Underneath my yellow skin

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The perfect Poirot game, part five

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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?


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My perfect detective game, part four

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I’m still looking for the perfect detective game. I recently talked about two that were great, but with notable flaws (especially Murders on the Yangtze River (OMEGAMES STUDIO)).I know that there is no way to make a perfect anything, but I think I could come close. Here is my last post about the subject, which I wrote a few days ago.

Hercule Poirot is my favorite fictional detective. There are many things so wrong with the books (and the TV series), but I manage to overlook that as I read/watch (classism, racism, homophobia, sexism, etc.). I will say that I get frustrated when the TV series strays too far from the books, but I recgonize tha tthey are two very different things.

I will say, though, that we do not need another Poirot played by a British actor. David Suchet was the Platonic ideal of Poirot, and no one can do it better. I have not seen the Branagh movies, but I winced at the overacting in the trailers.

Honestly, the only thing I want is a series from his younger years when he was on the Belgian police force, and I want Poirot to be played by an actual Belgian actor. There is one case that was set back in those days, and it would be a great way to start off the series. Or end it. Either way, it’s one of the only cases in which Poirot will admit to making a mistake. It’s called The Chocolate Box, and the TV series did do a version of it. Would not mind another if, as I said, Poirot is played by a Belgian actor.

I have read every novel at least three times, and some of them up to dozens of time. I’ve watched the entire series six or seven times as well. I have seen every movie prior to the Branagh ones. I will say the worst one was the Molina one, through no fault of his own. It was set in modern (for that time) times, which meant cell phones, laptops, and pdas. And they changed the roles of several of the characters to make them more modern as well. They had a stellar cast, but that was wasted by the horrible script.

I will say, though, that the Poirot version is probably one of the weaker episodes of the series as it changes the ending severely in a way that was very off-putting. Still. He was amazing in it as always.

Fun fact: David Suchet played Chief Inspector Japp in the Peter Ustinov version of Thirteen at Dinner. For some unimaginable reason, the director decided he should be eating all the time. It was fun to see him in that role, but, of course, he’s much better as Poirot.


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What I want an a detective game, part three

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I have been musing about detective/mystery games for the past week or so because I’ve been obsessed with them lately. Here is my post from yesterday in which I griped about more things I hate in detective games.

In this post, I’m going to try to focus more on what I want from a detective game, not what I don’t want. But, there will be some of the latter because it’s unavoidable. At least for me. I tend to think of things in terms of what I don’t want. It helps me discard the chaff and focus on the wheat.

What I want, what I really really want.

1. Characters that I really care about. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, there was a character who really touched my heart. When they turned out to be the murderer, I felt so bad for them. I did not want to turn them in, but I knew I had to.

By the way, I was given three choices of how to present the evidence. I picked two of them, thinking they would be gentler than just turning them in. Joseph (the prrosecutor) told me that those were not acceptable, so I chose the third one. It turned out to be the most lenient of all, but I had no way of knowing that just by reading the choices.

I was lamenting about this yesterday, and I will continue now. Why am I given choices if there really is only one correct choice? And, while I’m happy that I don’t get a penalty for choosing the wrong one, it makes the choice meaningless.

2. To put it in a more positive way, give me meaningful choices, but ones that don’t have an objective right and wrong answer. Yes, I know that the point of detective games is to ferret out the truth, but there can be room for gray, right?

3. Simplified deductions. I don’t want elaborate or tortuous trains of thoughts that are the mental equivalent of ‘combine a piece of yarn, a tire iron, a broom, and a can of pop to make a key’. I still love Murders on the Yangtze River (OMEGAMES Studio), but I love it despite itself. It can’t help being a big ol’ pain in the ass when it comes to laborious inferences and obscure clues that make no sense.

Or, if it the devs have enough money, then I would be down with them having two ways to solve things. One, the elaborate, fifteen-step deduction that takes greater leaps of faith than I am capable of making. Two, simple, clear steps with maybe just a few twists that are juuuust hard enough to make me feel clever.


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Seeking the perfect detective game, part two

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I have played more of Murders on the Yangtze River (OMEGAMES Studio), and while I still enjoy it muchly, there are more things that are irritating me. Such as the fact that they introduce new mechanics without explaining them. Or give a very brief explanation that doesn’t really tell you what to do. Here’s my post from yesterday. I was planning to talk today about what I do want in a detective game, but we’ll see if I actually get there.

