Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Mar 10, 2022

  Overall I enjoyed this game, it has a lot of picross puzzles (bang for your buck kinda thing) with cute graphics. The story is engaging enough to continue playing, though the last scout's memory/ending fell a bit flat for me. The music seems like hit or miss for everyone but I liked it enough to keep it on the whole time. Plus LGBTQ friendly game! The improvements I would've liked to seen: -undo button for sure -fast forward or skip button for dialogues -save menu has no "back" button? i would HAVE to save to leave the menu.
• gamedeal user

  May 19, 2022

  I wish I could post a neutral review, but overall I wouldn't recommend this to my friends. Also, if you're looking for an "Ace Attorney" replacement, I would definitely not suggest this game. A "guilty until proven innocent" not-even-a-real-detective kinetic novel with mandatory nonograms. This is a very "rough draft" of a story. I absolutely liked the personalities of the characters being built, but the story formula was so terrible. Terrible plot ideas, such as "how do we move this character to this scene?" "Let's just completely disregard common sense and make her run back to the guy with the gun." Or "hey you're connected to the crime, you did it, and I'm gonna shout it to the world and make you look bad." Basically, the good guys are literally bullying innocent people because they don't get the answer they want. I just started on the last chapter, but I feel like I'm dragging my feet through the rest of this story to see how everything connects. Characters interrupt for dramatic effect, but if you read too slow, you won't catch what's going on. Definitely needs a "backlog" for the visual novel element. I wish the puzzles had more random-ness rather than chapter 1 being easy puzzles, and chapter 3/4 being really long puzzles that seem to use "yet again another square object." (E.g., yes nonograms are square, but I'm tired of solving for a box in a box.) I've had a few bugs where I needed to exit the game and relaunch just so I could continue to "investigate." Seems more QA should have been involved. The artwork is FANTASTIC and AWESOME. Again, I like the characters and how they support each other. Jokes are good. Overall needs more polish.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 9, 2022

  I'll give it a thumbs up for being a lovingly-made indie game, but this game didn't work for me. The most important warning I can give is that this is *not* a mystery solving game with picross. This is a *visual novel* with picross, and one with no real choices at that. There's a bit of interactivity in dialog choices and showing clues to characters clues, but these have no affect on the game and are all but absent in latter cases. I've got nothing against visual novels, but the characters, writing, and plot were just not for me. As I mentioned, you never solve anything yourself; instead, the protagonist jumps from wild speculation to wild speculation. Multiple times each case, the protagonist gets someone arrested and then immediately discovers evidence that exonerates them. This trope is clearly to stretch the length of the cases, but it's no fun to helplessly watch the protagonist be frustratingly incompetent over and over. The mysteries themselves were silly and incoherent, full of switchbacks and red herrings that don't stand-up to a cursory application of common sense. The picross itself is fine. There were some quality-of-life things I missed (like a setting to only drag in straight lines), and they ramp up the difficulty by having smaller numbers instead of larger maps (I believe there is only one map larger than 15x15). I personally enjoy larger maps over smaller fiddlier maps, but YMMV. The picross is like pizza...if you like picross, this game will hit the spot. One other thing that annoyed me: you get a ranking for each case, and each rank unlocks a few bonus picross puzzles. However, because there are no meaningful choices outside of the picross, your rank is entirely based on how many of the picross puzzles you solve without hints. I played the very first puzzle on easy, locking me out of the S rank for the first case. The only way to get S rank (and unlock the only puzzle in the entire game I missed) would be to replay the entire first case again (which has no new puzzles and nearly linear dialog). Not a big deal, but an example of how the mechanics of the game just didn't come together well. Ultimately, this game has maybe 16 hours of picross puzzles, and maybe another 4 hours of dialog that did not work for me. It's up to you whether that's the kind of game you want to play.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 22, 2022

