The player begins the adventure in the house of Arthur K Finkelstein, a once prolific author who has written a series of mystery novels starring the brilliant young detective, Jenny LeClue. For his latest book, the publishers demand a character be murdered in order to increase sales. Arthur tries in vain to persuade his editor not to harm any of his beloved characters, but money talks, and Jenny is soon on the morbid case; exploring the seedy underbelly of Arthurton, tracking down suspects, and collating evidence.

You play as the eponymous protagonist, whose sarcastic sense of humor and righteous pursuit of the truth make her easy to love. The beautifully hand-drawn art – one of the game’s very best features – is evocative, vibrant, and brings the enchanting town of Arthurton to life. Collect stickers to decorate your detective notebook, canvas the town, and interrogate suspects. The game is filled with so many little details and collectibles hidden all over the map.

One of the best aspects of this game is the strategically hidden clues during dialect & conversations that the player must pick up on to help solve the case. Certain characters will lie throughout the story and you must be keen to spot the subtle differences in their behavior. Most items in the game can be interacted with so be sure to look around for any secrets!

At times, the gameplay can be a little too focused on long climbs up trellises and ladders (for a small child, she certainly has a lot of upper body strength… actually kind of jealous…). That said, the deductive puzzles are great, allowing the player to make conjectures from various clues in order to piece the mystery together one revelation at a time. The story switches between Finkelstein’s perspective of writing the novel to that of Jenny, living the story as it is penned by the distressed author.

I had a blast playing this game. Due to the number of game-changing decisions that you make, the replayability value is high – I’ll definitely be going back to see how different options effect the game’s ending (which is made easy to do by the scene select option in the main menu). Like all good murder mysteries, the story is left on a cliffhanger. Here’s hoping the sequel doesn’t take too long to come out!
This game is a must play for all puzzle game aficionados. Pick up a copy on Steam now..