[PSN] Blue Toad Murder Files: The Mysteries Of Little Riddle

[Rolf N]

No thread yet, huh?

This is an episodic Professor Layton clone/detective story for 1-4 players (local) delivered through PSN. Episodes 4-6 just came out today actually.

Every episode is about an hour long. In each you have to solve 12 puzzles of various types (arranging shapes, plays on words, maths etc) in between non-interactive dialog scenes where you're supposed to watch and listen carefully, because there will be two or three little quizzes that check what you've learned. And, of course, at the end you get to pick "whodunnit", hopefully based on your detective skills and not just luck

You get scored based on time taken for each puzzle, and if you submitted wrong answers. Note that you can skip puzzles if you just can't solve them, and it'll show you the answer afterward.

The puzzle solutions and everything else in the episodes are static. So if you remember all solutions, it'll be easy to go through again. If you want more play time, you'd have to get more episodes, and cycle through them until you start to forget stuff

The thing I like best is the narration in the queen's finest English. I think it may be just one man doing all the voices, but he's really good at it. It's so shamelessly theatrical, and they're never shy to hammer in another alliteration
The graphics are clean and heavily stylized, though the facial animation is quite good, and it's all 60fps, all the time. They have animated ducks, too!

I figure this should be a great game to play with (multiple) kids. It covers a good variety of mind-benders and is quite light-hearted in its presentation. Not violent either. Murder victims collapse to the floor, but without blood or anything of the sort.

So, uh, discuss! Ask me anything!

 

[Crossbar]

Is the game sub-titled or dubbed in other languages?
My kids are not fluent in English.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Played the first 2 episodes on holiday over Easter. It's a novel time-passer, perhaps intended for a family with kids, but it's not what I'd call a murder mystery. It's basically a collection of unrelated puzzles very loosely hung around the main plot. The main detective aspect came down to a single mind-numbingly obvious clue, so mind numbingly obvious we really didn't think it'd be that easy on Episode 2 (but it was). Multiplayer seems a case of taking turns with the puzzles, but as everyone shouts out solutions, we just played one player.

If you have children and want to exercise their brains, it's a good alternative to getting out the old Cluedo board. It's also a source of gobsmackingly easy trophies! However if you're after a mystery game, this isn't it.

 

[JPT]

Its a fun little romp, problem is that if you already played it, you have no real incentive to play it again. So its a wait for friends to arrive and play it once, then again kids never mind fun stuff being repeated. And I just bought episode 4-6

 

[Rolf N]

Is the game sub-titled or dubbed in other languages?
My kids are not fluent in English.

It's English only. Subtitles and speech. I believe it says so explicitly in the PSN store, too. Sorry!

 

[AntShaw]

I bought this sight unseen when it came out. Still sitting there. Something told me I didn't want to play this by myself and to wait for one of our social gatherings. Which, in turn will be this weekend. I'm excited to see what kind of 4 player social interaction we get.

 

[Crossbar]

It's English only. Subtitles and speech. I believe it says so explicitly in the PSN store, too. Sorry!

Not for us then.

A bit strange there is no localisation since Sony and Relentless have been pretty good at localising their previous games and adding localised subtitles should be pretty cheap. Maybe this is just testing ground for episodic casual games. If it does well, we may see more elaborate efforts.