In the Bureau of Investigation I am used to the lack of routine, here no case is repeated. A case that starts with a robbery or theft does not come to us without a reason, it is always about something more. Once upon a time I would have said that no dead body looks the same, but after what I saw today, I’m not so sure.
I was assigned to the case by my boss, Hoover. He wanted me to investigate the three bodies found in Arkham, Massachusetts. Upon arriving in town, I glanced at the local newspaper to get a feel for the local mood. There I found a full cross-section – the kidnapping of a child, the devastation of a cemetery and a madman building an island at home from chopped up furniture. Between paragraphs about shocking events – an advertisement for a jewelry store and an advertisement for a job at the docks. Oh, an art gallery with a painting exhibition will be opening soon. Quite a varied mix.
The coroner invited me to the mortuary to show the bodies of three victims – construction accident, murder, assault. The case would not have reached the Bureau of Investigation if not for the connection between the deceased – they looked the same down to the smallest detail. Facial features, physique, birthmarks, teeth. The only difference, apart from the injuries sustained, was that one of them had a gold ring on his hand, while the others had only a mark of a similar one on the finger.
Maybe there is some logical explanation. For now, I have a few leads – the addresses of the places where the bodies were found, the names of the police officers involved in the investigation so far, and a gold ring that seems not so ordinary. Strange things have been happening in Arkham since the witch trials, some dark cults are operating here. I have a gut feeling that this case has something to do with them.
…
This is just the beginning of the first of five scenarios included in the Box of Investigation: Arkham Investigations and Other Mysteries . Don’t worry, the above introduction is just the beginning – we learn all this in the first minutes of the game, before we investigate the first clue. Further it is only more interesting … You will see for yourself, I will not reveal the content.
The game is based on the system known from Sherlock Holmes: Advisory Detective. We get an outline of the plot, a map, an address book and a limited time to figure out the solution. The special feature of this mechanism is the lack of hand-holding – we will not find commands “go to this place to meet John Smith” or “visit the library to learn more about history”. Taking each step requires us to think for a moment. If we hear a name, we need to assess whether talking to the person can contribute to the investigation, and if so, first we need to find the address in the book and then go there. In addition, as a novelty in this installment of the game, each place can be explored in two ways: by talking to the people staying there or by conducting investigative activities, e.g. searching rooms, observing or collecting evidence.
Often, when choosing a place to visit, we will use a map and clues. If we know the suspect visited a bookstore on his way from home to work, we can deduce which one.
This freedom in exploring clues and conducting the investigation in your own way is, of course, only apparent, because we will discover only as much as planned by the creators anyway, but it gives the feeling of being fully immersed in the world. Lovecraft’s mythology has been used for years as the backdrop of many games, sometimes a bit too forcefully. Here, in a detective game, it fits perfectly, reproducing the atmosphere of an RPG session .
The performance of the game further enhances the effect of going back a hundred years. We have fold-out maps, case files resembling case books, newspaper pages, an extra address book, and an envelope with a stack of papers. And all this is printed on high-quality paper, with attention to detail, stylization to old documents and few, but atmospheric illustrations.
The second difference in mechanics working in favor of the Bureau of Investigation is the approach to ending the case. In Sherlock, players could end the investigation at any time, be confronted with a few questions, and then get a score against the perfect solution found by a Baker Street detective. I found this part of the game unsatisfying, especially when we spent the evening wandering the streets of the city and Holmes found the murderer in three steps – two of which required gigantic leaps in theorizing.
Now we have a predetermined time limit, which imposes a certain framework on the gameplay and clearly lets us know that we are approaching the end of the matter and it is worth focusing on finding a solution. After the time has elapsed, we must designate three places where we carry out the intervention. The solution to the case tells us whether we have chosen them correctly, and also presents a plot description of what happened during the intervention. Thanks to this procedure, we feel agency and satisfaction from a well-conducted investigation. At the end of the case, we read a short summary with an explanation of details that we may have missed, and – interestingly – a recommendation of stories that deepen the threads running through a given scenario.
It is difficult for me to estimate the time of the game – the pace of the scenarios will depend heavily on the group. During the game we will be able to explore many clues, each will give some clues and it is up to the players to decide where and when to go further. A safe assumption will be a minimum of 2 hours per case. These differ in complexity and we will certainly not discover all the secrets, but once we know the ending, replaying will not bring any change to the plot. This is just a feature of detective scenario games.
The clues are arranged in the vast majority in a logical way and combine into a coherent whole, rather we will never find ourselves in a pinch without an idea for the next step. Occasionally, we will encounter a situation in which we omit important information because we searched the place instead of interrogating the residents. The topics are varied and well written. They often refer to supernatural phenomena, but they do not explain everything with magic, but follow a certain logical sequence. I will add that only the first case is “typical” – each subsequent one has a few additional flavors that I leave for you to discover on your own.
