May 022022
All right, this year we’re going to experiment with another themed month! Because what’s another genre we love around here? Mysteries.
There’s not a holiday paired with it this time, so I picked May for the sake of alliteration. (If I missed a better choice, do let me know.)
Promotions
I’ve worked a little in the realm of mysteries myself, with the biggest example being “The Domino Lady Takes the Case,” my murder mystery starring the pulp fiction heroine the Domino Lady, found in Domino Lady Volume 3.
(My subsequent story “The Domino Lady Deceived,” found in Domino Lady Volume 4, is not a mystery so much as a heist/crime story, but there’s some overlap.)
Another is Sacreya’s Legacy, my zombie detective story. It’s a free serialized novella, but it’s also one of my earliest published stories, so… keep that in mind.
(I keep telling myself I will one day revisit Sacreya’s Legacy, though it hasn’t happened yet.)
Announcements
Meanwhile, over in the world of video games, I’ll be working with Snowhaven Games to take over the development of the upcoming murder mystery visual novel Drops of Death, so stay tuned for more information about that!
Contest
Now, when we hold an event, that also means a new contest! Be sure to read the rules carefully, as they’re slightly different from previous events.
This year, the available prizes are:
- Domino Lady Volume 3 (ebook)
- Domino Lady Volume 4 (ebook)
- Phoenix Wright Trilogy (gift sent through Steam)
- The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (gift sent through Steam)
- Master Magistrate (gift sent through Steam)
- $15 sent through PayPal
- You pick a game for me to review!
(Is this all a subtle ploy to try to get more people to play The Great Ace Attorney?? …I mean, the thought crossed my mind.)
If you choose the review option, your chosen game must be something I either own or is easily obtainable, which you can discuss with me beforehand. It must be a single game, not a collection (although the chosen game can be part of a collection). I will start playing it in June.
Rules:
- No purchase is necessary.
- Only comments made between May 2, 2022 at 12:00 PM EST and May 31, 2022 at 11:59 PM EST will be counted.
- 1 non-spam, non-anonymous comment on any May Mystery Game Madness blog post = 1 point.
- Retweeting any of my May Mystery Game Madness tweets = 1 point.
- You must use an email address or website URL (or include another way of contacting you) in your comment so I can contact you if you win.
- The top 3 point earners will win prizes.
- The person with the most points will get their first pick of the prizes. The person with the second most points will pick second, and the person with the third most points will pick third.
- In the event of a tie, tied winners will be contacted at the same time. If tied winners choose the same prize, duplicate prizes will be possible. A tie for third place will allow for more than 3 winners.
- The winner will be contacted by June 2, 2022.
You’ve got a month of mystery game content to look forward to and prizes to win at the end! This time, however, I’ll leave it open for one post a week to potentially be switched to a non-themed topic, so that we don’t run into another situation where we ignore exciting announcements for a whole month.
(I keep unintentionally writing murder mystery month, but that’s not necessarily true. I expect most will be murder mysteries anyway, but mystery games without murder are also viable!)
So let’s get talking about some mystery games! To kick things off, what are your personal favorite mystery video games?
Favorite mystery games… besides Ace Attorney????
Seriously though, I’d say… Danganronpa, Zero Escape, 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim (that counts, right???)
Hmmm… Does the Stanley Parable count as a mystery game? The basic premise is one of mystery, even if the story itself will often diverge wildly from that initial premise…
The biggest mystery might be… what does or does not count as a mystery game, since so many games have *some* kind of mystery as a central element. Though some definitely lean into it more than others.
You could just name Ace Attorney, of course. 😛
Hmm… I’m not sure I would count either The Stanley Parable or 13 Sentinels as a mystery game… although 13 Sentinels covers so many sci-fi tropes, there probably was a mystery in there somewhere.
I’d say I would define “mystery game” as being a game where the primary focus or at least the inciting incident is investigating a crime or incident. The story having some big question people are wondering about isn’t enough; it has to be something they’re specifically investigating.
“All of his coworkers were gone. What could it mean? Stanley decided to go to the meeting room. Perhaps he had missed a memo…”
I would argue the basic premise of The Stanley Parable is that of a mystery, though the game does diverge from that basic premise quite wildly depending on your choices, even if it does not initially open as focused around a “crime” specifically.
Hmm… I still feel like that’s not quite the same as being a mystery game. There’s a question that kicks off the story, but it’s not really a story about investigating the mystery. But then, it’s been years since I played, too, so my memories are a bit fuzzy.
This all reminds me that I never got Famicom Detective Club on the Switch and I should probably feel bad about that.
(Which launched in MAY MYSTERY month.)
Oh hey, I never got it, either! I need to do that sometime…
Ace Attorney is one of those popular series that somehow I never got around to trying but was always curious about.
You absolutely should try it someday. I’d say it’s my #1 favorite series.
Wow, your favourite game series of all? That is some mighty high praise! Oh yeah, have you seen Aviary Attorney? I played that and enjoyed it quite a lot, though I’m not sure how similar it is to Ace Attorney (if at all).
Yep! There are individual games I like more, but as a whole, I don’t think there’s any series I like more than Ace Attorney. Actually, The Great Ace Attorney 2 has probably become one of my top favorite games, too.
I played Aviary Attorney a couple years ago and reviewed it: https://www.samanthalienhard.com/2020/01/aviary-attorney-restrictions-and-revolutions.html
I touch on the differences a little bit in that review, but basically I’d say the general idea of the gameplay is similar, with the notable differences being Aviary Attorney giving you limited time for investigations and letting you get different outcomes/endings.
(Oh, it looks like we actually had a conversation about Ace Attorney in the comments there, ha.)
Oops! My memory is pretty bad, sorry. I forgot you had reviewed it. It does seem like the kind of game you would have come across already.
Anything that can be compared to Ace Attorney will at least get me to look into it, haha.
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