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The perfect Poirot game, part five

Posted on July 2, 2025 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

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?

My perfect detective game, part four

Posted on July 1, 2025 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

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.