Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders
Mar. 13th, 2024 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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pauraque prompted me to react to the ABC Murders or The Dig. I picked the ABC Murders since I am feeling the kind of sore and stupid today where a puzzle game would be a fun distraction. Also, the reason I bought the ABC murders in the first place was as research for a vague idea I had to turn some out of copyright murder mystery into a computer game myself (this story isn't out of copyright yet but some of her other works are), so it'll be fun to analyse it from that perspective as well.
So! Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders is a 2016 Unity puzzle game based on the 1936 murder mystery novel by Agatha Christie. From Wikipedia: The initial premise is that a serial killer is murdering people with alliterative names. The murders follow an alphabetical order, starting with a victim whose initials were A. A, and appear to lack a motive.
It was updated a little in 2020 and if often on deep sale for like $2.
I'll put major spoilers under an internal cut, so the mystery can stay fun for anyone who's unfamiliar with it.
I've played through investigating the first crime scene, and it's moderately fun so far! I had to suspend my disbelief slightly for some of the inserted puzzles but overall it's a pretty enjoyable and not too difficult mystery game, in terms of both gameplay and story.
CW: Domestic violence, more in the game itself than my post.
I read a bunch of Agatha Christie as a teen 30ish years ago and watched a bunch of the Poirot tv series with David Suchet back when that was new, but can't remember if I ever encountered The ABC Murders. But rereading the summary just now I was reminded of having seen discussion of one of the Big Twists as part of a general discussion of clever twists. I won't spoil it here in the first paragraph and will put it under a new cut when it comes up.
If you're not familiar with Poirot, he's very clearly a riff on Sherlock Holmes. My vague memory: Poirot is an eccentric and arrogant Belgian former policeman, who plays up his fussy foreignness so people with underestimate him. He has a good heart deep down and likes helping people, but also enjoys showing up the (in his opinion) inferior British Police. He has a good natured and earnest but not super bright housemate/assistant/friend Hastings, an ex-soldier who follows along on his adventures, and the conceit of many Poirot stories is that they're biographical non-fiction written by Hastings.
I have a soft spot for Poirot, he's so cheerfully weird and unashamedly foreign in the repressive xenophobic society of early 20th century England. And while he's obviously an exotified stereotype, I don't feel too bad about the exotification of Belgians. I read an out of copyright Poirot short story when I was pondering my game making options, he and Hastings were even shippier than I remembered, which I would definitely lean into if I made a game about them. So here's hoping for shipping fodder in this game too :)
I actually played a tiny bit of this game already, but decided I wan't in the mood for it at the time. But I'll start a new game since I can't remember the couple of clues I picked up last time. Hmm, looks like I can't easily switch back and forth between the game and this text file, guess I'll have to write my reactions in chunks.
For a 2016 game it doesn't look too bad, it's a flat-shaded cartoony style with nice art deco aesthetics and soundtrack. Lets see how long I can actually stand having that soundtrack on before the looping annoys me and I turn it off haha.
We start with some cutscenes to set the mood. Everyone's a little 2016-Unity-model floppy but the voice acting, cinematography, and character designs carry things along ok.
There's no narrator except for some internal thoughts from Poirot and hints about gameplay from the game. I don't know if this was one of the books with Hastings narration, maybe I'll check it out to compare later.
Poirot gets a letter from a mysterious "ABC" with some taunting about how they have a Puzzle for the Clever Clogs to solve in a few days.
Cam just came in and when I told him what I was playing went "I can't remember, was it all about killing someone with B initials?" and I pointed out I HADN'T TOLD HIM I KNEW THE TWIST, bad Cam.
I find it interesting that by 1936 the Serial Killer Taunts Detective With Clues narrative was apparently established enough for Christie to be able to assume readers would just accept it without question, since otherwise her subversion wouldn't work.
We see a kinda snidely whiplash-y looking man circling something in an ABC train guide. Is this the villain?? Haaa, but I'm so bad with faces I'll probably not even recognise him when he shows up again.
I see that, unlike some adaptations, they didn't change Inspector Japp's name to something less slur-ish...
