Murder by Numbers nice game with a cute core concept but it suffers from major game design issues in regards to the sheer amount of nonogram puzzles that it throws at you, to the point where I can only recommend it in good faith to true enthusiasts. The puzzles themselves are well thought out and actually relate to the gameplay and narrative in a clever way, but the game throws far too many of them at the player at far too regular intervals for it to ever be enjoyable from start to finish; I went from loving nonograms in Case 1 to never wanting to see them again in Case 4. There are occasional timed sequences with shorter nonograms but these do not do enough to shake up the gameplay experience. Unlike say, Professor Layton, Murder by Numbers does not give enough agency to the player in terms of when and where they can encounter puzzles, nor do you get enough variety in puzzles to keep you engaged as a casual solver.

Aside from the puzzles, the game itself is pretty decent. Masakazu Sugimori provided an excellent soundtrack and the main characters, Honor and Scout are both pretty likable and unique protagonists as far as detective stories go. The game has some cheesy early millenial humor that can be hit or miss, but when it does land, it lands well. The cases themselves are a bit lacking - they're not exciting 'impossible' crimes like you'd see in traditional detective fiction (or media that takes after it, ie Ace Attorney), nor are there any truly engaging whodunit narratives. Really, the game's cases are pretty cut-and-dry and closer to Scooby Doo mysteries rather than anything more meaningful. I think there's a lot of potential in the game despite its flaws, it clearly feels like a passion project, but as things stand it's pretty lacking.