several switch mystery games
Jan. 14th, 2025 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
porticoduring the end of year sales i picked up a bunch of games on switch and steam. i brought my switch with me on my holiday travels, so i thought i might play them then. i didn't. i played part of one. i DID, however, end up trapped in my house while my city fixed its broken infrastructure for a full week, during which i plowed through the rest of them. here they are in chronological order. (i played all of these on switch, but they were all available on steam first, and many are also available on additional consoles now.)
murder on the orient express (2023): bad game. don't play it. the train is good, which is why i am including this screenshot and no others.
dredge (2023): perfect game. definitely play it.
dredge is a fishing simulator with a dark edge. i had seen it described as lovecraftian and stayed away, because i don't particularly care about the lovecraft aesthetic, but if that's the only thing that's been stopping you don't be like me: play the game. yeah there's some lovecraft in there, but very lightly imo. it's more a pervasive sense of dread (ha) and if you're a weenie like i am you can turn the scary setting off (so the beasties don't actually seek you out) and cruise about in the night at least confident that if you sail into a monster it's your own fault. the thing that IS lovecraftian is the sense of inevitability (which i think is there is all truly good horror) and when i first played the ending of the game, i got the bad ending without even realizing that there was an alternative available to me, and that felt satisfying even if it was, by definition, kind of a bummer. but i went back and downloaded the dlcs and played through both of them (the third dlc is actually just access to a specific shed, which i didn't realize and cruised around a bit looking for a 3rd previously nonexistent continent for a while). when i went to finish the game again, a desire for variety made me choose something else, and i discovered there was a way out of the cycle we were trapped in, the fisherman and i. really good game.
frog detective: the entire mystery (2023): good game. you should play it.
frog detective is a series of 3 comedic mysteries starring the detective, who is a frog. the aesthetic is charming and humor extremely antipodean. it's a lot more talking than it is investigating, but i got a kick out of it. it's also extremely anti-carceral and the third mystery in particular gets that across very effectively. feels very DIY. not a complaint.
duck detective: the secret salami (2024): good game. you should play it.
duck detective is a straight-up noir, if sam spade was a divorced duck with a bread addiction who investigates stolen lunch meat. that the game hews so close to the noir trappings in spite of the aesthetics and subject matter is what makes it so strong. it's a pitch-perfect spoof. and a good mystery! it borrows some from the case of the golden idol (which the creator has credited) in the way you collect hints in the form of keywords and then have to arrange them correctly to solve mysteries and unlock clues. some of that worked very well, but the ones towards the end of the game were sometimes a reach and there were no hints available, they way they are (not easily) in golden idol. it's a short game--feels like a single episode of something longer, and a peek at the dev's website shows that there's another episode due out this year. excited to watch them perfect this formula!
strange horticulture (2022): good game. you should play it.
this is more puzzle than mystery, although one cannot deny that in the end a murder IS solved, so i'm including it. you are the inheritor of a plant shop, and over the course of a couple weeks, you identify the plants in the shop, collect new ones (sometimes by deciphering daily clues, sometimes by hearing of them from traveling friends), sell to customers, join a cult, and help stop a murderer. i played it all in one evening, and enjoyed it very much, although at a certain point i got a little exasperated by the sheer number of rare witchy plants in the world. the game kept inventing new ones, and i wanted to go to bed. but that's not the game's fault, it's society's.
murder on the orient express (2023): bad game. don't play it. the train is good, which is why i am including this screenshot and no others.
dredge (2023): perfect game. definitely play it.
dredge is a fishing simulator with a dark edge. i had seen it described as lovecraftian and stayed away, because i don't particularly care about the lovecraft aesthetic, but if that's the only thing that's been stopping you don't be like me: play the game. yeah there's some lovecraft in there, but very lightly imo. it's more a pervasive sense of dread (ha) and if you're a weenie like i am you can turn the scary setting off (so the beasties don't actually seek you out) and cruise about in the night at least confident that if you sail into a monster it's your own fault. the thing that IS lovecraftian is the sense of inevitability (which i think is there is all truly good horror) and when i first played the ending of the game, i got the bad ending without even realizing that there was an alternative available to me, and that felt satisfying even if it was, by definition, kind of a bummer. but i went back and downloaded the dlcs and played through both of them (the third dlc is actually just access to a specific shed, which i didn't realize and cruised around a bit looking for a 3rd previously nonexistent continent for a while). when i went to finish the game again, a desire for variety made me choose something else, and i discovered there was a way out of the cycle we were trapped in, the fisherman and i. really good game.
frog detective: the entire mystery (2023): good game. you should play it.
frog detective is a series of 3 comedic mysteries starring the detective, who is a frog. the aesthetic is charming and humor extremely antipodean. it's a lot more talking than it is investigating, but i got a kick out of it. it's also extremely anti-carceral and the third mystery in particular gets that across very effectively. feels very DIY. not a complaint.
duck detective: the secret salami (2024): good game. you should play it.
duck detective is a straight-up noir, if sam spade was a divorced duck with a bread addiction who investigates stolen lunch meat. that the game hews so close to the noir trappings in spite of the aesthetics and subject matter is what makes it so strong. it's a pitch-perfect spoof. and a good mystery! it borrows some from the case of the golden idol (which the creator has credited) in the way you collect hints in the form of keywords and then have to arrange them correctly to solve mysteries and unlock clues. some of that worked very well, but the ones towards the end of the game were sometimes a reach and there were no hints available, they way they are (not easily) in golden idol. it's a short game--feels like a single episode of something longer, and a peek at the dev's website shows that there's another episode due out this year. excited to watch them perfect this formula!
strange horticulture (2022): good game. you should play it.
this is more puzzle than mystery, although one cannot deny that in the end a murder IS solved, so i'm including it. you are the inheritor of a plant shop, and over the course of a couple weeks, you identify the plants in the shop, collect new ones (sometimes by deciphering daily clues, sometimes by hearing of them from traveling friends), sell to customers, join a cult, and help stop a murderer. i played it all in one evening, and enjoyed it very much, although at a certain point i got a little exasperated by the sheer number of rare witchy plants in the world. the game kept inventing new ones, and i wanted to go to bed. but that's not the game's fault, it's society's.
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