The loading screen helpfully told me I get Ego Points for acting "like Poirot" which is adorable. Also the loading symbol has a little moustache in the centre.
There's a little tutorial on reading people: you move the mouse over someone until it zooms in on a Clue.
Ha and now I remember the two things I found off putting about this game last time I tried: Not being sure if there's ever time pressures (I hate time pressure) and it not having a "save" function, just a "quit" button that doesn't make it clear if it will save or if there's a save button I just didn't notice.
But! Looks like the Quit button is the save button. And I guess I'll just act as if there's no time pressure until some reveals itself.
First mystery: A woman with the initials A.A. has been murdered! Was it her abusive ex husband? They're German immigrants, hopefully the story's not too weird about that.
Ok, time to force myself to stop worrying about Missing Clues and just poke around the crime scene. Turns out the game thus far is pretty kind, if there's a clue to be found the cursor turns into an eyeglass symbol and there's a moderate margin for error. And when you're looking at something or someone specific, it lists how many clues there are to find and waits until you find them all.
So thus far it's more like a hidden object game than anything else. But I'm sure I'll have to put some thought into Combining Clues eventually.
Hmm, sometimes the generous clicking area means it's hard to tell when you're mousing over a new clue and not one you've already seen.
HA. So the first section of clue gathering is pretty realistic, but then some further clues are hidden inside multiple Intricate Wooden Puzzle Boxes this struggling tobacconist apparently owned. I'm going to assume I shouldn't try to interpret that as a Characterisation Clue and instead assume going forward that Intricate Puzzle Boxes were the hot new fad of 1935, since everyone's likely to have them.
Took me a sec to figure out the interface for using inventory items and combining clues into deductions, but it's fairly straightforward so far.
I will stop there for now since the first crime scene investigation is done and that seems like a natural place to stop for a nap. But I had fun, and will definitely play some more.
...and then my internet went out JUST as I was about to post, so I ended up playing and writing up some more. But it got a bit more spoilery, so, I'll still finish this post here.
pauraque prompted me to react to the ABC Murders or The Dig. I picked the ABC Murders since I am feeling the kind of sore and stupid today where a puzzle game would be a fun distraction. Also, the reason I bought the ABC murders in the first place was as research for a vague idea I had to turn some out of copyright murder mystery into a computer game myself (this story isn't out of copyright yet but some of her other works are), so it'll be fun to analyse it from that perspective as well. So! Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders is a 2016 Unity puzzle game based on the 1936 murder mystery novel by Agatha Christie. From Wikipedia: The initial premise is that a serial killer is murdering people with alliterative names. The murders follow an alphabetical order, starting with a victim whose initials were A. A, and appear to lack a motive.
It was updated a little in 2020 and if often on deep sale for like $2.
I'll put major spoilers under an internal cut, so the mystery can stay fun for anyone who's unfamiliar with it.
I've played through investigating the first crime scene, and it's moderately fun so far! I had to suspend my disbelief slightly for some of the inserted puzzles but overall it's a pretty enjoyable and not too difficult mystery game, in terms of both gameplay and story.
CW: Domestic violence, more in the game itself than my post.
I read a bunch of Agatha Christie as a teen 30ish years ago and watched a bunch of the Poirot tv series with David Suchet back when that was new, but can't remember if I ever encountered The ABC Murders. But rereading the summary just now I was reminded of having seen discussion of one of the Big Twists as part of a general discussion of clever twists. I won't spoil it here in the first paragraph and will put it under a new cut when it comes up.
If you're not familiar with Poirot, he's very clearly a riff on Sherlock Holmes. My vague memory: Poirot is an eccentric and arrogant Belgian former policeman, who plays up his fussy foreignness so people with underestimate him. He has a good heart deep down and likes helping people, but also enjoys showing up the (in his opinion) inferior British Police. He has a good natured and earnest but not super bright housemate/assistant/friend Hastings, an ex-soldier who follows along on his adventures, and the conceit of many Poirot stories is that they're biographical non-fiction written by Hastings.
