MMM: Murder Most Misfortunate Demo [Murder Mystery]

[DeeCeptor]

Hey there. I've just released a demo for my game, MMM: Murder Most Misfortunate. It's a short visual novel about an Agatha Christie-esque murder mystery. It features some point & click style gameplay, and is also partly inspired by the Phoenix Wright series.

Demo on Steam

Demo on Itch.io

Demo on IndieDB

The game features full voice-acting throughout, and has some exploration elements as you gather evidence. At the end of the game, everyone gathers in the parlour, and you can accuse anyone of the crime. The tough part is making that accusation stick.

It's taken almost 2 years to develop this game, and I think it's turned out pretty well. The script was written by my brother, and the art was done by a friend.

The game was made in Unity, as we wanted to include some extra gameplay that wasn't possible in other visual novel engines. I actually wrote my own framework for it.

The full game will be released on May 1st. I'm very excited as this has been a ton of work. Let me know what you think about the demo! If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

[Mammon]

Downloaded the Demo, will try it out soon. But one tip already: Also make a WiP thread for this game because the Demo's and Beta testing section is rather undervisited.

[DeeCeptor]

Thanks for the tip. I didn't put it in there because it won't be a work-in-progress for very long, as it's very close to release (though I should've made a WiP thread a loong time ago... I'm not very good at marketing :/ )

[Mammon]

I played it and in terms of the characters and delivery of the world and such, this game would be interesting enough for me to be interested to play the final release. The mystery on the other hand and the mechanics through which I'll have to solve it, I can't tell from the duration of the demo.

Not sure how much of the backgrounds and such are stock images so I can't say too much about them but they looked quite well for the setting. Well found at the very least. The writing was quite agreeable as well, Miss Fortune's way choice of words did give a 19th century vibe to a certain degree and she presented the exposition and descriptions with more flavour then one would get from the common detective protagonist. On top of that, her personality as a protagonist who's amused by the macabre events going on but will be more inclined as either an observer or to play the game rather than to take it absolutely serious, in comparison to the standard kind of protagonist detective, will no doubt be more enjoyable. Maybe after nine late husbands she'll finally be able to find her Sir Price? (For those who don't get it, say it out loud. Jup, terrible word-play.)
EDIT: The backgrounds are custom made, so well made! They looked quite lovely and nicely detailed, I was already a bit worried that they might've been CC resulting in you guys having to work with what was given but if it can be adapted to your needs this will certainly benefit your mystery mechanics!

I can tell there's been quite a bit of effort that went into the sprites, moving lips and the multitude of poses, including those of the heads which would thus require more expressions, was certainly more than what one usually gets in a VN. However, I wasn't charmed by them and hope they get some final touches in the release. At the least I hope that the head-to-body ratio is made similar for all characters, that the countess's sprite is put on the same plane as the rest, and that the arms of agast Miss Fortune and dismissive countess get fixed, because those things are a bit jarring.

For the worldbuilding I was a bit confused. Everyone seemed to be living around the late 19th century and the discussion about being outdated by industrialisation suggested this even further, but then the green girl pulled out a cellphone. When does this take place?

[DeeCeptor]

Thanks for trying it out Mammon.

The backgrounds are actually made by our artist (who made 3D scenes, which we turned into 2D so we could get a nice full panoramic view of each room).

I'm glad you like the main character. We feel that a bland main character is a definite turn-off for many visual novels, and wanted to avoid that.

I haven't noticed anything out of proportion for the sprites (maybe I've just got used to them?), I'll look into it.

The game takes place in a modern world that has a different history than ours (though it doesn't influence the game too much). I would say it's like early 2000's. The characters are attending a house party, and since some of them are rich and snobbish they have fairly old fashioned clothes, which fits in with the old-fashioned manor they're visiting.