Murder By Numbers - Blast Review
Developer: Mediatonic
Rrp: £11.99 (Gog.com, Humblebundle and Steam)
Picross, I'm sure you've heard of it.... well then you're doing better than I was when I started playing this game, I'd never heard of the damn thing. In a way I'm quite glad of that, if I had I would have entered this game with a preconceived notion that I doubt would have been fair to it. It has to be said though that if you can't stand picross you aren't going to enjoy this game as it features lots and lots of puzzles to solve.
This game is a murder mystery visual novel. So you might be wondering where the picross comes into it? Well to help solve your the murders you have a floating robot named Scout. He's entertaining, somewhat troubled and extremely useful at finding things like clues. He scans the area and once he finds the clue you have to complete a picross puzzle(which I just found out are called nonogram logic puzzles) to create a pixel art version of an item that was found. As you play the puzzles will get more and more complex starting from a simple 5x5 grid and building up to 15x15 and more.
Most of the characters, particularly in the main cast, are great to interact with and each gets their moment to shine in the various cases you solve. Sure, one or two initially seem to be stereotypes but once you get past that initial impression you find some deeply flawed and well written characters. I won't say that I grew to care them overly, that's the flaw of having the puzzles appear so often it snaps you out of whatever emotional connection you were making.
In a way I'm a little saddened by the fact that I'm pretty sure this game will never get a sequel, at least not any time soon. Not because it doesn't deserve one but simply because Mediatonic hit the jackpot a few months later with Fall Guys. And I doubt they'll be dropping that success anytime soon. It really is a shame though as there was some real talent that worked on this game such as the composer Masakazu Sugimori who has created music for Phoenix Wright and Ghost Trick.
If you get the chance to pick this game up I highly recommend it, its surprisingly chill.
