The Message in the Haunted Mansion

"Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch."

Genesis 6:14 (KJV)

This reminds me, I still haven't finished Another Code: R in Another Code: Recolllection... I am a bit torn about the remake of the first game: I like the visuals a lot and how they reworked the mansion, but I do miss the darker vibe of the original manor, as well as the more memorable (but hardware-restricted) puzzles. I liked the original R a lot too so I really should get back to Recollection soon...

Suzuki Rika is now best known for her writing work on games like the Another Code and Kyle Hyde series for Nintendo hardware, which she developed at Cing, the company she co-founded. However, before her jump to the consoles, she was best known as a game developer working on adventure games for the PC for developer Riverhillsoft. Her best known work from that period are probably the J.B. Harold games, as most of them she worked on, like Murder Club and Manhattan Requiem, have seen an English release. The other series she developed at Riverhillsoft is the 1920 series, which was later retitled the Toudou Ryuunosuke Detective Diaries series. As the title suggests, you take up the role of private detective Toudou Ryuunosuke in these games set in the 1920s and work on serial murder cases in settings you know from classic mystery fiction, like a country house or an ocean liner. Suzuki wrote and designed two games with Toudou: Kohakiiro no Yuigon (1988) and Ougon no Rashinban (1990), but afterwards, the series stopped. However, developer Althi acquired the rights to the series in the early 2000s and starting in 2003, they first release feature phone ports of the first two games, and then continued on releasing more games in this series (of course, by that time Suzuki Rika wasn't involved anymore in the development). These games were a moderate success on feature phones and later smartphones it appears, as they released nine full entries in the end!

While this series was mostly developed on feature phones in Japan, they did port two of them to the Nintendo DS at the time: Kohakuiro no Yuigon (the first game) got a port on the DS on 2008, and one year later, they released a port of Aen no Hakobune - Soumatei Renzoku Satsujin Jiken ("The Zinc Ark - The Serial Murder Case at the Souma Manor"), a game originally released in 2005 on phones. And let me tell you: this release is rare. These games are pretty niche on their own, but Aen no Hakobune in particular released in very small numbers, and you could only get it used in Japan for insane prices. The problem however that it was also the only way to play Aen no Hakobune this last decade: the feature phone and smartphone games have not been available for purchase for a decade, and the games themselves are also not supported anymore by modern firmware iterations, so you can't even run the games anymore even if you had purchased them in the past. Heck, I have the iOS versions of Kohakuiro no Yuigon (and D.C. Connection), and I can't even re-download them or access the store pages anymore unless I whip out an old iPhone! But Aen no Hakobune was one of the few mystery games on the DS I figured I wouldn't be able to play due to the insane prices and no other way to play it.

Until G-Mode started doing their ports of feature phones games a few years back, and in 2023, they actually got started on the Toudou Ryuunosuke series! Previously, I already reviewed Ougon no Rashinban, the Switch port of the feature phone port of the second game, and earlier this year, G-Mode released the feature phone port of Aen no Hakobune, so I finally got to play this unicorn of mystery adventure gaming for a normal price. While prices have dropped slightly on used DS copies, at one time I have seen them go for as much as fifty times more expensive than the port you can now buy on the Switch. Being a fan of mystery fiction can be expensive...

 

That said, it's not like Aen no Hakobune is a paragon of mystery adventure gaming: it is basically the exact same game like Kohaku no Yuigon, Ougon no Rashinban and the earlier J.B. Harold games. The game is set at the gloomy manor of the Souma family standing on the edge of a cliff. The men in the family have always studied medicine, and they are running a mental hospital attached directly to the manor. The story starts with Toudou being hired by Kimura Tetta, a medical researcher and friend to investigate the curious death of his childhood friend Souma Keiichirou,who is a military doctor. Kimura is one of the researchers attached to the mental hospital who live in the Souma manor with the Souma family. When he went to the bathroom in the night, he noticed blood seeping from beneath the door of a basement room which haven't been opened for years, as the key has been lost. When they break the door open, they find Souma Keiichirou lying dead on the floor. He has apparently stabbed himself with an ornamental dagger, but he's also been sliced with a scalpel, which has not been found inside the locked room. While the police decides this is just a weird suicide, Kimura thinks it might be murder and he and the butler decide to hire Toudou to investigate the case and as Toudou starts asking questions to all the curious people who live in the Souma manor, he learns everyone has a secret to hide, but which of them is actually involved with Keiichirou's death?

As I mentioned, if you have played any of the major adventures that follow the Riverhillsoft adventure game model, you will have played all of them, and Aen no Hakobune is exactly that. You are just dropped in the game, and given many, many locations to visit in the Souma manor, and you are required to talk to a large cast of characters (over a dozen) and question them about a large number of topics (20~30 depending on the character). They might have something interesting (compressed into two text boxes...) to tell you about character X or Y, or about related topic 1 or 2; they might not. But you are still required to ask them about everything. Multiple times sometimes. The underlying idea is cool: at the start you know absolutely nothing, but as you interview everyone, you slowly start to make connections between all these topics: character A and B might offer you insights about character C (or even allow you catch them lying). You are initially free to choose who to interview about what in any order you like, so in that sense, it allows you a kind of freedom you seldom have in mystery games. But in practice, it just means talking to everyone about everything, which activates certain story flags, so then you go ask everyone about everything again, because *someone* might tell you a bit more now you have learned more information, but you seldom actually know what changed, so you are forced to explore every option you have just to make sure you didn't miss out on something. Sometimes learning fact A from characters B and C simply activates the possibility to talk about D to character E, even though it's not related at all. 

