The Deed
You play as Arran Bruce, part of a noble dynasty which goes back hundreds of years, and you’ve returned to the family home, Dunshiel House. It’s a place which doesn’t hold many happy memories for you growing up. It’s a miserable night, the raining is siling down and you’ve got to face your family whom you’ve not seen for many years. It’s your father’s fiftieth birthday but it’s not the real reason you’ve decided to come back to the family home.
– Real player with 7.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Detective Crime Games.
Meet the Bruce family. Son, Arran, soon to be disinherited (usurped by his sister) with murder on his mind. Father, Malcolm, violent tempered, oppressive, abusive. Mother, Gloria, in deep and utter denial of the dysfunctional Bruce family. Sister, Jennifer, violent, cruel, insane and about to die. Dunshiel House staff: one butler and one maid/cook.
A classic “who-dun-it” from the murder’s point of view.
Storyline: Estranged Arran Bruce returns home for his father’s 50th birthday with the sole purpose to murder his sister, Jennifer. Motive: Money, of course. The father, Malcolm, is about to disinherit him in favor of his sister. The question is: How to commit murder and still walk away a free man. 10 murder weapons, and 5 other people who can take the blame, assuming one does not get caught. Of course, there is always the “mysterious” intruder too. (Lizzie Borden will have good company if one manages that.)
– Real player with 5.2 hrs in game
Please close the doors
Very underrated masterpiece
Amazing story
Very well written
Choices matter
Very high replayability
Lots of small glitches, some of them ruin an experience a bit.
Glitches like incorrect character skin for for second, uses skin from another character.
Sometimes one line of text is in russian. Not that it’s not translated, but it’s glitched cause redoing conversations fixes it.
There is one place in game, there if I choose to be in Oleg’s side, black screen happens, the only fix is to talk to any character(but you have to find them while screen is black and most characters won’t talk at a time…)
– Real player with 6.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Detective Indie Games.
As a Muslim it was very disrespectful to stoop down and bring an Arab character as a terrorist, it is quite an outdated and offensive stereotype. I wish so badly I could refund this game with horrible writing, flat characters, unoriginal art and music, and default rpgm system. RPGM is a great program that can be used in many ways to tell a story, but with games like this that makes people look down on the engine. Dont waste your money.
– Real player with 5.0 hrs in game
Silver Creek Falls: Chapter 2
This one suffers from the same problems as the first game, only this one costs money. I would only recommend it on sale, and if you want to see where the story ends up (Spoiler alert: I finished Walsingham Files - Chapter 2 and you STILL don’t have any sort of good sense of ‘things are wrapped up’)
Also, the dev has a serious thing for solving the puzzles with obscure facts (mostly military) that you need to research OUTSIDE the game for. This is prevalent in the entire series. The cipher puzzle is also so poorly explained it took a Math teacher to help us and even he was scratching his head a bit. It was a decent puzzle, but the explanation was so out there, it made it HARDER to solve.
– Real player with 10.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Detective Indie Games.
TL;DR: Mystery crime adventure is a decent sequel to Chapter 1 but lacks focus.
I’ll keep this as spoiler-free as possible.
Chapter 2 starts where the free-to-play Chapter 1 (my review here ) ends: mysteries of murder and disappearances abound at Silver Creek Falls. Sara Fitzgerald gets reassigned to the case, this time with a laid-back FBI Special Agent Valdez.
– Real player with 7.2 hrs in game
Detective Failure
Might not be a looker but it’s a highly enjoyable game. I can’t say much not to spoil anything in this very short game (1 up to 2 hours) but it delivers. I enjoyed it and came to one of many possible endings.
– Real player with 3.4 hrs in game
Pretty fun little murder mystery game, lots of hidden things to uncover
– Real player with 1.9 hrs in game
The Deed: Dynasty
Apparently, the Bruce family is just plain murderous, and somehow they’ve managed to pass their bloodlust along to subsequent generations. TDD improves upon the original game by offering three different scenarios that take place in different time periods. As with the original game, your goal is to successfully murder your target while framing someone else for the crime. Talking to different people and examining your surroundings provides you with the information you need in order to get away with murder; it’s just a matter of selecting the right evidence/murder weapon and bringing everything together during questioning.
– Real player with 23.0 hrs in game
The Deed is a murder mystery, except this time you’re the Murderer and you have to get away with it! If you enjoy the idea of making the perfect kill, evading and fooling the police and getting away scott free, then you should take a closer look at this game.
This release was a quite a suprise to me, I enjoyed the first game, but never expected a sequel. Fortunately its a good suprise, and anyone who enjoyed the first game will enjoy this game, with more refined gameplay and three scenarios to play instead of one.
– Real player with 20.7 hrs in game
Silver Creek Falls - Chapter 3
TL;DR: The conclusion of the mystery crime adventure trilogy, with about 2 hours of playtime.
I’ll keep this as spoiler-free as possible. I will do some references to the first and second Chapters and spoiler-tag as necessary.
