Inspectors' Review:
Good quality paper for by beautiful fur!
Is now the time to tell the Boss that I'm illiterate?
Sniff. Sniff. This is about ghosts, isn't it?
Here, boss! I'm posting towards the answers - you just have to solve it somehow!
Lanyard is not for eating. :(
GHOSTS!
Boss' Review:
These kind of reviews are a little different from my traditional; I believe I said this in the last MEC post but just in case you never saw that one, here's the situation – these games generally have the same formula that I reviewed in my first MEC review, Double Jeopardy – you ultimately use deduction to solve the murders and search for clues.
I will also preface that MEC has the tendency to let website die and remove facebook pages for their older games. If you intend to play any of their older games (2018 and older) please be advised some content will no longer be active. There are some wonderful people who were able to help me with images of websites and pages but it can be a gamble. If you would prefer to be safe and enjoy the set up of these games, try their more recent games by subscribing just to ensure you don’t spend hours like I did hunting down people to help fill in the gaps. Midnight Dreary had one dead link at the time I played while Ghost Hunt – Winchester House had all online it's content officially dead.
Now, onto the actual reviews!
Midnight Dreary
For this MEC adventure you are investigating a serial killer who takes his inspiration from famous dead poet and write, Edgar Allan Poe, in how he constructs his murders. This killer even gives you a list of men to use as your suspect list which I admit helped a lot to be able to cross it off. The narrative was good and pretty smooth to follow along as I was able to use the easily accessible suspect list to explore the evidence and tick off suspects. I believe this game is the beginning of an overarching narrative so it ended with some unanswered questions in the story but it definitely peaked my interest! I will add the whole motive of the killer still leaves me a little confused but I assume it would be addressed in later games.
Again, there were no puzzles. You essentially are just looking for alibis for each suspect and comparing that with what suspicious evidence you have on them. It has you explore websites, call numbers, and examine newspapers. The newspaper is the key piece in the game as you need to keep referring back to it when you find clues as it can exonerate or condemn suspects. One of the websites that is key for one suspect was down but I received screenshots of it and was able to solve the crime. The other site required for the game was up and active so there were no issues and the number to call still worked.
Overall, I thought it was short and fun. I am interested to see if I can follow along with the overarching story but time will tell.
Ghost Hunt – Winchester House
Now, after I discovered that I was way off the chronology of MEC and that I would need help from friends to acquire documents to play the older games, I thought it was a good time to branch into one of the two games I have from the Ghost Hunt series (little did I know I would face similar issues) while I await the required documents for the first MEC game.
This series takes a little bit of a different turn where you are attempting to identify who the ghost is haunting the Winchester Home and also uncover the tragic circumstances for their demise. There is a newspaper filled with all the historical information about the home (which is a real haunted location) and all the names of those who could be the ghost. There is a paranormal log which notes the difference paranormal experiences the ghost hunters uncovered and will help you narrow down the names. They also provide you with letters, photos, and notes from the home that will continue to narrow things down. There is also meant to be a Facebook page that contained two witness statements and additional information and photos but it has since been taking down. I was able to receive a pdf copy of the page – there were videos on the page but I have been told they were more for mood and have no bearing on the game solvability (which I can now attest to).
I found it was easy enough to figure out who the ghost was BUT I did not expect one part of the tragic circumstance which was a interesting twist. I liked how the conclusion page (website is dead but I got a pdf of it from a friend) broke down how each piece of paranormal activity narrowed down the search so you understood its intention. There are definitely some pieces in the game that are irrelevant and just there for theme like the Winchester gun schematics but it was interesting to take a look at.
Overall, I thought it was a sound game! I love history so reading about the Winchester House was really neat and when I finally had all the documents I enjoyed making connections. I wish there was a way to check your answer before looking at the solution so you could try again if you got it wrong but thankfully I haven’t had that issue as of yet.
This is the same set up as their newer games so check out the company here if you interested in deduction based games! These are great for when you don’t have hours and hours to puzzle but still want to solve something.