That said: Aen no Hakobune is one of the nicest games following this design, with a more limited cast and smaller location. Earlier games had you interview like 30, 40 people about as many topics, now it's just over a dozen! And some of them die over the course of the game! It's definitely the least tedious entry of the series to play and I barely needed to use a walkthrough this time (Yeah, I needed help to find that piece of evidence suddenly spawning in the bathroom at a certain point of the game even though it hadn't been there before...).

These games are ones that really would benefit from a modern remake though, more so than the Another Code games I mentioned at the start. The game design of these games is so horribly outdated, even though the atmosphere in these games is usually really good, and there are genuinely interesting characters to be found here, but they are usually just confined to speaking two or three text boxes about each topic, and can't really speak freely. But in Aen no Hakobune specifically, there are glimpses of really interesting topics that could've been put in the front much better, also to make the mystery more enticing, like a female researcher who is not respected by her peers because she's a female doctor in 1920s Japan, the rising militarism in the country, musings about the Great War in Europe and its consequences for the people in Japan, the mental hospital and the secrets it holds and so much more, but because of the very limited speaking freedom of all the characters, it never feels like you get the full picture. The locked room mystery in Aen no Hakobune isn't really interesting, but there's a pretty gruesome second death, but you don't see enough of the people's reactions to that, and the investigation into the decapitation seems a bit.... dry, even though you can make that so much more interesting mystery-wise. The motive of the murderer and the underlying backstory is also very interesting, firmly set in the context of the 1920s setting, but it is presented to the player is such a disjointed manner, it never feels as impressive as it could've been. There's honestly a lot of potential to tell much more compelling mysteries in these games, if the presentation and design was just more player-friendly.

A huge problem of these games as they are is also the fact you can't actually re-read most dialogue. Unlike so many other mystery games, you barely collect evidence or testimony in this game. Especially the fact you can't gather testimonies (or at least have a kind of summary) really hurts these games. Character A will mention once they saw character B doing something, and that'll allow you to press on B on that, but you'll only see the dialogue once (and there's a small mark on the screen for a second to indicate this was a story flag), but there's no way to re-read that in any way, so if you decide to do something else first, there's a good chance you'll forget that. A more modern game would likely record the testimony in same way and then allow you to present that evidence to the corresponding character. Or if these games were made now, at the very least they would give some kind of screen that records what testimonies you have gathered about each person to guide your investigation.

By the way, while I was happy I could play this game for a normal price, the DS version and subsequent iOS version do have much nicer (and larger) art... I wonder why they never put out the iOS versions of this series on Switch; they did release the first three J.B. Harold games on the Switch, based on the iOS versions...

Anyway, Aen no Hakobune is not a remarkable mystery adventure game by any means. It follows the model of the Riverhillsoft adventure games very rigidly, though the slightly more limited scope does make it a much more easier game to play. You play these games more for the atmosphere and the potential for a good story/characters, rather than the actual game, I'm afraid, but I always end up playing one of them once every two years or so... But I really, really hope someone would try to do an extensive remake of either this series or the J.B. Harold series, implementing completely different gameplay mechanics but keeping the underlying story beats and character reveals the same while also fleshing everything out. But I guess that's an impossible dream...

Original Japanese title(s): 『亜鉛の匣舟～相馬邸連続殺人事件』

Lack of Evidence

"I walk in eternity."

"Doctor Who: Pyramids of Mars"

Umineko no Naku Koro ni Saku on Switch and PlayStation 4 will be released in January 2021! Let's hope I'll be able to finish the game and write a review by December 2021...

Videogames can provide a unique experience in the mystery genre, as it's an active genre: in most mystery games, the story won't proceed unless you (the player) actively interact with the story and characetrs and solve puzzles, as opposed to mystery plots in novels or films, which will go on regardless of how involved  the reader/viewer is with the plot. Of course, the other side of this story is that in novels or films, you at least don't get stuck in the story simply because you don't know what to do next...

While crime might not be rare in Washington D.C., the murder of Walter Edwards near the John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame was one that caught the attention of everyone. Edwards was not only the chief of the Liberty Town police, he was also in D.C. conducting a secret investigation in cooperation with the FBI. Secret documents pertaining to this investigation, believed to be in Edwards' possession, also disappeared after his death, so initially the police suspects Edwards' death has to do with his assignment, which is also why everyone was shocked to learn that the pistol thought to have killed Edwards was found in the apartment of his eldest son Frederick, who goes to college in Washington D.C. The local police is satisfied that they have found their man with Frederick, who apparently had a fight with his father earlier that day. Many people who know Edwards and his family personally aren't quite convinced though and the Liberty Town Police Station decides to send their man J.B. Harold to Washington to investigate the death of their deceased boss. Not only is J.B. personally acquainted with Edwards and his wife, J.B. also knows Washington D.C. well because he studied here ten years ago and as he starts poking around in the city, he finds he still has some old college friends in the city who are willing to help him with his investigation in the videogame D.C. Connection, originally released in 1989 for PC-98 systems, but it was later ported to other systems like i-mode feature phones. The most "current" version of D.C. Connection is the 2011 iOS version, which is the version I played.

D.C Connection is the fourth J.B. Harold game published by the late Riverhillsoft, a Japanese company which specialized in mystery-themed adventure games for the PC in the late 80s-early 90s. While it follows Murder Club, Manhattan Requiem and Kiss of Murder, it's considered the third numbered entry in the series, because Kiss of Murder is considered a parallel world version of the second entry, Manhattan Requiem. In terms of gameplay, D.C. Connection is very similar to the previous Riverhillsoft adventure games (which also includes Kohaku no Yuigon), so when I started this game, my intentions were to complete it in just a few hours, a perfect way to spend my Sunday afternoon. I mean, I already knew very well how Suzuki Rika designed these games, so I could hardly be that far off with my estimate of how long it would take me, right? In the end though, it took me at least double the time I had anticipated, and I had to spread it across three days...

