Adventure Gamers - Forums

Casual Friday

I need to post this a little early. Tomorrow is a brutal day, and I might not get another chance until Saturday. Better early than late!

Brink of Consciousness - The Lonely Hearts Murders is a rather unusual game. I mean unusual in all the good ways.

I has an opening cut scene that rivals Angelica Weaver in both quality and complexity. And the graphics are mostly superb. There are one or two instances where it appears the backgrounds were drawn by someone other than MagicIndie Softwork, the game’s designer. But that is common in casual games. The voice acting is “over the top” great.

The game is set in early 20th Century England. There has been a series of murders. It seems to be the work of a serial killer judging from the similarities. One thing is constant. The murder victims were all kidnapped exactly thirty days prior to the body being found. Which means the victims were probably alive during most of those thirty days.

We meet our protagonist on the second day following his daughter’s kidnapping. He, and his friend, the local police chief, are hell bent on finding the daughter before the alloted time expires.

The plot and storyline are very good. With all the plot twists it reminds me very much of an Agatha Christie story.

There is considerable conversation in the game. Unfortunately, you either need to listen to it all, or skip it all. There is no in-between. If you’ve never played the game before, you most likely will want to listen to all the dialog anyway. But if this is the second or third time playing the game, the skip option will likely be your choice.

There are some good puzzles in the game. There are two that are particularly hard. There are a few that fail to pass the “tedium test.” That is the puzzles have an obvious solution, but the time it takes to navigate all the solution steps takes up too much time.

There is a map, but it is not interactive. So be prepared for a lot of walking.

If there is a shortcoming, it is in the number of hidden object scenes. There are quite a few of them. There are a few instances where you need to manipulate an object to uncover the sought after hidden object in every hidden object scene. And you will need to revisit every hidden object scene at least twice during the course of the game. All the scenes are of the randon list variety. Which means there is no variety. All the items are period appropriate.

There is one other shortcoming, but it is one that adds unwanted humor to the game. Example: You and the police chief are examining a door in a suspects room. Opening the door requires finding three puzzle pieces. Two of the puzzle pieces are actually found in the police chief’s office, and one of the two is found in his office safe! The absurdity of the situation is laughable, but it also makes you wonder why the designers made this type of absurd design choice.

The Lonely Hearts Murders is a fun game to play. You just have to overlook its little quirks.

I have the opposite problem. My new game purchases are way down. Since I’m playing 52 old games/year for the AGSotD series, there isn’t a lot of time to set aside for trying new stuff.