''Murder by Numbers'' is a video game developed by

Mediatonic Mediatonic Limited is a British video game developer based in London. The company was founded in September 2005 by Brunel University students Dave Bailey and Paul Croft, releasing their first game, ''Snowman Salvage'' in December that year. In ...

and published by The Irregular Corporation. It was released on March 5, 2020 for

Nintendo Switch The is a video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. Released in the middle of the Eighth generation of video game consoles, eighth generation of home consoles, the Switch succeeded the ...

and

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

, and on March 23, 2021 for Stadia. The game is a hybrid of

visual novel A visual novel (VN) is a form of digital interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with static or animated illustratio ...

s with

nonogram Nonograms, also known as Hanjie, Paint by Numbers, Griddlers, Pic-a-Pix, and Picross, are picture logic puzzles in which cells in a grid must be colored or left blank according to numbers at the edges of the grid to reveal a hidden picture. In ...

-style logic puzzles to progress the story.

Gameplay

The game follows TV actress-turned-detective Honor Mizrahi and her robot companion SCOUT as they find themselves involved in several murder cases. Presented in a

style, similar to the ''

Ace Attorney ''Ace Attorney'' is a visual novel franchise developed by Capcom. With storytelling fashioned after legal dramas, the first entry in the series, '' Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney'', was released in 2001; since then five further main series game ...

'' series, players are tasked with questioning witnesses and suspects and investigating areas for clues. Investigating brings up

puzzles, which the player must solve to uncover a piece of evidence, which can then be presented to witnesses to advance the story. These nonogram puzzles are solved similar to many other computer-based nonogram puzzles, giving the player the ability to mark spaces that should be filled and those that should be empty as a method to track their work and make deductions towards solving the puzzle. A player can make any number of mistakes as they progress without penalty in most puzzles, but may ask for hints towards a solution. Some sections will require the player to complete a series of smaller nonogram puzzles within a time limit and without using "empty space" markers or hints. The story is split into four cases, each with a Detective Rank that starts at F and increases as the player solves puzzles. Scoring enough points raises the rank and unlocks bonus puzzles outside of the main story, with more points awarded for not using hints. Earning an S rank in a case and clearing all of the unlocked bonus puzzles unlocks optional story sequences detailing SCOUT's backstory.

Plot

Set in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

in 1996, ''Murder by Numbers'' follows Honor Mizrahi, the co-star of the TV detective show ''Murder Miss Terri''. After she is fired from her job, she comes across SCOUT, a robot who was thrown away in a trash heap and has lost most of his memories. Honor discovers that the show's showrunner has been murdered. With SCOUT's help, Honor manages to solve the mystery behind the murder, but the murderer seemingly commits suicide. Honor soon finds herself involved in more murder mysteries, working alongside SCOUT to solve them as he tries to regain his lost memories.

Development

''Murder by Numbers'' was developed by

, an independent United Kingdom-based studio. The game was designed and written by '' The Swords of Ditto'' writer Ed Fear, with character designs by ''

Hatoful Boyfriend is a Japanese ''dōjin soft'' '' otome'' visual novel released in 2011 for Microsoft Windows and OS X, in which all the characters other than the protagonist are sentient birds. It was developed by manga artist Hato Moa's dōjin circle PigeoNa ...

'' creator Hato Moa. The game's musical score was composed by '' Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney'' composer Masakazu Sugimori, with singer-songwriter

Bright Light Bright Light Rod Thomas (born 30 October 1982), known professionally as Bright Light Bright Light, is a Welsh electro-pop singer, DJ, composer and producer based in New York City. Bright Light Bright Light incorporates many elements of nu-disco into his mus ...

providing vocals for the game's main theme. The game was released on the

on 5 March 2020, on

on 6 March 2020 and on Stadia on 23 March 2021.

Reception

''Murder by Numbers'' was generally well received by critics on both platforms, according to

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, and ''

Polygon In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure made up of line segments connected to form a closed polygonal chain. The segments of a closed polygonal chain are called its '' edges'' or ''sides''. The points where two edges meet are the polygon ...

'' included it in their feature on the best video games of 2020.

References

External links

* * {{vndb, 27484 2020 video games Detective video games Video games about murder Mystery video games Nintendo Switch games Nonograms Indie games Single-player video games Stadia games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Video games featuring female protagonists Video games set in 1996 Video games set in Los Angeles Visual novels Windows games Video games featuring black protagonists The Irregular Corporation games Mediatonic games