As always in this series, D.C. Connection starts in a non-linear manner: after the short prologue, the player (J.B.) has the freedom to visit more than a dozen different locations spread across Washington D.C., where you'll find suspects, witnesses and other persons willing or unwilling to assist you with your investigation. You can decide the order in which you tackle these persons yourself and you progress, you'll uncover more locations and people to see, and in the end, you may have to interact with over 20-30 different locations and persons. Speaking with these people on various topics like other characters or their alibis will provide you with information and ultimately, the J.B. Harold games are about collecting information: by collecting all available information on a character or a certain topic, you can induce characters to give you new information, for example because you noticed a contradiction in the statement of Character A after you collected the statements of everyone else. This new piece of information allows you to press everyone again on old and new topics, and rinse and repeat to progress in the story. These games are about collecting a lot of information on a lot of topics (I'd estimate about 50 different topics) in a non-linear manner: this is what gives these games a unique vibe, as they are really focused on bringing you the experience of a cop who does his job by going over the crime scenes dozens of time and repeating procedural questionings of witnesses, but it can definitely be a boring experience too, and at times very frustrating too.

I have the feeling the story of D.C. Connection is a bit longer than previous games, but what really made my playthrough of this game take so long was I got stuck a lot. In the original PC-98 version of the game, it was possible to get actually stuck in a way you could never proceed again (a bug), but while it's technically not possible to arrive at a state where it's genuinely impossible to proceed anymore in the iOS version, it can be veeeeeeery difficult finding that one piece of statement you missed that allows you proceed in the story. With approximately 30 characters who at any time have about 20-30 topics to talk about, and other locations you can check, it's pretty easy to miss that little piece of dialogue that is necessary to move the plot forward, especially if it's a very insignificant message. In D.C. Connection, the plot can move forward if you have collected all information about a certain character or topic, or when you reach certain percentages of the total game progression (there's a bar that shows how far you are in the game). Sometimes, you're just stuck because a story event will only happen at 46,6% of the game, while you're at 46,5% and accidentally skipped that one single piece of dialogue with that one character who obviously has nothing to do with the crime, telling you how they have nothing to do with the crime, but which will still add that 0,1% to the bar... It happened more than a few times I really didn't know what I had missed, so then I was forced to talk with every character about every topic once again just to see what I had missed. And this takes ages of just sifting through dialogue you have seen already. And despite the age we live in, there's strangely enough no full walkthrough/guide or even a full Let's Play of D.C. Connection available anywhere, so whenever I got stuck I had to do with that hint book came with the original PC-98 release and only explains specific parts of the game (and naturally, I always got stuck on the parts not explained in that hint book). D.C. Connection really feels like an old PC adventure game: looking for that necessary piece of dialogue is at least as vexing as old-fashioned pixel hunting and it's always something small you missed.

Despite these frustations though, I think D.C. Connection is one of the better J.B. Harold games. Like I said, I have the feeling the story is a bit grander in scale this time and we also have a new mechanic in this game where you can make allies out of certain characters who can help you in different ways: the taxi driver Nelson for example can shadow suspects for you and find out where they were going, adding new locations on your map (Is the fish market ever used in this game by the way?). Story-wise, D.C. Connection is also plotted more tightly than previous games, with a plot that keeps you guessing who murdered Edwards and for what reason. There are also some major plot developments halfway through the game that keep you on your toes. The plot also involves J.B.'s own past a bit, as he meets old college friends and reminisces about days past (certain parts were already mentioned in Manhattan Requiem). If I hadn't get stuck so often in D.C. Connection on very minor obstacles, I have no doubts this would've been my favorite entry in the series.

Despite a few minor innovations, D.C. Connection follows the same formula as the previous J.B. Harold games and thus offers a very sober, down-to-earth mystery adventure where you, as the player, simply have to digest a lot of information through conversations with other characters. There's not much genuine puzzle solving to be done by the player themselves, but it can be very difficult finding the right triggers that allow the story to move forward, more so than in previous games I think. Definitely wouldn't recommend anyone to start playing these Riverhillsoft adventure games with this one, but for fans of the series, D.C. Connection is certainly an entry you shouldn't miss as it's perhaps the most polished one in terms of story and characters.

Original Japanese title(s): 『D.C.コネクション』

The Mystery of Magnolia Mansion

"We all change, when you think about it, we're all different people; all through our lives, and that's okay, that's good, you've gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be."

"Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor"

There's nothing quite comparable to the transformation process of a videogame ported to different hardware, remastered or remade. I mean, novels are published with new covers all the time, but usually the contents remain (mostly) the same. One might be tempted to first think of censorship when it comes to post-publication text changes, but there are of course more reasons: from updating the body of text for later printings to correct spelling/grammar mistakes that had been overseen earlier, or perhaps because to reflect new spelling conventions. Most of the Rampo I've read for example, has been corrected for modern Japanese conventions, rather than the original pre-war spelling conventions (which can be very different). And then there are also the cases where the author chooses to change the text contents-wise, sometimes because there's a special occassion that allows them to go over their writings again (a brand new reprint for example), sometimes because an internal error was pointed out to them and they want to correct that. Ultimately though, these changes across versions of books are incredibly minor when compared how different the same base videogame can be across hardware and versions. The transformation process can be quite varied: sometimes it's a brushed-up version like a remastered, cleaned-up version of a film, sometimes the game has to be built completely anew from the ground up for a specific piece of hardware, which makes it a bit more similar to a remake of a film, but often at the core closer to the original game than a remade film usually is.