  PLEASE disregard the hours; I had a horrible tendency while playing this game to leave it open when I went to sleep. Don't be me, that's bad for your computer. I do not do this anymore, but it already racked up ridiculous hours. This is not that long of a game, LOL. THAT SAID... I recommend this game with a caveat: if your reaction speed is not that great anymore, mandatory timed parts that are NOT SKIPPABLE and COMPLETELY UNPAUSABLE are going to give you a really rough time. Yes, no matter how good you are, if your reaction speed is slow, parts of this game is going to be a nightmare. I grew up playing shooters and tons of games - my reaction speed used to be great, but I'm much older now and do not have the reaction time I did in my teens or early twenties. These parts were PAINFUL and required getting JUST lucky enough to barely pass the timed segments. I'm not the only one with these problems either, based on the board. That said, if the above won't be an issue for you or you're willing to just stubbornly keep at it until you get through like I did? The story is fun, the art is charming, the puzzles (when they aren't timed) are fun. I recommend this game so long as the above caveat won't ruin the experience.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 27, 2023

  Fantastic game which I'm having a bit of a hard time recommending... but I'm doing it anyway. Why the hard time, you ask? Because of how impossibly difficult and time consuming the puzzles get as early as the second case. If you can soldier through all that brain boiling you'll be rewarded with a pleasant, if slightly predictable story with likeable characters and decent twists. I'd also say the music is very good too, but eventually I had to turn it off because I had to listen to the same tunes over and over while getting horribly stuck on the puzzles. For the record, I've never played a nonogram/Picross game before, and I've played on normal difficulty, without hints - which might've been a mistake. I had to restart puzzles more times than I'd like to admit, and there were two moments where the puzzle was 99% done but the numbers didn't add up, so I improvised a bit. Otherwise I didn't guess or anything like that, so take that for what you will. So what makes it so hard? Finding a next move. That's it. As soon as the second case hits it becomes very non-trivial; instead of casually filling pixels while listening to bangers, you spend most of your time looking for this one single place where its safe to put something. Once you find it, chances are there will be a pleasant cascade of things to fill, but inadvertently you'll end up hitting another wall soon after. By the final case I was already used to it, but it still didn't change the fact that I couldn't play more than one puzzle at a time without my overheating brain contributing to climate change. It took me 32 hours total to complete the game, but I did also do a bunch of optional puzzles early on (before they got so insanely hard). Also I didn't use any hints because I'm a stubborn fool. This means that I had to redo puzzles from scratch a few times - less than 10, I'd say. But here's the thing - there are hints available. So my advice is that if you get stuck, just freaking use them. If you don't, you'll unlock a bunch of extra puzzles which in turn unlock extra scenes in the novel... but I don't think they're worth it. I only saw one of them, mind, but I'm not going to torture myself with all those testicles crushers to see more. Now, with all that said: there's still a detective visual novel under all those puzzles. Is it good? Oh yeah. The plot constantly kept me engaged, and the way the characters changed and grew was also fun to watch. My absolute favourite was SCOUT, the robot - not only is he adorable, his personal story is quite something. I also liked Detective Cross; an old, gruff, by-the-book cop who's eager to prove that he's not obsolete yet - and to do that, he has to learn all about the world that's changing around him all over again. And finally, there's KC - the turbo flamboyant gay Hollywood stylist who's also British for added flair. He's Honor (MC)'s best friend, and his flamboyance is not something that overshadows his base personality - instead it's used as added flavour to an already charming mixture. On that topic, the game contains some close-up depiction of LGBT communities that I found nice, informative, and above all else interesting. To sum things up: Murder by Numbers is as much of a puzzle game as it is a detective visual novel. You have to like both parts in order to enjoy it. If you're looking for an Ace Attorney fix, get this only if you like nonograms or are interested in learning about them. And vice versa: if you're just looking for a puzzle game, you're going to have to deal with lots of dialogue and knowing what to present to whom. I knew what to expect and I came out very satisfied from playing this. So if you think this strange mixture is something for you - you're in for a treat! Just don't be afraid to use those hints. Curator Page
• gamedeal user

