In terms of interface, And Then There Were None is an enjoyable return to old-school, third-person point & click adventuring. Along with the standard smart cursor and inventory, the game features a notebook that serves as a useful repository in which Narracott makes copies of important documents and records his observations. This proves a handy way to keep track of the characters, especially if you're not familiar with them from previous reading. The only potential problems arise from the difficulty of locating some of your inventory items, as you can only view twelve at a time and there are often several screens of inventory to trawl through. Furthermore, new items are slotted into the first available space in the inventory, causing problems when you collect a number of the same type of object. I would also warn gamers to pay attention to objects in the landscape, which although not revealed as hotspots, may still be used to solve puzzles.

Most of these core puzzles aren't too taxing, involving the accumulation and manipulation of inventory objects. There is some variety in puzzles, however, and those gamers left unfulfilled by Broken Sword will welcome the inclusion of not one, but two goat based puzzles! Narracott has several objectives in And Then There Were None; the main ones being to discover the murderer and to escape the island. A further sub-plot involves Narracott being challenged by U.N. Owen to complete a cryptic treasure hunt. As well as being able to listen at doors, and spy through keyholes, Narracott can also further his investigation by performing extraneous little niceties, which ingratiate him with the other characters. For these characters, it appears that trust is cheap, and can easily be bought by acquiring some out-of-the-way object (often requiring the completion of a few extra puzzles). The reward is usually some extra backstory or information, which although not essential to the plot, makes the characters' motivations clearer and adds a degree of replayability. This also varies the game's playing time, which ranges from short to medium, depending on how many of the non-mandatory tasks you want to complete. There are also several different possible endings, as well as the novel's original ending to discover, though only after you complete the game the first time. Unfortunately, the inability to skip the game's numerous and lengthy dialogues may discourage some people from replaying.

Sometimes the only difficulty in these puzzles lies not in solving them, but in identifying them. This is caused by the game's clumsy triggering system, which rarely flags up the tasks you need to complete to move onto the next time block. The fact that there is a degree of non-linearity in the game exacerbates this problem, giving too much freedom which occasionally left me frustrated and wandering through the rooms, looking for clues as to the possible trigger.

This inattention to player guidance is symptomatic of a wider corner cutting reality, evident in the endless recycling of the game's main musical theme, the now-infamous 'living-dead' bug (where the corpse of one of the characters appears while the character is still visibly very much alive), and the rather half-hearted animations. How, for instance, the guests are able to congratulate the butler on "an excellent meal" is beyond me, as despite the clinking of cutlery and glasses during the dining room cutscenes, no one actually animated any food onto their empty plates. Furthermore, although it is inevitable that that the game loses some of the novel's suspense due to the protracted playing period, little effort is made to translate the psychological impact of the murders into the game. I recognise that an already limited medium is further constrained by budget concerns, but characters just don't react authentically (or in some cases, at all) to the horrific events happening around them. Take the death of the first guest for instance. Pretty shocking. But the doctor stands with his back to the corpse and Judge Wargrave makes a real effort and stands up. How's that for psychological realism? I could forgive these faults if the game was innovative and pushing genre boundaries, but as it adheres firmly to a tried-and-tested format, these elements should really have been sharper.

And Then There Were None is an alternating enjoyable but frustrating game, which excels in several areas but stumbles in others. The provoking thing is that with a little more time and polish, the game could have been a classic, as many of the foundation elements are in place, with excellent writing and voice work, engaging backgrounds, and an interesting non-mandatory puzzle system. As it is, the game is a murder mystery whose inconsistencies pose as many questions as they answer—questions completely unrelated to the intricate thriller upon which the game is based. And Then There Were None is intended to be only the first Agatha Christie adaptation, so hopefully AWE Productions will solve a few of these design mysteries before beginning their next project, retaining all the positive elements of this one while correcting its faults. With the experience gained here, the franchise should be in capable hands going forward.

Despite its weaknesses, And Then There Were None is a game that will appeal to those Christie fans prepared to accept some liberties with the original text, while adventure purists will be glad of the game's comfortable interface and familiar gameplay. As a relatively simple adventure with a gripping story, the game may also serve as an appealing genre introduction for adventuring novices.

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