The iOS version I played of the Riverhillsoft adventure game Kohakuiro no Yuigon - Seiyou Karuta Renzoku Satsujin Jiken ("The Amber-Colored Testament - The Tarot Serial Murder Case") looks and sounds nothing at all like the original game which was released in 1988 on the Japanese PC-8801/PC-9801 personal computer systems, and even the way in which the player interacts with the game (the interface) is completely different, but the core plot and the progression in the game is basically the same. After the original release, this game has been ported and remade for a lot of hardware, from MSX2 to Windows 95,  Nintendo DS, iOS and Android, often changing appearances quite drastically whenever it arrived somewhere else. It's quite strange to see the same mystery story look and sound so drastically differently, yet be in the same medium (videogame). It's something that I just can't imagine with a mystery novel. The screenshots in this review are from various versions and look nothing alike, but they are also clearly the same core game.

But no matter on what hardware you're playing the game or how it looks, it always starts the same. Kagetani Koutarou was a very wealthy man in the 1920s who made a fortune with the trade in medicine. One day, he was found dead in the garden by his granddaughter and it was determined he had died because of poison. While it didn't seem likely the man would commit suicide, the remaining family members, including his second wife and several sons and daughters in varying ages from both his first and second wife, seem very reluctant to help the police, and the investigation soon gets stuck. The private detective Toudou Ryuunosuke is hired by the Kagetani family butler, who is convinced his master was murdered, but who wants the case to be investigated in a discreet manner, as the murderer is likely someone of the family. Toudou is invited to the Kagetani manor as the author friend of Kagetani Koutarou's nephew and is allowed to stay a few days as a house guest. During his stay, Toudou attempts to lure each of the Kagetanis into revealing what they are hiding about Koutarou's death, but little did he know that the first death was not to be the last.

Kohakuiro no Yuigon - Seiyou Karuta Renzoku Satsujin Jiken ("The Amber-Colored Testament - The Tarot Serial Murder Case") was the first game in the so-called "1920 Series" of mystery adventure games starring the character Toudou Ryuunosuke, but when developer Riverhillsoft closed in 2000, the rights to this series went to Althi, which renamed the series to the current Toudou Ryuunosuke Tantei Nikki ("The Detective Chronicles of Toudou Ryuunosuke") title. If this case this sounds familiar: the same actually happened with the J.B. Harold series, of which I have reviewed the first three games. The J.B. Harold games were also mystery adventure games originally developed by Riverhillsoft and the rights too were transferred to Althi (its current developer/publisher). One name that has to be mentioned to is that of Suzuki Rika: she originally worked at Riverhillsoft, and it was she who wrote both the Toudou Ryuunosuke and J.B. Harold series. She left Riverhillsoft with some other employees to start her own company Cing, which was responsible for a few great mystery-themed adventure games on the Nintendo DS and Wii (the Another Code and Kyle Hyde series), until Cing went defunct too in 2010.

As a mystery game, Kohakuiro no Yuigon basically plays exactly the same like the J.B. Harold games. The story starts in a non-linear manner, as you are free to walk around in the enormous Kagetani manor and you can visit each suspect in your own preferred order (and there are a lot of characters). As you chit-chat around, you'll learn facts about the other characters that will raise your suspicions towards that character (for example, A will say she saw B in the kitchen, or B will say that C hated the victim.) As you talk with each suspect about all the other suspects and other facts, you'll slowly connect the dots and construct a clear profile for each character. Once you have gathered enough information on a certain person, you can confront them, which usually results in you learning a significant fact that brings you closer to the truth. Rinse and repeat and you'll eventually find the killer. Different from the J.B. Harold I've played until now is that the murders don't stop with the first murder of Kagetani Koutarou (who is killed in the prologue anyway). Like the subtitle The Tarot Serial Murder Case suggests, more murders follow as you progress in the game and start poking around, but it's all part of the story and there's no threat of the player running out of time or not being able to solve the game because a suspect's been eliminated. Not much thinking is required on the part of the player, though making the connections yourself does make the game a lot smoother: if you yourself can't remember what line of investigation you're pursuing at the moment, you'll be forced to go around questioning everyone on everything, which can take ages. I can basically quote myself from the J.B. Harold: Kiss of Murder review to summarize my thoughts, as the games are, mechanically speaking, almost identical:

Kiss of Murder's emphasis lies on unraveling the complex ties between all the characters. At first, you'll only have a face and a name, but as you progress, you'll slowly uncover how each of these characters are connected, and most of them will turn out to be quite different from your first impression. As a game it's certainly not a very engaging or thrilling experience, as you're basically only going through dialogue, with everyone snitching on each other. The fun lies in going through this story in a non-linear fashion and making the connections yourself in your mind, as the game itself doesn't explain (for example, the game might tell you need to confront suspect A with their lies now, but you yourself have to remember that a while ago, suspect B and C both provided proof that suspect A had lied in completely different testimonies). At the best times, it does really feel like you yourself are solving this case, but at the worst of times, Kiss of Murder feels like a chore, as you run around asking everyone about everything in the hopes of coming across a clue. 