DISCLAIMER: This review is likely biased in some way since I was a beta tester in the late phase of the development. This means that I saw the main product a couple of weeks before the release and produced a log of bugs I found. I put out writing this review for a long time because of the fact but I think my opinion can still be valuable to a potential buyer and does not conflict with my relation with the developer, whom I asked whether it’s okay for me to write one.
– Real player with 9.3 hrs in game
I watched the Let’s Plays of Chapter 1 and 2 of this series on YouTube and it looked like so much fun that I decided to buy Chapter 3 myself so that I could have the pleasure of finishing the story at my own pace. As you know, adventure games are all about story, and you won’t be disappointed with this installment in the series. It has that same pulp mystery movie feel to it that Chapter 1 and 2 has!
I have to say that I was surprised with the ending! Even though a lot of it gets explained very quickly at the grand finale I was pretty satisfied overall, that is until they had the cliffhanger after the credits!
– Real player with 3.8 hrs in game
Dead Dreams
This is more of a neutral review.
Interesting game, seems like it has some good ideas and promise, though I personally found it difficult to keep track of all the details of what was going on. Like I got a vague idea of the story… Apparently there are 3 endings but I’m not motivated enough to check them out.
– Real player with 7.6 hrs in game
Listen, if you play this game. Play it for an hour or two, and stop. Just stop. The game starts uniquely frightening–despite the exaggerated loud noises everywhere–I’ll give them that they have excellent disturbing imagery and characters you would see in your nightmares.
Beyond that, I absolutely hate the story, yet I know nothing about it. I played this game fully, read aloud all of the dialogue–despite the frequent misspellings and “it is damn”. But I can’t figure out what happened in this story. And if I wanted to go back and try to figure it out, I can’t. Why? Because one of the three endings I got cleared my saves. All of them. Correction, if I load the one save it has left for me, it’s the credits. You will beg for the credits the entire last hour of the game hoping “oh god, is it over yet?” I just don’t know what this story is. Outside the horror elements, it reminds me of a fantasy a 13 year old would write after playing Silent Hill and watching the Matrix.
– Real player with 6.3 hrs in game
Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3
This quickly became one of my favorite RPG’s as well as my personal favorite game in the PAA series, and with good reason. There’s quite a lot I’d like to say, so let’s get to it.
The game takes place 2 weeks after the events of Episode 2, but what’s neat is that you don’t need to have played it to understand the story going into Episode 3, as they immediately give you a summary of prior events upon talking to one of the statues in the Detective Agency. That alone makes Episode 3 easy to pick up and play, and the gameplay will keep you around for the long haul.
– Real player with 105.9 hrs in game
This game was an enjoyable throwback to 16bit turn based RPGs, but with a twist. They improved the combat system by adding some complexity without making it overly complicated. Since the core of all these turned based RPGs is mostly how well and fulfilling the combat is, the majority of this review will go over that section in detail to give you a greater understanding of how the game plays. I broke down the review in bold sections so you can read what is most important or what is most interesting to you in order of importance.
– Real player with 16.2 hrs in game
Black Chapter
I did like this game quite a bit. 7/10 if I had to put a number on it. 8/10 if it were longer. The game does a fair job of making you like most of the characters at least a bit. The story is interesting enough, and does a good job keeping you guessing as to what is going on in the big picture. I think the only real flaw I can think of is more of a game design pet peeve. The ending you get is largely, if not entirely dependent on your final decision. I like it a lot more when choices throughout the game determine the ending, rather that the final scene being the game changing moment for the whole story. Still though, it’s a good game, creepy enough, fun to play, good story. Would recommend.
– Real player with 8.0 hrs in game
Really fun game,clever puzzles without being frustrating or way too easy (looking at you skyrim) a whodunit kind of plot with Phoenix Wright/Danganroppa style interludes in between puzzle sections,did scare me quite a few times and the overwall plot of what happened in the monastery in the past and how it relates to what is happening now i really enjoyed.
Its Fairly short ate around 2:30ish hours depending on how well you do with the puzzles but its well made,no boring padding and barely any backtracking trough previous areas,maps feel cleverly designed with its connection to previously visited areas trough new entrances,it is a simple game but a very well made one,highly recommend
– Real player with 8.0 hrs in game
The Deed II
Overall, this is an excellent game with a lot of replay value. The only criticism I have of this game is that it is way too hard. No matter how many times I’ve played it, I only get the convicted, killed, or unsolved ending. I have yet to been able to frame anybody else and I have no idea why. Also if you want to commit the crime in the backyard while Frank is taking a whiz, you have to act fast. I mean ridiculously fast. I wish they would give you even just 5 more minutes before he steps outside.
– Real player with 34.2 hrs in game
Definitely enjoyed this installation of the series. It was fun and challenging trying to figure out the various ways to get away with murder (should you choose that path). I would have enjoyed a bit more depth in the main character’s story but understand why it’s a bit abrupt. There was a lot of characters in this game and all had very interesting backgrounds (some more than others). I am a big fan of games that allow for various endings, and this one offers it in a short, bittersweet way (as no ending is truly “good”). I loved the setting of the game and thought it was also well done (although, like the MC’s background, there really isn’t much to it).
– Real player with 24.2 hrs in game