The Gamebook Feed: Emily Short: Mustard, Music, and Murder

Emily Short: Mustard, Music, and Murder

http://ift.tt/29gjjlL

PeterkinCover Christopher Huang’s Mustard, Music, and Murder is a less intricate construction than his previous, highly randomized detective puzzler An Act of Murder, but it’s likely to appeal to many of the same players.

Mustard is a bite-sized mystery IF set after WWI, where the central challenge is to work out the alibis of various office workers who might have committed a murder.

In the rather artificial mode of traditional logic puzzles, the characters turn out to have interacted in neatly quarter-hour chunks, so you need to interview everyone and then work out the resulting schedule to find out who could possibly have been alone at the right time. But as with An Act of Murder, realism isn’t precisely the point here. Instead, the game feels a bit like an early Lord Peter short, offering fifteen minutes’ worth of deduction in a cozy 1920s setting. The environment is implemented fairly lightly to avoid red herrings, but includes several entertaining surprises.

Mustard, Music, and Murder includes a hint system that will step you through the solution if need be, so there’s no chance of being stuck, but I didn’t need to rely on that too heavily.

Huang is also crowdfunding a novel about Peterkin, the game’s protagonist, and his fondness for this period and genre shine through.

Tagged: Christopher Huang, Mustard Music and Murder