I do like the 1920s setting though. There are basically no other mystery videogames that use this setting. Almost. A few years ago, I reviewed the PlayStation 2 game Glass Rose. Which was also set in a fancy Western-style manor in 1920s Japan. But if you read the review, you'll understand that this is no coincidence, for Glass Rose was a game written by the same Suzuki Rika, but in her Cing period. It is quite clear Suzuki was also thinking of her older game Kohakuiro no Yuigon when she was working on the 2003 Glass Rose, for there are a few neat references to be found: not only do these games share the same time setting, the protagonist of Glass Rose is also called Kagetani and what was most surprising was that the floorplan of the second floors of both the Kagetani manor and the Kinema Mansion in Glass Rose are exactly the same, only flipped upside down! These are the kinds of inter-work references I really like!

Kohakuiro no Yuigon - Seiyou Karuta Renzoku Satsujin Jiken is not a mystery adventure game I would immediately recommend to everyone. You can tell it's a very dated game from the way it plays. It's very sober in design and the story moves very slowly. It is atmospheric though, and as a fan of Suzuki Rika's work, I simply couldn't skip this one. If you've played games in the J.B. Harold series, you know exactly what you'll get. Considering how similar they play, they are almost interchangeable, but I did find the story of Kohakuiro no Yuigon less engaging than the three J.B. Harold games I've tried.

Original Japanese title(s): 『琥珀色の遺言～西洋骨牌連続殺人事件～』

She Died a Lady

Dance into the fire
That fatal kiss is all we need

"A View to a Kill" (Duran Duran)

Mystery fiction has always thrived on the re-use of concepts. When you read a mystery novel, chances are that the underlying core tricks or ideas behind the mystery plot are not completely original, but a variation of an idea that has been used somewhere before, often by a different author even. This is not a bad thing per se, as a good writer should, and will bring their own originality even if the core concept is old. For example, many classic mystery authors will, ultimately, use some concept used in the Father Brown stories, but a good author will manage to add enough of their own to transform it into something not easily recognized as 'oh, that's from Father Brown, and perhaps even improve on the original idea. Reuse of ideas is also prevalent within the canon of one single author. Agatha Christie is infamous for re-using her own ideas across several works, but she was always careful to change enough of the characters and scenery so you probably wouldn't notice it the first time around. This redressing of older ideas still requires originality though, as you can't just copy-paste chapters or paragraphs of an older book to write a new mystery, right?

Reuse of assets is however quite normal in other mediums, especially in videogames. Graphical assets like characters and backgrounds are very often re-used within series (and even if they're not the same series), as are musical tracks and game engines (the series of back-end programs that actually run the game). A mystery novel isn't likely to use the same written passages from earlier novels in the series, but mystery game series will often reuse these assets from earlier entries in the series. The Tantei Junguuji Saburou series re-uses many background scenes for example, and many of background music tracks are also (remixes of tracks) borrowed from earlier games. The Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney as well as the Danganronpa series do similar things, with recurring characters retaining their graphical and audio assets from earlier appearances for example.

The game Keiji J.B. Harold no Jikenbo - Kiss of Murder, also known as J.B. Harold - Kiss of Murder however has a form of asset re-use I had never seen in mystery fiction before though. This hardboiled mystery adventure game was originally released in 1987 for the PC in Japan, and has seen re-releases on hardware like MSX, Nintendo DS and Switch. It is the third game released in Riverhillsoft's J.B. Harold mystery game series, though it is not considered the third entry in the series. The subtitle of the game is Another Story of Manhattan Requiem, and that is precisely what Kiss of Murder is: an alternative version  of the second game in the series, Manhattan Requiem. Both games start similarly, with the mysterious death of Sara Shields in Manhattan and Liberty Town police detective J.B. Harold being asked by his old friend and insurance investigator Judd to investigate her death, as J.B. became acquaintances with her during an earlier investigation. This is where the similarities in the stories stop though, as Sara's death is clearly a murder in Kiss of Murder, and this time a sapphire called Blue Sorrow which Sara had been keeping for her brother-in-law has disappeared. It doesn't take long for J.B. to discover that quite a few people had some beef with the woman, so it'll take a lot of good old-fashioned footwork to uncover who killed Sara and where the sapphire went.

What makes Kiss of Murder so strange is that it's a parallel world to Manhattan Requiem. Not only are both games about the death of Sara Shields, Kiss of Murder actually re-uses a great number of assets from Manhattan Requiem, most notably its graphical assets. While the stories of both games are completely different, with different characters, both games share character art. This means that the art of many characters in Manhattan Requiem is also used in Kiss of Murder, but for different characters. So while these characters might look exactly the same (as they are the exact same assets) in these two games, they represent different characters, with other names and backgrounds. So some people who supposed to be dead in Manhattan Requiem are alive here, and vice-versa. It's a bit like having the same actor playing different roles, but it's something very seldom seen in games and mystery fiction. It's perhaps similar to how the Nero Wolfe TV series used an ensemble cast that played different roles in different episodes, though at least the actors weren't wearing the exact same hairdo and outfits like in Manhattan Requiem and Kiss of Murder. In the original PC release, Kiss of Murder was a bit cheaper than a regular PC game, but you needed the disc of Manhattan Requiem to play the game (as it literally uses assets from that game).