Oh, and when I went to check my achievements in game, all the ones I unlocked playing the demo unlocked for real. Since I was fretting about having to go back and doing them again, I was glad that happened.

Side note: I have a pet peeve with indie games that I fear will never be resolved. I have mentioned it many times, but I want to moan about it again. It’s bad gameplay in a game that isn’t focused on gameplay. Seriously. I would rather have no gameplay than shitty gameplay.

I mention this because there was a truly atrocious bit in Murders on the Yangtze River that had me cursing. Chung-ping is doing some research, and it stretches on for hours. He falls asleep and has a nightmare. I learn a bit more about his childhood (and it’s truly horrific), and then I have to navigate his nightmare. It’s him as a small child running away from the giant face of his father, crying, as his father devours him.

There’s a maze as it were in the library where I am. And as my father is chasing me, I have to navigate around tables, piles of books, etc. It’s up/down arrows or W/S, but there’s a micro-second of delay between input and action. And if you get snagged on an obstacle, you cannot untangle yourself fast enough to get away from the giant face. So, basically, you have to memorize where the obstacles are. This goes on for several rooms with no chance to save anywhere. And there is no skipping it.

It was incredible to me that the reason I might have to stop playing the game was a shitty maze. Honestly, I may knock a whole point off my mental score for the game because of this and other bad mechanics. Fortunately, I managed to memorize the layout (not easy either given how shitty my memory is now), but it left such a sour taste in my mouth.

I want to say that it’s because of my motor skill issues. I’m sure other people did it easily, but I really wish devs would just put in a little skip button. I could not finish Stray (BlueTwelve Studio), a lovely game about a cat, because of the QTEs and bad platforming. I really wish they would have given me the option to skip the QTEs after, say, five tries or allowed me to hold down the button instead of madly tapping it.


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Chasing the dragon (the perfect mystery game)

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Since I’ve been on a mystery/detective game kick lately, I’ve been thinking about what I really want from a detective game. Many years ago, I tried several of the Sherlock Holmes games by Frogwares. They were highly-esteemed, and while I don’t particularly like Sherlock Holmes,  that was all that was available at the time. Oh, and the Ace Attorney games, but I did not gel with those when I tried them out. Maybe I’d like them better now, but I’m skeptical. In fact, one of the things introduced in the third chapter of Murders on the Yangtze River (OMEGAMES STUDIO) is debating. That’s when the accused person gets to debate you and say why you’re wrong. Again, it doesn’t really matter if you run out of attempts and fail because the game will just scold you and then put you back into it again.

However, one irritating thing is that you can’t skip the dialogue from the debate the second time around. So I’m angrily mashing space to get through it, and then sometimes, press space one time too many. I don’t understand it because they allow you to skip repeated dialogue elsewhere, so it’s not as if they don’t know how to do it.

Anyway, this debate thing reminds me of the parts of other detective games that irritate me (and that occurs in this game to a lesser extent in other areas of the game) in that the ‘logic’ isn’t logical to me. Some of the connections the game makes, especially in this section, are a stretch–at least for my brain.

That’s a big reason I did not like the Sherlock Holmes games. The logic was not logical. In fact, that’s how I felt about point-and-clicks in general. In those games, it was more like, “Pick up a ball of yarn, some lint, a worn-out shoe, and a pair of keys, combine them, and make a transistor radio!” It never made any sense, and what was even more irritating was when I would walk by something, knowing that I would have to pick it up at some time, but I could not pick it up then.

I have quit more than one game because of this, by the way. In detective games, you have to do some of that, but it’s more like ridiculous pretzel tying while deducing what is happening in a case. Sometimes, it’s the game presuming that the player has a ridiculous amount of knowledge in esoteric subjects. Or will be able to make leaps of faith that aren’t ludicrous.

Side note: I have to say that since these games are all very popular, I will concede that it might be that my brain just isn’t built to do logic in this way. Either other people can make connections I can’t, or they are having less qualms about looking shit up. By the way, I have looked up what other people think about point-and-clicks, and those who don’t like them stated the same reasons that I don’t like it: really convoluted and bizarre logic, having to combine random items to make another random item, and the UI.


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