PS3 Informer

Blue Toad Murder Files Preview

You might have heard of a little game on the Nintendo DS called Professor Layton. That puzzle-solving mystery franchise has sold in impressive numbers around the world. Now, the developers behind the Buzz quiz series have announced that they plan to bring their own flavor of murder mystery games to the PSN in the form of Blue Toad Murder Files. The \"game\" will feature a whodunit style narrative, which players will interact with to collect evidence and compete to solve the mystery first. New episodes will be released periodically over the PSN with new stories and murders to solve.\n\nBlue Toad Murder Files supports local multiplayer competition with between one and four players. Each player will control a detective ranging from a nosy old lady to a Sherlock-style blowhard to a precocious kid. Like in Professor Layton, the characters all end up stuck in a little village, which plays host to a shocking murder. The only train into town is broken, and the Blue Toad detective Agency are stranded in the town of Little Riddle until they can get that fixed. Hmm, you might say, \"I do detect some similarities with another recent case.\" While the story and set up borrow quite heavily from the Professor Layton formula, there are some key differences in gameplay. Rather than place the focus on puzzle solving, the overall goal of the game is to solve the crime using your own deductive skills.\n\n\n\n\n\nYeah, sure it is mayor murderface.\n\n\nRather than feature a point-and-click or dialog tree interface, the designers decided that the players needed all of the relevant information provided to them. The story will therefore play out in narrative cutscenes that contain clues and information that can later be used to piece together the crime. Players will all be able to see each others' cutscenes, so there is a cooperative element to the game until the final phase where it asks you to pick out the killer.\n\nTo break up the action between cutscenes, the game asks players to solve micro-puzzles. These are quite similar in design to the ones included in Professor Layton, but they assist the player by helping them organize the evidence and build a case against the accused. Those can be replayed afterwards to get a better time, but we can't imagine much in the way of replayability for these episodes, once you find out who the killer is.\n\nBlue Toad Murder Files sounds like a fun, casual diversion, especially for those with friends who like to pretend they are detectives. We will have more information for you about this title in the coming weeks as the developer reveals details about the game, which is expected to land on PSN this winter.\n\n\n\n\n\nThe quaint little town of Little Riddle. Be sure to enjoy all of the wonderful -- ARRgghhhhhh!\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nAn example of the kind of puzzle you could solve if Professor Layton was your friend.\n \n\n
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