Clue: Murder By Death Review – Clunky Teamwork Mystery

Clue: Murder By Death is a detective game developed and published by Cocodrolo Games. You have been requested to solve the recent murder of Lord Anderson. Scotland Yard is arriving in two hours and you must find the murderer before then. Work with two assistants that help you explore a large mansion to find the right clues, put the story together and discover the murderer depending on what you find. Your investigation is open-ended; search any clues or leads that you want. This lets you decide what obstacles you want to overcome or which areas should be prioritized, making the detective experience feel really immersive.

Choosing your assistants is also crucial; they each have unique conversation options with the suspects or helpful tools. They are also necessary to carry important items since inventory space is limited. For example, the housekeeper or the butler have special keys that unlock doors you normally can’t access. Other assistants, like the mysterious Mr. D can get different conversations from individuals that aren’t related to a detective’s interrogation. These conversations give you new avenues for finding clues or leads to investigate. You have many assistants to choose from, giving you a variety of combinations to investigate however you like.

The only constraint is that you have two real-life hours to solve the mission. Time doesn’t pass during conversations or when you pick up/combine items, but you can’t do everything. Depending on your efforts, you might find certain clues that allow you to pursue one of several endings. Having the freedom to investigate however you like and attain different endings encourages experimentation. Replaying the game and seeing new leads or clues keeps gameplay fresh.

Unfortunately the freedom to explore comes with a cost as the game doesn’t record what you should do next. You must mentally track what objectives you are pursuing or have a method of taking notes. Object locations, interactable objects, and even character locations aren’t tracked on a map. If you don’t have a way to organize information, it’s easy to waste time forgetting what your next task is.

There’s also no hint system to guide you in the right direction. While this keeps the immersive experience of doing the work yourself, it also means you don’t have help if you are stuck. Your only option is to explore the entire mansion and hope that something comes together. It’s also not clear what objects are used for at first, forcing you to find a situation that might support what you find. It encourages experimentation but also wastes time while you try everything you can think of.

Tracking suspects and monitoring object locations is also difficult to do with the map. One of the game’s strengths is that the suspects move around the mansion during an investigation. However, the map never tracks a suspect’s position, meaning you can’t rely on the map to find them. This also applies to objects you find/leave around as you must memorize their locations. It’s a lot of mental work to track everything while hoping your suspects don’t move.

The UI isn’t helpful since character names aren’t shown, making it hard to remember who you were talking to. Reading text is also frustrating since the game uses a pause/play method to display text, slowing down how fast you can read. Directions can also be unclear because the cardinal directions aren’t represented clearly. Some walls also look like room entrances, making it difficult to know if there’s more areas to explore or you are hitting a wall.

All the frustrations come together to make Clue: Murder By Death tougher to play than expected. While it is nice to solve the mystery yourself, the process is frustrating to get through. You must continually check your map to move around and take notes to ensure you know what to do. Suspects move around and you might end up searching for them more than any clue. Without any changes, the frustrations make it hard to proceed unless you are dedicated.

Clue: Murder By Death emphasizes cooperation by utilizing the strengths of the detective and their two assistants. Every action counts and multiple endings increase replayability. However, the controls feel clunky as you can easily bump into or over objects, and it’s difficult to identify who you are talking to or narrow down your next move. This is a fun mystery to solve but the challenge mostly comes from the slow pace, clunky movement, and unclear objectives.

Victor reviewed Clue: Murder By Death on PC with a provided review code. This review is based on the version of the game available at the time of writing and will not be changed.