I have more to say about my perfect detective game. In yesterday’s post, I hard-swung to why it had to be a Poirot game. Poirot is my favorite detective, and there has yet to be a good game based on him. Whatever I think of the Sherlock Holmes video games (and I think they’re horseshit), the world thinks very highly of them. And there are so many of them. I just checked. There are nine. Not as many as I thought, but still a lot. I have played over half of them, but only finished…one I think. I hated them, and I ‘m not saying that lightly.
But there are many. And they are beloved. I have no idea why Agatha Christie detectives have not been as celebrated. (Cough, sexism, cough cough.) Granted, Poirot has had many successful movies and TV shows (moreso than Miss Marple, I fear), but I don’t know why he hasn’t been as beloved in the video game world as Sherlock Holmes.
It’s difficult to create the perfect video game because I just do not like the traditional point-and-click genre that has been dubbed as the only way to go with detective games. I don’t know why in this particular genre, people have decided that innovation is over–well, actually, I do. Or at least I have a theory.
Here’s my theory. It’s not well-thought out, so stick with me as I muse about it.
Point-and-click detective games are pretty niche.
Huh. I was just looking up the Sherlock Holmes games, and apparently the most recent game that I thought was a remake is also a sequel to Chapter One (the game before it). So, Sherlock Holmes The Awakened, released in 2023, is not just a remake. Apparently, Chapter One was a reboot of the series, and The Awakened would have taken place later because Chapter One was about a young Holmes. I don’t know what to think about that so I’m going to ignore it for now.
I was talking about how niche point-and-click detective games are. Detective Duck: The Secret Salami (Happy Broccoli Games), a recent detective point-andclick, sold roughly 150,000 copies across platforms. Thimbleweed Park (Terrible Toybox), released in 2017, sold about 300,000 copies. Sherlock Holmes Crime & Punishment (Frogwares), released in 2014, had about the same number of sales (300,0000).
In contrast, the best-selling Call of Duty game (Black Ops III, many developers involved) sold 43 million copies. Is that a fair comaparison? Probably not, but it’s underscoring my point that point-and-click detective games are niche. Ha, I originally wrote cliched instead of niche. Freudian slip?
For a more reasonable comparison, Spiritfarer (Thunder Lotus Games), a game I loved so much, was an independent cozy game–by the way, I read somewhere that they considered it a platform game. Which is not how it’s described on Steam. There is platforming in it, but it’s horrible. I nearly quit because of it, but I’m really glad I soldiered through–that was an unexpected hit. It sold a million copies, which is terrific for a small, independent developer whose previous games–ok, I just checked. Their previous game, Jotun, also sold 1 million copies. Their first game, Sundered, sold around 300,000.
The wild thing about them is that each of their games is completely different than the one before it. Genre-wise, I mean. I did not like either Sundered or Jotun, so I was pleasantly surprised when I fell in love with Spiritfarer.
Wait a minute. Jotun was first. It was an action-adventure game (released in 2015). Sundered was released in 2017, and it was a Metroidvania. Spiritfarer in 2020 as a cozy, story-rich, life sim, and their next is 33 Immortals, which is a co-op (up to 33! people) action-roguelite.
At any rate, detective games are not big sellers–that’s my point. I think a good Poirot game could change that. Not to the tune of a million copies sold, but it might spark some interest.And if I’m going to do it, I’m going to go hard with the changes. As I said in the last post (or one of them), no pixel hunting, no tortuous logic, and no frustratingly opaque mini-games. No having to backtrack for ten minutes to get that item you OBVIOUSLY will need at some point.
I want to be create the Dark Souls of detective games because I’m tired of the old formula. Well, to be fair, I have enjoyed several detective games, but that’s because they dared to stray from the tired-and-true formula (and, yes, I mean tired and not tried). I cannot think of a single detective game that has all the elements I mentioned above that I have finished.
In the Poirot story I wrote, there was a lot of exposition. I mean, there kind of has to be for a mystery story. Not much description beacuse that is not my jam, but lots of setting up the plot. One of the fun things I had to do while writing the novel was research New York during that timeframe because it has changed quite a bit since then.
I also struggled a bit with the language of the time, at least the American English. I had no problem with Poirot since I’ve read/watched so much of it, but I’m not that well-versed as to early American history/English. I believe I set it during Prohibition times, which means no alcohol as well.
As I said in the last post, I would start with the plane ride over as the intro. Hm. I think one thing I would like to include are little puzzles based on Poirot facts. I’m not exactly sure how this would work, but maybe as a way to get tips. There was a game I played in which you earned tips by…I can’t remember how.
I like this idea. Maybe once every few scenes, a Poirot trivia screen could come up. If the player answers it correctly, then they get a tip. They will always have one tip per…something. I don’t know what, but I do not want to leave the player tipless. I relied so heavily on the tips during my recent playthroughs of The Roottrees Are Dead (Evil Trout Inc.) and Murders on the Yangtze River (OMEGAMES STUDIO), and I would have been frustrated if I had to earn them somehow.
Again, I think it’s a way to have a built-in difficulty mode. Anyone who doesn’t want to have tips can just ignore them and anyone who wants to hit the tip button constantly can.
That’s it for now. Probably one more post on this. I really want a good Poirot video game, and I know that the only way for it to happen is if I do it myself.