  Mar 1, 2023

  Recommended when on sale If you like nonograms it's a nice game as it also has a mildly interesting story between the puzzles. However there are a few gripes I had with this game: - Sadly enough, almost no nonograms that are bigger than 15x15 only in the last case there is a nonogram that is 15x20. - The main character can be very irritating at times making the story less enjoyable to follow.
• Alanzi

  Aug 13, 2023

  Store page says full controller support, but it's a false claim -- plugging in a controller makes the game break and the cursor infinitely move sideways. Bug reports online indicate other people have had this problem for ages and it's not an isolated issue. Picross is harder with a mouse. :(
• gamedeal user

  Mar 18, 2020

  A hybrid visual novel/picross game. My play time is nearly 40 hours, but I'd estimate the VN parts are only about 10-12 hours of that; I spent most of the time staring blankly at picross boards and erasing/restarting after making a few bad moves. Turns out I'm really bad at picross! But I still found it a satisfyingly fun challenge, and it's a lot more manageable in easy mode. The character artwork is lovely and very expressive, and I'm a fan of how the chunky white outlines make everything pop from the background. The writing is entertaining, with some memorable characters and amusing dialogue. It's very Phoenix Wright-esque; not as over-the-top in tone as Phoenix Wright, but enough so that things like "how exactly do police investigations work in this universe" and "why would the killer do something that obvious" don't really feel out of place. The conclusion of the story is pretty predictable, but there are some surprises along the way. The music unfortunately gets gratingly repetitive during the longer puzzles, but aside from that, my main criticisms are purely technical: - No backlog or skip text options. - No way to skip puzzles when replaying. - No way to undo recent moves or automatically clear the board. - Minor save/load bugs; saving in the middle of a question drops you back to the main investigation screen on loading, and saving in the middle of a puzzle resets all the completion indicators on loading. Hopefully these can be fixed in a future update. The game was enjoyable enough that I didn't find the technical issues too annoying, and I'd still recommend it to fans of casual puzzle games and stylized mystery VNs.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 18, 2020

  A cross between Picross and Ace Attorney. I'm not a fan of picross (especially the 15x15 grids) but there are ways to pass the puzzles without actually solving it yourself so I don't mind it so much. Play as an ex-actress and a flying computer to investigate murders and look for evidence with the power of picross scanning XD I loved the characters and the 1st case became very relevant to what happens in the end so the overall plot somehow got explained within 4 cases and I'm satisfied. There are a lot of extra puzzles for picross lovers to solve within SCOUT's memory to unlock but I'm too lazy to solve them even if it is to unlock some scenes @_@
• gamedeal user

  Mar 18, 2020

  This is a cool mashup of Phoenix Wright and picross puzzles that needed just a bit more polish. The characters designs are great, though their writing feels like it could've used a little more work. The music (from the composer of Phoenix Wright) is fantastic , but it gets old real fast listening to a single song on repeat while you solve a puzzle. But I could overlook all those. The bigger flaws are that the game seems to ignore various features common in visual novels and in picross games that make this game a pain to play. It's very easy to skip dialogue boxes and there's no conversation log to go back and check what you've missed. There's a weird little scanner you have to use to hunt down evidence that's reminiscent of pixel hunting in old adventure games, and quite frankly adds nothing worthwhile to the game. The puzzles don't give you the ability to clear the board, and don't lock your mouse to a row/column when you click and drag to mark a bunch of stuff at once. I've also softlocked my game twice and had to edit a save to get unstuck. Overall this game does a lot right, but it just a little too annoying to play at the moment. Even if the usability were better, I'm not sure the concept works. The puzzles never go above 15x15, which isn't that exciting if you're a picross fan, and the writing and VN segments are.. fine, but it gets really tedious when a cool plot revelation is undercut by making you solve a puzzle.