Gotta be honest, when I first saw the store page of this game, I didn't think of it much. But turns out, Murder by Numbers is actually pretty good!
Let me tell you a bit about the plot. There's an actress named Honor Mizrahi, and her life is mostly doing okay, until one day she finds SCOUT — a weird robot that was apparently made for helping detectives with solving crimes. On the same day, a murder happens, so Honor and SCOUT decide to work together to investigate the crime.
There are four chapters, which means you'll investigate four different cases. All of this time you will also be learning about what happened to SCOUT before he met Honor. The plot is okay: I can't say that it was mindblowing, but I can't say that it was bad either. I've seen some people say that it's predictable, but I have to disagree on that. You can guess some things, yes, but most of the time the story is so ridiculous, you have no idea what will happen next. Also I'm giving bonus points to the plot for handling LGBT+ characters (yes, in plural!) in a respectful way.
The main thing that makes this novel special is that you'll need to solve nonograms to progress. I should confess that I'm addicted to nonograms (as awful as it sounds, yeah), and that was the exact reason why I wanted to try this out. The puzzles are okay, there's not much else to say about them. I was a bit worried that they're going to be too easy, since I've solved a lot of nonograms, but the difficulty level was appropriate.
Also I liked that nonograms were explained: basically, when SCOUT sees things, he needs to interpret them first, since he is a robot. You solving the puzzles is him processing the image. I thought that's a cool explanation.
Something else I need to mention breafly:
+ Great artwork
+ Memorable soundtrack
+ Funny jokes
+ Easy 100% achievements (you simply need to finish all of the chapters, the rank is not important)
- No "Skip" button (it's a must in every visual novel, why??)
- You can't replay certain puzzles from chapters to get a higher rank
I agree with other players saying that the game could be better, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It has some kind of a nostalgic TV vibe, which feels as if you're watching an old show with characters who are all dear to your heart. And for that, I'm deeply thankful.
Let me tell you a bit about the plot. There's an actress named Honor Mizrahi, and her life is mostly doing okay, until one day she finds SCOUT — a weird robot that was apparently made for helping detectives with solving crimes. On the same day, a murder happens, so Honor and SCOUT decide to work together to investigate the crime.
There are four chapters, which means you'll investigate four different cases. All of this time you will also be learning about what happened to SCOUT before he met Honor. The plot is okay: I can't say that it was mindblowing, but I can't say that it was bad either. I've seen some people say that it's predictable, but I have to disagree on that. You can guess some things, yes, but most of the time the story is so ridiculous, you have no idea what will happen next. Also I'm giving bonus points to the plot for handling LGBT+ characters (yes, in plural!) in a respectful way.
The main thing that makes this novel special is that you'll need to solve nonograms to progress. I should confess that I'm addicted to nonograms (as awful as it sounds, yeah), and that was the exact reason why I wanted to try this out. The puzzles are okay, there's not much else to say about them. I was a bit worried that they're going to be too easy, since I've solved a lot of nonograms, but the difficulty level was appropriate.
Also I liked that nonograms were explained: basically, when SCOUT sees things, he needs to interpret them first, since he is a robot. You solving the puzzles is him processing the image. I thought that's a cool explanation.
Something else I need to mention breafly:
+ Great artwork
+ Memorable soundtrack
+ Funny jokes
+ Easy 100% achievements (you simply need to finish all of the chapters, the rank is not important)
- No "Skip" button (it's a must in every visual novel, why??)
- You can't replay certain puzzles from chapters to get a higher rank
I agree with other players saying that the game could be better, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It has some kind of a nostalgic TV vibe, which feels as if you're watching an old show with characters who are all dear to your heart. And for that, I'm deeply thankful.