I have a soft spot for Poirot, he's so cheerfully weird and unashamedly foreign in the repressive xenophobic society of early 20th century England. And while he's obviously an exotified stereotype, I don't feel too bad about the exotification of Belgians. I read an out of copyright Poirot short story when I was pondering my game making options, he and Hastings were even shippier than I remembered, which I would definitely lean into if I made a game about them. So here's hoping for shipping fodder in this game too :)
I actually played a tiny bit of this game already, but decided I wan't in the mood for it at the time. But I'll start a new game since I can't remember the couple of clues I picked up last time. Hmm, looks like I can't easily switch back and forth between the game and this text file, guess I'll have to write my reactions in chunks.
For a 2016 game it doesn't look too bad, it's a flat-shaded cartoony style with nice art deco aesthetics and soundtrack. Lets see how long I can actually stand having that soundtrack on before the looping annoys me and I turn it off haha.
We start with some cutscenes to set the mood. Everyone's a little 2016-Unity-model floppy but the voice acting, cinematography, and character designs carry things along ok.
There's no narrator except for some internal thoughts from Poirot and hints about gameplay from the game. I don't know if this was one of the books with Hastings narration, maybe I'll check it out to compare later.
Poirot gets a letter from a mysterious "ABC" with some taunting about how they have a Puzzle for the Clever Clogs to solve in a few days.
BIG SPOILERS
I usually CANNOT STAND serial killers, especially the overly clever taunting sort, but luckily I know that one big twist: this is someone pretending to be a Wacky Serial Killer to cover the fact they have very mundane reasons to want to murder a specific person who happens to have the initials G. G. (I think it's G, might be another letter)Cam just came in and when I told him what I was playing went "I can't remember, was it all about killing someone with B initials?" and I pointed out I HADN'T TOLD HIM I KNEW THE TWIST, bad Cam.
I find it interesting that by 1936 the Serial Killer Taunts Detective With Clues narrative was apparently established enough for Christie to be able to assume readers would just accept it without question, since otherwise her subversion wouldn't work.
We see a kinda snidely whiplash-y looking man circling something in an ABC train guide. Is this the villain?? Haaa, but I'm so bad with faces I'll probably not even recognise him when he shows up again.
I see that, unlike some adaptations, they didn't change Inspector Japp's name to something less slur-ish...
The loading screen helpfully told me I get Ego Points for acting "like Poirot" which is adorable. Also the loading symbol has a little moustache in the centre.
There's a little tutorial on reading people: you move the mouse over someone until it zooms in on a Clue.
Ha and now I remember the two things I found off putting about this game last time I tried: Not being sure if there's ever time pressures (I hate time pressure) and it not having a "save" function, just a "quit" button that doesn't make it clear if it will save or if there's a save button I just didn't notice.
But! Looks like the Quit button is the save button. And I guess I'll just act as if there's no time pressure until some reveals itself.
First mystery: A woman with the initials A.A. has been murdered! Was it her abusive ex husband? They're German immigrants, hopefully the story's not too weird about that.
Ok, time to force myself to stop worrying about Missing Clues and just poke around the crime scene. Turns out the game thus far is pretty kind, if there's a clue to be found the cursor turns into an eyeglass symbol and there's a moderate margin for error. And when you're looking at something or someone specific, it lists how many clues there are to find and waits until you find them all.
So thus far it's more like a hidden object game than anything else. But I'm sure I'll have to put some thought into Combining Clues eventually.
Hmm, sometimes the generous clicking area means it's hard to tell when you're mousing over a new clue and not one you've already seen.
HA. So the first section of clue gathering is pretty realistic, but then some further clues are hidden inside multiple Intricate Wooden Puzzle Boxes this struggling tobacconist apparently owned. I'm going to assume I shouldn't try to interpret that as a Characterisation Clue and instead assume going forward that Intricate Puzzle Boxes were the hot new fad of 1935, since everyone's likely to have them.
Took me a sec to figure out the interface for using inventory items and combining clues into deductions, but it's fairly straightforward so far.
I will stop there for now since the first crime scene investigation is done and that seems like a natural place to stop for a nap. But I had fun, and will definitely play some more.
...and then my internet went out JUST as I was about to post, so I ended up playing and writing up some more. But it got a bit more spoilery, so, I'll still finish this post here.