In terms of gameplay mechanics and story, Kiss of Murder is also very similar to its two predecessors. Once again, the story starts out in a non-linear manner,  allowing you visit most of the suspects in any order you want, asking them about all kinds of manners. Right after the short prologue for example, you could choose to go to Sara's apartment to look for clues there, but also go to her work to ask about her last few da, or visit the library to look up some old files that might have to do with her death. A chat with one of Sara's acquaintances might raise your suspicions about them, making them a suspect, but they might also point the way to another suspect, or tell you something about another person whom you first thought to be completely innocent. There are nearly thirty suspects, and at first you learn all kinds of random pieces of information of them which can be A LOT to process, but as you progress, you'll slowly connect the dots. For example, at first person A might say they have an alibi, but interviews with person B and suspect C might prove that A wasn't where they said they were, making them a suspect too. The game isn't really helpful here though: it will say whenever you have collected enough testimony to consider a person a suspect, but it doesn't repeat what those clues were, so you really need a good memory, or write things down, or else you'll go "Okay, the game now tells me this person is a suspect, but I can't remember why." Eventually, you'll gather enough testimony and evidence to confrot suspects with their lies, uncover their relation to the death of Sara and in the end, solve the murder. As the game progresses, it loses its non-linearity, as you cross off all the possibilities. What sets Kiss of Murder apart from the previous two games in the J.B. Harold series is the chapter structure: Kiss of Murder is slightly less linear as it's actually divided in several chapters, with some characters and events only happening after certain chapters, whereas the previous games had less structure. Knowledge of previous games is not required per se, though Kiss of Murder does adress a plot point raised in the first game, Murder Club.

As a mystery story, there's nothing fancy here: no locked room murders or impossible alibis or anything like that. Kiss of Murder's emphasis lies on unraveling the complex ties between all the characters. At first, you'll only have a face and a name, but as you progress, you'll slowly uncover how each of these characters are connected, and most of them will turn out to be quite different from your first impression. As a game it's certainly not a very engaging or thrilling experience, as you're basically only going through dialogue, with everyone snitching on each other, The fun lies in going through this story in a non-linear fashion and making the connections yourself in your mind, as the game itself doesn't explain (for example, the game might tell you need to confront suspect A with their lies now, but you yourself have to remember that a while ago, suspect B and C both provided proof that suspect A had lied in completely different testimonies). At the best times, it does really feel like you yourself are solving this case, but at the worst of times, Kiss of Murder feels like a chore, as you run around asking everyone about everything in the hopes of coming across a clue. The division in chapters in Kiss of Murder doesn't help much to help this problem the previous games also had.

If you have played any other J.B. Harold game, you know what to expect from this game. Kiss of Murder does not only borrow its graphical assets from Manhattan Requiem, but the gameplay is also exactly the same. It is a very sober and small adventure game that focuses solely on conversations, with no puzzle-solving demanded from the player themselves, but slowly discovering how everyone is connected can be fun, but only if you pay attention all the time, because the game doesn't want to explain a lot to you. As a game written by Suzuki Rika (known for the Another Code and Hotel Dusk games of the late CiNG), you can expect a lot of focus on the human characters, but Kiss of Murder offers very, very little besides that.

『刑事J.B.ハロルドの事件簿 キスオブマーダー』

Angels Flying In The Dark

残酷な天使のテーゼ

窓辺からやがて飛び立つ

「残酷な天使のテーゼ」（高橋洋子）

This cruel angel's thesis

Will soon take flight out of the window

"Cruel Angel's Thesis" (Takahashi Youko)

 
Mystery fiction encompasses much, much more than just books, and that is why I try to discuss a variety of mediums on this blog. Television and films are of course the usual suspects besides books, but then there's comic books, theater plays, musicals, radio plays and more. These mediums all can offer new possibilities to a puzzle plot mystery, deepening the experience and giving the consumer new surprises. The audio-visual mediums can obviously offer all kinds of passive hints to the viewer without telling the audience. People like to use the phrase show, not tell for almost everything now, but it does explain what for the audio-visual medium can do best: it can show hints and clues without making it too obvious about it. Sure, one can use all kinds of narrative techniques to explain that a character is left-handed, but nothing is more simpler than to actually show it on the screen, for example when making a phone call. The moment the action is described with the printed word, it attracts attention, but such actions are much less obvious on the screen. This obviously also holds for sounds as clues in audio dramas.

But the most exciting medium is the videogame, as it can offer the possibilities of all the other mediums, and even more due to its interactive characteristics. It can be a semi-passive experience like a novel, it can offer the audio-visual stimula of screen or audio productions. It can literally include books or films or anything within the game world, so there's much potential. If one accepts the puzzle plot mystery story as a kind of intellectual game, than the possibilities of the videogame became clear: it's only here where the consumer is actually expected to intellectually engage with the story. The passive nature of the other mediums means that no matter what the consumer does, the story will go on. Sherlock Holmes will explain what happened, even if I myself have no clue whatsover, as long as I read on. I might've missed each and every clue, but Conan will explain what happened at the end of the film. But not so with a game! How this interactivity is implemented is a different topic, but the thing games do best in terms of mystery fiction is actually having the consumer understand the plot and do some detecting themselves.

But interactivity is not all games can do. Games can also present extremely complex elements in an accessible manner. Machi, a game I reviewed earlier, for example has the player juggle simultaneously between eight seperate storylines that occasionally intersect. One could choose the order in which to play these storylines themselves, and the storylines and their interconnections also changed depending the choices the player made, which led to very complex storylines that would be impossible to present in a linear book form. Machi made things clear by having a flowchart function, which showed how each storyline was connected. Of course, diagrams are not unknowns in mystery fiction, but having such things available with just one push on a button is sometimes a true game-changer, and maps, diagrams and the like have much more potential in videogames, as they can be updated on any spot, and one can even have the player add in notes themselves for convenience. Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books have a form of non-linearity too, but the non-linearity as featured there is peanuts compared the things videogames can do.

