I'm on a bit of an FMV kick at the moment, so I thought I'd dive straight into this. A prequel to The Shapeshifting Detective (which I reviewed here), Dark Nights with Poe & Munro is an episodic FMV point-and-click game starring the titular radio DJs/investigators/illicit lovers. Seriously though, I don't think I've ever seen a less believable couple in media - Ellis Munro must have some low standards.

Poe & Munro takes a wildly different turn from The Shapeshifting Detective - while the latter was a mostly grounded affair, the former instead decides to embrace the gleeful insanity of most other FMV titles. The results aren't so much as varying, but absolutely all over the place. The six-episode "series" features the two investigating a kidnapping, hosting a fundraiser in bed (which I think was just an excuse to get actress Leah Cunard into some nightwear), and dealing with the ghost of an evil little girl, among other hijinks. It's like someone tried to make a British X Files but took a bunch of acid while writing it.

Seriously, the pacing is all over the place - scenes and episodes either drag on for way too long or just end abruptly. The narratives are incredibly silly - Poe straight up murders a guy and buries his body in the garden in the first episode and it's never brought up again. On the other hand, there's an episode which is not only a neat callback to The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker (Da'vekki Studios' first game), but that also gives some very interesting insight into Munro's backstory. There's enough tonal whiplash to make your head spin, and it's really down to you whether you're the sort of person who will embrace the camp or reject it completely. Me? I dug it, for the most part.

The acting is pretty par for the course for an FMV game. Poe and Munro's "50s transatlantic schtick" annoyed me in The Shapeshifting Detective, but it seems that they've both toned it down a little here, and Leah Cunard carries the two of them performance-wise. Lara Lemon puts in a fun, if short, performance as a totally legitimate hypnotist. Aislinn De'ath steals the show in her brief return as The Shapeshifting Detective's Violet, having by far the best scene in the entire game. In fact, it's pretty amazing just how much more chemistry De'ath and Leah Cunard have in just one scene than Cunard and Klemens Koehring (Poe) have in the entire game.

As far as gameplay goes, this is about as simple as point-and-click gets. Icons will pop up when it's time to make a choice, and you simply choose and let it play out. It's slightly annoying that with some of the choices, it's not exactly clear what it is you're choosing - you'll have to click either Poe's face or Munro's face and just see what happens. It would have been nice to have even a little bit of inclination as to what would happen when I clicked each option. On a technical level this suffers most of the same problems as The Shapeshifting Detective did - namely, poor lighting and some camera focus issues. Some of the audio was pretty badly recorded too - I know, it's the annoying film student in me coming out again.

Overall, I didn't like this quite as much as The Shapeshifting Detective, but I still had a pretty good time. It's short, it's silly, it's even a little sexy in places. If you're willing to embrace the campy fun you'll get a lot out of this!

Now, time to start writing my pitch for The Violet & Munro Adventures... I mean, just look at them. Adorable, right!?

Picked this up on sale for about two bucks. Played it all in one sitting while I was sick. It's an easy play, just watch and make a decsion FMV game that gives you generous time to choose. I really liked the premise and the characters of Poe and Munro. I think the actors worked pretty well togather. I just wish the scenarios were better written and more cohesive. From a writing stand point it's all over the place and frankly quite bad. Plus the pacing feels like it's drunk. Some scenario's end abruptly or quickly and others drag on and are presented poorly. I do like the atmosphere they present and again I wanna highlight how great the two leads are. For my barrier of entry price and state of mind at the time I enjoyed it enough, but I can't say I would recommend it.

Platinum #171

To my great surprise, I enjoyed this immensely.

It is an FMV Choose your own adventure interactive TV Series thingy, but this really just rolls with it and does a very fine job.

The production values and editing are far better than most FMV Games out there (minus the sometimes awkward jump cuts during a choice, that feel like a little part is missing; But those happen rarely. Most of the time, the editing is incredibly seamless).

And this one is actually charming, darkly comedic, a little bit scary and a little bit sexy. And on top of that, the two leads are great and even have amazing chemistry together.

This was honestly a really great time.

Campy, vaguely sexy, darkly comedic set of six short stories about two radio hosts that made an appearance in the developer's previous game The Shapeshifting Detective. All acted out in FMV where you get to make choices that can effect the ending or minor events and character details and backstory that might give more meaning to certain endings. Well acted with good banter between the leads. It's a fun playthrough.

One set of choices usually leads to events or dialogue better for the story or better for the way the next scene starts or for a future episode, there are some cuts or dialogue in scenes that won't match up correctly if certain choices were made before.

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1345992732334931970