A colonel is murdered in a seaside hotel. There were five other people in the hotel with him, all of whom are potential suspects. You are the great French detective — Antoine Saint Germain, and you have been called to the hotel to solve the murder. You have looked at everyone’s motives and alibis, but you are unable to figure out who committed the murder. However, all is not lost. You know from experience that if you talk like you know who did it, the murderer will reveal himself. Or herself. But are you observant enough? Do you have the gift of the gab? Find out in Death Off The Cuff.
Death Off The Cuff, available on both App Store and Google Play, is an interactive fiction game inspired by Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot stories. You interact with the game and its characters by typing in your commands. Incredibly intuitive, these commands help you to focus on a person, examine his or her body, clothes, accessories, etc. to gather more clues and have something more to talk about. For instance, typing murder will give you a bit more detail about the colonel’s death, while typing Jonathan will put the focus on Jonathan. You can talk about the items in the room, each suspect’s motives, their past lives and hope that you are getting too close for comfort for someone in the room. At which point you can type in actions as well to physically interact with someone.
Death Off The Cuff reminds me a bit of Heavy Rain where you need to interact with the game to decide which of the many paths the protagonist can take to lead him to his kidnapped son. Where Heavy Rain was dark and slightly depressing, Death Off The Cuff is charming and witty. There are puns on the detective’s name — one character calls him Mr German, while another pointedly asks if something “is germane to the investigation.” Some conversations, such as discussion of a character’s “long and slender” legs, are quite funny and cause the detective embarrassment.
Death Off The Cuff is worth a download just for its delightful characters and the perfect crime setting: a seaside hotel. Playing the game feels like you are reading a crime novel which you are also simultaneously writing. The plot is clever and can have several different endings depending on the route you take. It’s a game about patience and observation. So if you think you are up for solving a crime download Death Off The Cuff today for only $0.99 from App Store or Google Play.
TheAppleGoogle Rating — 8/10
