Foul Play (Mystery at Awkward Manor)

FOUL PLAY

A Review of Foul Play (Mystery at Awkward Manor)

by Brad Jeske

A murder is about to be committed.

One of John Stiffning’s quests: Mrs. Thatcham, Mrs. Drabble, Miss Sang Lo,

Dr. Quandry, Major Gallop or Senator Bluster is going to kill Mr. Stiffning

before eight o’clock.

Now, the police won’t let you leave Awkward Manor. So, with detective

notebook in hand, you have turned amateur detective, examining each room,

interrogating everyone, trying to uncover the clues that will solve the

mystery into who killed John Stiffning.

This is the premise for the multi-player CD-ROM game, Mystery at Awkward

Mansion, a Virtual Travel Environment game. What is a Virtual Travel

Environment? It’s comprised of over 5,000 individual photos, 39 interactive

panoramas, from a fourteen room mansion in England, set in the 1950′s. It

includes 65 animations, 2000 sound bites, with each suspect having 6,000

different responses to questions with 4,700 possible solutions to each game.

The game can be played by 1 – 6 players. You begin by choosing your

character, and a time limit for searching for clues. The time limits are 1.5,

2.5 and 3.5 minutes, and can vary between players. Each player is then

privately shown a list of clues telling you what room your character had been

in between the time of 7:25 to 7:55; if anyone had been with you, or if you

had been alone, and if you were the murderer, what type of weapon your

character preferred.

Playing the game is simple. You travel from room to room gathering clues.

Clues can be found nearly anywhere in the rooms, under chairs, on chairs,

inside cabinets, behind curtains, inside fireplaces, on bookcases, on top of

the mantels. Or maybe the phone might ring, and it’s the police with more

information.

Maybe in one room you find a radio, turn it on, and find out

that Dr. Quandary had a grudge against John Stiffening.

Use the on-screen magnifying glass, place it over the area you want to check.

Press the mouse button, if no clue exists, you get a beep. If there is a clue

it is shown, you can make the proper notation in your detective notebook,

which are provided along with the game. These notes include a map to the

house. A listing of all of the suspects, and time line which allows you to

keep track of where people were at the time intervals.

Along with finding clues, you will encounter other characters in rooms. For

example, find Senator Bluster in the billiard room, and ask him where he was

at 7:40. He might respond, “I was in the kitchen at 7:40, and I was alone.”

He then would walk off. Only one question may be asked at each meeting. Click

on the “?” and find out which weapon that person would have used. Want to

find out when a suspect was in a room and with who, choose the icon:

Interview by place. Or maybe find out what a suspect has discovered after

8:00 by choosing the personal knowledge icon.

Levels 1 – 3 are strictly beginning levels, only the first floor is

accessible. You must solve the mystery by finding out who committed the

murder and with what weapon. But at level 1 – 3, you will receive lots of

on-screen help in aiding you along the trail of finding the killer. At

mid-levels you must find out who was the murderer, which room, and the

weapon. At higher levels it is all of the latter plus the time of the

killing.

I found moving between rooms can be sluggish if you are using a machine with

less the 8 MEG of RAM, and the sound had a tendency to be choppy with

sections of sound dropping out. This might cause some frustration and loss of

intrested with some people playing the game. However, running it with at

least 8 MEG or more, you will definitely see a noted improvement.

According to the developers of Foul Play, levels 1 -3 take about 15 – 20

minutes to play, though, I found it to take longer. I was averaging about 40

minutes to 90 minutes for a game by myself, but maybe that says something

about my detective abilities? But game times can also vary depending how many

people are playing. How lucky you get at finding important clues, and the

speed of your computer’s processor.

I enjoyed Foul Play, it’s a entertaining, fun game that the whole family can

play. There are no complicated rules to understand, and you can be playing

the game in no time. And with so many different solution possibilities, it’s

a game that can be played over and over, which makes Foul Play worth looking

into.

Gamer’s Zone Scorecard

Product:	Foul Play (Mystery at Awkward Manor)
Company:	The Armchair Travel Company Ltd. London England http://www.armchair.travel.com

Cost:

n/a

Macintosh:
LC III or better (25Mhz 68030), 13″ – 14″ color monitor,
Capable of 256 color display, 5 MEG of RAM,
Double speed CD-ROM drive, System 7.1 or later
and Quick Time 2.0 or later.