Mystery Master: Murder by the Dozen

The Good
Every once in awhile whilst trawling through old games of the past you find something that stands out from the rest, & this unknown investigation, certainly to me, does that. You are a detective, and either on your own or with a team of up to 4 have to solve cases, in which 12 are supplied.

The parser and controls in the game are very good, with keys to select what you want to do, either by interviewing, searching an area or moving to a different location. You are then given hints, which you read up in the manual, which will build up into a story.

The sounds are okay, but the graphics are really nice for the game, with icons to select your case, scrolling text to inform you about a case, clear screens to investigate, & a nice map of the city. They are nothing special, but fit well into the game.

The investigative part is the best, where you can go along at your own speed, & once you are able to give the details of the murderer & motives of the case, are rated on how long you have taken. What is nice is the game relies on you to look up the solution and inform it if you have found all the clues, so no cheating. Each clue or action costs 15 minutes, so talking to everyone & searching everywhere is not a good idea, as you will get clues for all, but they will likely be no help. One of the most important locations is the Police Station where you can pick up where you can read up Lab/Autopsy reports of the scene of the crime.

The game also allows for up to 4 people to play, so you can play as a team, cutting down the time used up, & getting a better score. The manual lists all the plots, in case you forget, & has hundreds of clues for all the mysteries, mixed in together so it is hard to cheat.

The early mysteries take around an hour, not sure about the later ones, & it is fun writing down the clues & building up a case, then discovering your main suspect is actually innocent. The game though is well balanced, ensuring you try one more action to solve the case.

The Bad
There is not much to dislike in the game. One irritating part is after each action you press return, then given a choice to solve the case, & if not press return again, which is annoying, and makes no sense you cannot do this anywhere else. There could have been more graphics in game like portraits of characters, but in fairness for 1983 this is good.

The Bottom Line
This is similar in a way to 221 B Baker St, another good detective game, though that had superior graphics, but was written in the late 80's which wasn't surprising. It also has similarities to Clue, though that is based in a house, not a town. The game had a follow up called Mystery Master: Felony, from the same author, which I haven't played. This too has 12 cases, & if anything better looking graphics with even more to do.

The game involves you as a detective, talking to people, searching rooms/objects, reading reports, & deciphering clues, until you have sufficient information to wrap up the case. The game does involve writing up a case with the clues, so if you don't like that , the game might not be for you, but then it is no different from mapping or listing information in any game.

I did notice the quite poor reader scores for the game, & I think this maybe due to the fact that without the manual you cannot play the game. It explains the game & how to play, a map with all the locations written down, ratings, case profiles etc. which you could work out without a manual, but also contains hundreds of clues, which you would definitely need to play. There is also a solutions file as well, which you need. Both of these are easily available on the internet.

I don't know whether this game sold well, though it must have done fairly well for a sequel. It wouldn't though have been popular with the pirates, as to play you would need to have the manual which contains many pages, & in this case a very good reason for buying a game & not copying like so many were in this period. It is though a game I would heartily recommend as a game to play when you want something to play casually.