making serious accusations like that over a jealousy. If they are, its rare and undermines real SA victims. This trope feeds into the idea that SA and rape allegations shouldn't be taken seriously right away and should be questioned. It also perpetuates that false allegations are common enough and serious enough to be portrayed in media and can have dire consequences like murder. REAL ALLEGATIONS ARE RARELY INVESTIGATED. REAL PERPETRATORS ARE RARELY CONVICTED. This perpetuation of 'false allegations can hurt a young man' needs to stop. Believe women. After playing I read some other reviews and saw that a later story had some really disrespectful representation of someone with a mental illness committing mass murder just...because they're crazy. I don't know how true that is, but after the level I played, it wouldn't surprise me. I wont ever find out because I wont be playing the rest of this game. Overall, grossed out and disappointed in EQ studios.