Murder on the Hill by Craig Dutton

Review by archerqueen08

I liked the puzzles very much but some of the characters were a bit off. The detective (the player) wasn't a character at all and the scene where I arrested the murderer went a bit unrealistically. Also, the game had some unusual commands, and even if the player knew what to do, they didn't know which command they had to use. But overall, the use of objects was fantastic and there were a lot of tricky red herrings too :D.

Review by DaNiX88

A very complex game that's fairly interactive concerning the characters. A great mystery while being fairly straightforward, contains a few game-ending dead ends. There were many rooms, though a few rooms had no descriptions or were not interactive. I really enjoyed finding out more about the characters and there were several extra pieces of information aside from the necessary storyline. I highly recommend players use the walkthrough because without it, I fear the game will be too hard to complete, particularly concerning the dead-ends.

However, it was a very well-written game and contained a lot of freedom without seemingly "too free." A job well done.

Review by Sizniche

An engaging mystery, though a map function would do much good to help navigate early in the game.

Review by Kim75

As said in many comments, giving suspects more to say in response to certain queries and a few more subtle hints/better verbs to the harder places to find would've been great.

Review by danaburgerrr

I enjoyed this game a lot, from the back stories of all the characters to how I was able to question and interact with them, and how they had more to say after I'd found particular pieces of evidence. that is something new and exciting that I haven't really seen in other text adventure games. but I did find the game a bit troublesome at times, mostly due to the lack of hints or descriptions for things. for example (SPOILER), I'd have never known there are footprints to be examined in the greenhouse if I hadn't seen them mentioned in the comments, and then examined the pots, and the soil, and THEN the footprints. this seems like something that could have been alluded to a bit more in the game (i.e., "maybe Lord Mandrake's beloved Dahlias can offer a clue as to who could have done this" or whatever), as it is a CRUCIAL element to discovering who the murderer is. this happened in several other instances too, like with the towel and the sand. also I think the characters could have had a little more involvement with some of the items, and the rooms could have been a bit more interesting to explore. the commands were sometimes a bit too specific as well. I've played other text adventures where as long as your command was generally pretty close to what you're trying to do it will take. but overall it was a pretty fun game, and I really liked the story! also the red herrings were genius, and nearly threw me off several times! I'm glad I played and finished this one.

Review by dawn153

great game, couldn't have done it without the comments as didn't know you could interact with background objects such as the desk and the sand

Review by deadpenguin

this is truly a game beyond
words

Review by Crispin

It was a lot of fun! I needed the hints in the the comments to make it through though.

Review by Candacis

First off, I didn't finish it on the first try, because my boat sank before I've gotten the clue and I needed the walkthrough for some of the clues, because I would've never came up with the ideas (and verbs). Some more hints in the game would've been good for myself.
I like the classic mystery detective theme, the puzzles and the subjects are well done. The story is really good, but I found that the game lacked a little bit of a finishing touch. The descriptions were very minimal and not every object even had a description. Most of the rooms appeared empty and lifeless and outside the 4 standard questions the characters hat very little to say. This put me off several times, but the story and the motivation to find the suspect kept me around ^^

Review by CJ2

Good story with some good puzzles.

I think the introduction could offer some more direction with what commands are available (instead of having to find them here in the comments, where there are a lot of spoilers), and in general I would change how the communication works - see my previous comment about getting suspects to comment on objects. I would like to see much more commentary from the characters about items, even if it isn't something they're interested in. If the question is completely irrelevant, then a generic response makes sense. At least that way the player knows they're asking something that should be asked of other characters. I guess that might be a lot of work though! Oh, and grammar-nazi tip... It's "could have" or "could've" not "could of".

I'm looking forward to trying some more Craig Dutton adventures!