Agatha Christie – The ABC Murders Review (Switch)

Game: Agatha Christie – The ABC Murders
Genre: Adventure
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam, PS4, Xbox One and iOS)
Developers | Publishers: Artefacts Studio | Microids
Age Rating: EU 12+ | US T
Price: EU €35,99 | US $29.99 | UK £35.99
Release Date: October 6th, 2020

Review code used, with many thanks to Microids

You can’t really go wrong when you use a novel by Agatha Christie as a source for a story for a crime-themed adventure game. She is, after all, the queen of murder-mystery novels who throughout her career as a writer produced 66 detective novels and 14 short-story collections in all.

Agatha Christie – The ABC Murders is an adventure and investigation game adapted from the classic Agatha Christie novel. So let’s see how it stands up to being investigated, let’s take a look and find out.

The Great Detective Hercule Poirot

You play the role of the great detective, Hercule Poirot, in a 3rd person perspective adventure game packed with mysteries. As the game begins you are introduced to Poirot and his English sidekick Arthur Hastings. A mystery letter is slipped through the bottom of Poirot’s door. Upon opening the letter Poirot discovers a riddle, on the date of 21st of the month something sinister is about to occur in Andover. The odd part about the letter is it came from the murderer, and he hasn’t committed the murder yet! The letter is signed A.B.C.

Shortly thereafter a murder is committed and It’s up to Hercule Poirot (and of course you) to work those little grey cells and solve the case. Poirot investigates crime scenes, interrogates witnesses, and solves puzzles all over the South of England.

Agatha Christie – The ABC Murders plays as a point and click game. You move Poirot with the left stick and use the right stick to highlight objects and people to either talk to, look at or interact with them.

Gameplay is divided into observation sections where you move Hercule Poirot around to look at clues in your surroundings. Then there are the thinking sections where you solve a puzzle, interview sections where you chat to people and “little grey cells” section where you piece together the clues to inch closer to the solution. The rest is moving around scenery or observing your surroundings. You’ll have access to character profiles showing what you’ve learned about each person and a list of current objectives, just in case you’ve forgotten what you’re supposed to be doing.

An A-ha Moment

Poirot adds his commentary as he investigates the surroundings to his  notebook for later deductions. For closer observation of a suspect or an area of the crime scene, you scroll a green icon over the screen until the icons focuses on the correct points of interest that support Poirot’s statement. The game won’t move on until all of the evidence is collected, so players never have to worry about missing anything of importance.

Other times you’ll need to figure out how to open a box. This is basically where the puzzling comes into the game. There are levers to push, secret codes to find, and dials to spin around. It all works well, and you never feel like you’re out of your depth. I mean, you are Poirot the great detective after all!

These types of puzzles actually make up the majority of the gameplay, and you’ll be sliding counters around mazes, hunting for hidden panels, and switching locks around for most of your time with the game.

The puzzle potions of the game reminded me of The Room, a favourite series of mine. None of the puzzles are brain-busting difficult, in fact, no part of The ABC Murders is very difficult. But there’s a satisfying “A-ha!” feeling once you solve a puzzle.

Visuals and Controls

With a cartoon style and cel-shaded pastel visuals, the ABC Murders does look good on the Switch. However, it’s not without a few faults, for instance, occasionally during conversations the dialogue doesn’t match the subtitles. There is also the odd frame rate issue, especially in the outside scenes. It’s fully voice acted throughout, though some of the voices sound fine and others not so much!

The game controls entirely using the joy-con, which is a bit of a missed opportunity as the touchscreen could have been used. The controls do feel slow and sluggish to me. And the icon for interacting with objects seems to have a mind of its own. At times it wouldn’t click on what I was wanting to investigate. Though none of the above I’ve mentioned managed to spoil the enjoyment I had while playing the game.

Conclusion

I’m sure like myself you have either see a TV adaptation of the Agatha Christie-ABC Murders or one of the many film adaptation of the novel. Or you could have read the novel like I have.   

While the game does not follow the novel to the letter, it does follow the events closely, to the point where those familiar with the source material will not find many surprises here.

Agatha Christie-ABC Murders makes for lighthearted detective fare, where you can give your little grey cells a bit of a workout!  

Final Verdict: I Like It A Lot