Non-linearity was what was on my mind as I was playing through the videogame Keiji J.B. Harold - Manhattan Requiem, also known as J.B. Harold - Manhattan Requiem, as it presented a mystery story in a manner no novel, film or audio drama could ever hope to do. The second entry in the J.B. Harold series was originally released in 1987 on the PC, and later ported to other platforms like the MSX, iOS and Nintendo DS, but it remains even now an interesting example of what the mystery fiction genre can do on various platforms. The way the story is told could not work in the same form as a novel and while the execution is certainly is not without its flaws, I think Manhattan Requiem, like the other games in the series, does make an interesting case for non-linear detective stories.

The start of the plot is fairly simple: police detective J.B. Harold learns from his old friend Judd that a beautiful musician he knows, Sara Shields, has passed away in Manhattan. While the police seems to be steering towards a suicide, Judd himself thinks there's something fishy about Sara's death, and he invites Harold to come to Manhattan himself to investigate the case. When Harold arrives in Manhattan, Judd gives you a few pointers as to where you could go, for example Sara's apartment or some friends of hers, but this is basically all the set-up you get in this game, because once you're past this two minute-long prologue, you're free to go anywhere in Manhattan Requiem.

A detective story in most mediums tells its story in a linear fashion. In chapter 2, suspect X is questioned, in chapter 3 they find clue Y and in chapter 4 they learn of the existence of secret lover Z. It is also a passive experience, as even though you might want to know more about suspect X's alibi right now, it might not be investigated until chapter 7. Manhattan Requiem however gives you freedom about who you want to question about what when. There is no set order in which to complete your tasks in the way you want. Short example: after the prologue of Manhattan Requiem, I decided I'd first swing by the victim's apartment, and interviewed her landlady. From her I learned about the victim's roommate and where I could find her, but also about the witness who first found the victim. I then proceeded to the roommate, who in turn told me about her boyfriend, but also about the victim's work and other things. But this was the route I took and it's perfectly able to first start the game by visiting the police first to get more information, or to go to the victim's work to ask about her and her relation with the customers. If I had gone to her work first, the people there might've told me where to find Sara's roommate, as opposed to the landlady. Or perhaps I'd heard about a rumor first, and I'd have gone after that first, rather than first checking up on the people close to Sara. This system is by the way exactly the same as it was featured in the first game in the J.B. Harold series, which I reviewed last year.

This non-linearity can be overwhelming at first, as you'll learn a lot about dozens of characters who all seems suspicious, and you need to check on everybody's alibi and motives with the other suspects. Suspect A's alibi might depend on the testimonies of suspect B and C for example, but A might also give you decisive information about suspect D. There are about thirty characters in Manhattan Requiem, so especially in the opening hour or so, so there's a lot to keep track of. But there's something liberating about being able to choose who you'll go to next, to ask them about what. It changes the detective story in a much more engaging experience, as you, the consumer, are deciding what to check and you decide the flow of the story. It is almost impossible for someone else to have the exact same experience I had, for everyone will decide to follow up on different clues in different orders.

The game does not help keep track of all the clues/accusations you have, so you might want to keep a note on certain important revelations and stuff (it's here where you really have the feeling you're playing an adventure from the 80s). After a while you start to get complete profiles of each character and you might even be able to strike suspects off the list, but in other cases you might gather enough incriminating testimony and evidence that justify a harder approach. Eventually, you'll strike off more and more suspects until you've uncovered all the underlying plots and schemes. Slowly all the loose points will turn into lines, and they'll all converge at one point, so the conclusion of the game is naturally very linear in comparison (you might for example need the testimony of a certain character to 'break' another character, so those need to be done in order). The game is not difficult at all, in theory, as all you do is ask questions, and you can't go game over or get stuck, though it has some really old-fashioned "traps" like having to ask the same question twice to a suspect to get results and things like that.

Non-linearity is also what hinders the story though. Because the game is designed to be played in a non-linear manner, in a way that each player can decide their own route in uncovering the plot, there is very little that happens during the game. In a linear story, you can have plot twists and the ensueing effects of said plot twist to further push the story forward. Manhattan Requiem does not have that luxury, as most of the game is non-linear, meaning that I might uncover information (the basis of a plot twist) in a completely different order than another player. I learned relatively late about the existence of a helpful policeman in this game for example, who would give me an important piece of information, but one could've come across his path very early in the game actually. Information flow to the consumer is what every puzzle plot mystery revolves around, what allows a story to build over time, but as the information flow in Manhattan Requiem is mostly free-form, it does not have the room to feature a plot that truly develops. From the start of the game until the very end, you're just interrogating suspects about each and every subject you can think of, and in between there are very few developments that truly drive the story forward. You're just digging in the alibis and motives of the many characters and it can soon become boring, as you're just talking and talking, with no thrills presented throughout.

Of course, the story and presentation could be rewritten for a linear experience. Just give a proper order of who you get to question when and what. But that would take away the feeling of the consumer of investigating the case themselves, and that is what this game can offer what a normal book can't, and that's what makes this so unique an experience.

The J.B. Harold series was written by Suzuki Rika during her time at the game developing company Riverhillsoft. Later she'd move to the company CiNG, where she'd be responsible for some of the more memorable adventure games on the Nintendo DS and Wii. Interestingly though, her later games are much more linear and also feature more traditional adventure game puzzles (using inventory items etc.), instead of the questioning-oriented style of her earlier games at Riverhillsoft.

