Feline Forensics and the Meowseum Mystery Review

Premise

In detective game Feline Forensics and the Meowseum Mystery, we take on the role of a famous cat detective who’s investigating a murder turned heist in the Meowseum. To get to the truth and find the priceless missing gemstone, we’ll need to interrogate a cast of unique suspects, investigate crime scenes, and even appreciate the artwork.

Gameplay

Feline Forensics and the Meowseum Mystery is a classic point-and-click detective game, and in the best possible way, it’s very similar to the Duck Detective games. While the game works with a keyboard, it is designed with a gamepad in mind and works brilliantly with a controller. The controls are intuitive, and we are always prompted on-screen which button to use, which is handy for players who are not used to gamepads. So, while I dreaded trying out the game with a controller, once I did, it became my preferred way to play.

As detectives, our main tasks are divided between collecting evidence and talking to suspects and witnesses. We have an inventory, where we can see all the items we’ve collected, and a notebook where we can see all the information we have on hand about the characters we meet. If there’s something fishy about parts of a character’s testimony, we can click on it and examine it in context with all the physical evidence and conversations we’ve had. If there’s something we are missing, our cat detective will say so and give us a lead. Still, we need to pay close attention to the testimonies; some of the suspects will lie and try to obscure the truth.

From everything we’ve observed, seen, and heard, our detective will construct a timeline of the events. By examining the scenes carefully and exhausting all conversational options, we also unlock keywords that we can use when reconstructing the timeline. The timeline itself looks like a text that we need to fill in. If we are right, the whole text will be underlined in green; if we’ve made one mistake, in yellow; and if we have more than one mistake, in red. We can change words as much as we want to.

We, of course, have some help – there’s a puzzle assistance option we can turn on in the menu, and if we find something that needs analysis, we can always call the police to pick it up and help us. And speaking of puzzle assistance, we also have options for text speed and dyslexic fonts.

A good detective point-and-click game is always welcome and appreciated, but Feline Forensics and the Meowseum Mystery‘s true strength lies in its style and humor. We have a whole, living world, brimming with personality. Each character, from our cat detective to the suspects and our allies, has their own characteristics and quirks. The Meowmuseum artwork is a pleasant mix of modern and classical art, all reimagined through a prism of humor and love of animals.

In the style of the golden era of detective stories, Feline Forensics and the Meowseum Mystery is a black-and-white noir crime story, with a charming detective. The game is not completely black and white; we get flashes of color in each scene, and visually, the effect is quite stunning. The overall atmosphere is complemented well by the smooth jazz soundtrack, composed of saxophones, plunger trumpets, and speakeasy pianos.

Feline Forensics and the Meowseum Mystery has the basic audio and video settings. The game uses a manual saving system – don’t forget to save your game before exiting. The game has a demo available on its Steam page, at least for now. It also has Steam achievements, but no Trading Cards yet.

Conclusion

I’ve been in the mood for a good detective story for a while now, and thankfully, Feline Forensics and the Meowseum Mystery didn’t disappoint me. I hope the game is successful enough for the developers to give us another chance to investigate crimes with this particular cat detective.

Final Verdict: Two Thumbs Up