One hundred detectives compete against each other in a crime-solving competition.
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Short version: Neat!
Long version: Methods: The Detective Competition is ambitious. 100 detectives solving puzzles crafted by 100 criminals, in a secret international competition. The winner gets one million dollars (or one million dollars plus parole and a clean record). When you promise a story of 100 detectives competing against each other, that offers an absurd amount of characters the story has to balance.
When the game opens with the generic, dim-witted, thinks with fists Detective Hackett, its not a very interesting start. Yet, after a few puzzles and establishing scenes, the game quickly swerves away from Hackett to establish its rotating protagonist pattern. Each protagonist is more interesting than the last. Nellie, a young rookie who lucks her way into partnering with some top-ranked detectives. She's a likable and engaging underdog, understandably frustrated with the eccentric geniuses she's stuck with.
After Nell, the game pulls back the curtain to reveal the team of game masters running the competition. As the events of the game spiral, Game Master Mellie is forced to infiltrate the competition and pretend to be a fellow detective, forced to solve puzzles that she's forgotten the solutions for. Following Mellie, we're kicked back to the lower ranked players with the neurotic Detective Ashdown. He's anxious, socially awkward, and undergoes maybe the story's most compelling arc as he gets trapped within various betrayals and scheming of his fellow detectives. Following HIM, we get a look into the criminal side of the competition, the competitors forced to create the puzzles for the detectives to solve. Then the game switches to someone else, then someone else, than someone else, never keeping the plot static with one character for too long. The final protagonist the story ends up sticking with was a delightful surprise as she gets the biggest obstacles, best puzzles, and best mechanics to unravel.
While the writing and puzzles aren't always difficult, there's a bizarre charm to them all. There's 100 chapters in the story, with 27 puzzles split up amongst all of them. There's no real punishment for failing puzzles: the game is extremely linear. Still, its a fun way to split up the different novel sections. Each detective has their own "ability" that changes the scope of a mystery. Nellie can see minute details of evidence. Mellie puts together words to remember clues/solutions. Ashdown memorized facts he's researched. Etc. It tells you more about the characters and keeps the mysteries engaging.
My biggest issues with the story is how it swings around different attempts at social commentary. The criminals are almost universally depicted as unrepentant murderers. The staff of the competition is underpaid and overworked. The head gamemaster is a billionaire who both claims to be running the competition for fun AND for a higher purpose.
The social aspects get especially weird in the final mystery, which was otherwise an incredible climax. Our final detective/protagonist is a disabled woman with crippling debt, who needs the competition to pay it all off. The criminal she's up against is an ambitious man who's murder sentence resulted from attacking a guard that was abusing prisoners. He's hoping to take down the competition and use the money to reshape the justice system into something more equitable and fair. At the same time, he's willing to kill others and use the detective's disability against her to those ends. Its the classic "revolutionary character is right, but they'll kill this baby so that makes them evil" problem. While the game acknowledges he's correct, its ultimate conclusion seems to be "mmmm but some people DO need to be in prison and actually maybe only allying with this quirky billionaire can solve the world's problems?" Its... really distracting. Particularly when the final mystery is such a meta-thrill ride that jumps between multiple layers of reality of the game for the detective to solve it.
As much frustration as the vague politics gives me, the game's ultimately very goofy and ridiculous to begin with. Its hard to expect more from that when its unrepentant in enjoying its absurdity. And the sheer craft of a ten hour mystery game with dozens of dozens of characters to keep track of has to be admired.
Long version: Methods: The Detective Competition is ambitious. 100 detectives solving puzzles crafted by 100 criminals, in a secret international competition. The winner gets one million dollars (or one million dollars plus parole and a clean record). When you promise a story of 100 detectives competing against each other, that offers an absurd amount of characters the story has to balance.
When the game opens with the generic, dim-witted, thinks with fists Detective Hackett, its not a very interesting start. Yet, after a few puzzles and establishing scenes, the game quickly swerves away from Hackett to establish its rotating protagonist pattern. Each protagonist is more interesting than the last. Nellie, a young rookie who lucks her way into partnering with some top-ranked detectives. She's a likable and engaging underdog, understandably frustrated with the eccentric geniuses she's stuck with.
After Nell, the game pulls back the curtain to reveal the team of game masters running the competition. As the events of the game spiral, Game Master Mellie is forced to infiltrate the competition and pretend to be a fellow detective, forced to solve puzzles that she's forgotten the solutions for. Following Mellie, we're kicked back to the lower ranked players with the neurotic Detective Ashdown. He's anxious, socially awkward, and undergoes maybe the story's most compelling arc as he gets trapped within various betrayals and scheming of his fellow detectives. Following HIM, we get a look into the criminal side of the competition, the competitors forced to create the puzzles for the detectives to solve. Then the game switches to someone else, then someone else, than someone else, never keeping the plot static with one character for too long. The final protagonist the story ends up sticking with was a delightful surprise as she gets the biggest obstacles, best puzzles, and best mechanics to unravel.
While the writing and puzzles aren't always difficult, there's a bizarre charm to them all. There's 100 chapters in the story, with 27 puzzles split up amongst all of them. There's no real punishment for failing puzzles: the game is extremely linear. Still, its a fun way to split up the different novel sections. Each detective has their own "ability" that changes the scope of a mystery. Nellie can see minute details of evidence. Mellie puts together words to remember clues/solutions. Ashdown memorized facts he's researched. Etc. It tells you more about the characters and keeps the mysteries engaging.
My biggest issues with the story is how it swings around different attempts at social commentary. The criminals are almost universally depicted as unrepentant murderers. The staff of the competition is underpaid and overworked. The head gamemaster is a billionaire who both claims to be running the competition for fun AND for a higher purpose.
The social aspects get especially weird in the final mystery, which was otherwise an incredible climax. Our final detective/protagonist is a disabled woman with crippling debt, who needs the competition to pay it all off. The criminal she's up against is an ambitious man who's murder sentence resulted from attacking a guard that was abusing prisoners. He's hoping to take down the competition and use the money to reshape the justice system into something more equitable and fair. At the same time, he's willing to kill others and use the detective's disability against her to those ends. Its the classic "revolutionary character is right, but they'll kill this baby so that makes them evil" problem. While the game acknowledges he's correct, its ultimate conclusion seems to be "mmmm but some people DO need to be in prison and actually maybe only allying with this quirky billionaire can solve the world's problems?" Its... really distracting. Particularly when the final mystery is such a meta-thrill ride that jumps between multiple layers of reality of the game for the detective to solve it.
As much frustration as the vague politics gives me, the game's ultimately very goofy and ridiculous to begin with. Its hard to expect more from that when its unrepentant in enjoying its absurdity. And the sheer craft of a ten hour mystery game with dozens of dozens of characters to keep track of has to be admired.