J.B Harold - Manhattan Requiem thus forms an interesting, if at times also very flawed example of the non-linear mystery story. It is definitely fun to carve your own path through the mist, to choose yourself where to go and when, and pursuing each lead yourself does give you the feeling you're really investigating your case yourself, but at the same time, the story is rather sober and very focused on simply talking to people because it needs to facilitate for this non-linearity. You have the most freedom in the first three-quarters of the game, which is also perhaps the most tedious part, as non-linearity also means you are often just poking around in the hope of picking up a lead (at least that's realistic!) and there's nothing to really drive the plot. Only at the end you'll make some more engaging revelations, but by then most paths have already converged to a standard linear experience. So perfect, it definitely is not, but I think it's worth looking at. J.B Harold - Manhattan Requiem is available in English on iOS and Nintendo Switch by the way.

Original Japanese title(s): 『刑事J.B.ハロルドの事件簿 マンハッタンレクイエム』

Plot It Yourself

「現場百遍」

Going over the crime scene hundred times. (Japanese saying)

I talk more often about my reading backlog, but I'm even worse with games. I think I bought my copy of this game back in 2010 already... 

The discovery of the body of Bill Robbins in the parking garage of Houlington College shocked the otherwise peaceful Liberty Town. Bill Robbins was the president of the Robbins Company, and his whole family had connections (also by marriage) to all the other major families in the town. And when a man is well-connected, it also means there are a lot of suspects. Was the murderer his new wife, whom he had married only six month ago? His new brother-in-law who hated him? The local physician who has been a family friend for decades, but has no clear alibi? Whoever it was, J.B. Harold, the silent, but methodious police detective in charge of the case is sure to find out whoddunit in the videogame Keiji J.B. Harold no Jikenbo - Satsujin Club, also known as J.B. Harold - Murder Club (Nintendo DS).

J.B. Harold - Murder Club was originally a 1986 PC adventure game developed by Riverhillsoft and written by Suzuki Rika. It did quite good on the market, and was ported to several other systems, from MS-DOS, to Windows, TurboGrafx-CD, Nintendo DS and iOS. It would also spawn many sequels. Riverhillsoft would eventually go bankrupt in 2000, but by that time Suzuki had already left the company to set up developer CiNG, which would be responsible for some of the Nintendo DS and Wii's more innovatieve mystery adventure titles, until CiNG's own bankruptcy in 2010.

The most memorable feature of this game has to be its design as an adventure game. It follows the traditional command-style adventure interface, where you select commands to move around and ask suspects questions. Usually, games that follow this design are fairly linear in their story-telling: you talk to suspect A, which gives you acces to location B and suspect C, which in turn... etc. Once in a while, the story will have some drastic developments, and rinse and repeat. The Tantei Jinguuji Saburou series for example is a classic example of this model.

J.B. Harold - Murder Club however is almost like a non-linear, free-roaming mystery adventure with the command-style interface, which is a rare combination. The prologue of the game shows you how Bill Robbin's body is discovered, and after that, you're pretty much free to do whatever you want, in any order you want. Right from the start, you're able to go to many locations and suspects and each interview with a suspect will result in a new lead: you might want to check up on that alibi the suspect claims to have, or perhaps you want to follow up on that rumor the suspect told you about a different suspect, etc. Because you're basically free to start your investigation anywhere you like, and can choose to follow any lead in any order you want, the game actually gives you a non-linear experience. I for example started with investigating the location where Bill Robbins' body was found, and then questioning his brother and following up on his alibi, whereas you could also choose to investigate Bill's wife, his family-in-law or his business relations first, which would've resulted in very different leads. As you near the end of the game, the story naturally becomes more of a linear experience, as you'll have discarded most red herrings, but especially the first half/three quarters of this game, you're really free to follow up on any suspicions you have.

It's this design choice which makes this a unique game, but depending on the player, it can also be a very boring game. J.B. Harold - Murder Club's story has no real development throughout the course of the whole game. You're just interviewing suspects and then checking up on everything. There's no structure to the game because of non-linearity. Right at the start of the game you're given access to a lot of data, and the rest of the game consists of you sorting everything out. Games like Ace Attorney are designed to keep you on your feet, by feeding the player new information and new story developments every once in a while. This is not the case with this game. In fact, one could simply finish this game by asking every suspect every question and using every available command in the game: eventually you will reach the end. In that aspect, this game can feel very lacking.

If you do really keep up with all the various leads the game feeds you though, you're given a very unique experience. Most mystery games put emphasis on story developments, and the sense of wonder of solving a mystery. J.B. Harold - Murder Club is more 'realistic', in the sense that it puts emphasis on a policeman's legwork: you solve the Bill Robbins murder by good old fashioned questioning of each and every suspect, and checking on their alibis and motives. It's a very minimalistic adventure game, but it works strangely enough. This sober approach is also seen in later in the game: you need to collect enough evidence before you're able to get search warrants from the prosecutor or bring suspects in to the police station for questioning. The overall mystery plot is nothing particularly fancy, but it works in the context of the game, and I found it entertaining.

It's interesting the series is titled J.B Harold though, because J.B. is pretty much non-existent in the game. The character rarely appears on the screen himself, and you never see his dialogue lines, only those of his conversation partners. Bland isn't the right word, it's simply that he appears so very little on screen there's little to say about him.

Overall though,  J.B. Harold - Murder Club is an interesting and original mystery adventure, but it can easily turn into a just-click-on-every-command game, so the player does need to make some effort to keep themselves interested in the story. If you manage to, the game turns into a distinctive mystery game, which really makes you feel like you're slowly uncovering a complex murder case. Some older versions of this game have been released in English, though the version I played, the Nintendo DS port, is not available in English. The sequel was also ported to the DS, so I might pick that game up too some time.

Original Japanese title(s): 『刑事J.B.ハロルドの事件簿 殺人倶楽部』