Playable demo cracks open Murder Cases

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Announcements by Drew Onia
Published:

Full version of hand-sketched, black-and-white horror puzzler coming to PC on Steam

“Sometimes the truth is more painful than the pain of being lost.” So begins Murder Cases, an upcoming thriller in which players assume the first-person role of an amnesiac trapped in their own house in the aftermath a brutal homicide.

The game begins late at night with a grim cutscene of you cowering in a closet while your beloved Sarah is killed in front of you. After passing out, you awaken near her lifeless body feeling cold, covered in blood, and with a headache but no memory of what happened after you arrived home. What’s worse is that a “mysterious visitor” – surely the one that committed this heinous act – is still in the house and has locked you inside, preventing you from escaping. Now you must make your way through the darkened house one puzzle and danger at a time, hoping to discover what happened here and recover your missing memories in the process.

Murder Cases is a slideshow-style, point-and-click horror puzzler featuring a unique frame-by-frame aesthetic with a raw ink-drawn illustrative style. The graphics are largely in black and white, except for the odd splash – or spatter, in the case of a prominent blood red – of colour to emphasize key elements. These unnerving visuals are complemented by a soundtrack designed to convey “an ambiance of mystery and terror.” Solving puzzles is the key to making progress, as the house is packed with escape-room-esque challenges such as hunting for useful items and uncovering lock combinations. Pay careful attention to the environmental clues you find as well, as you begin piecing together a sordid mystery whose answers you may wish you’d never uncovered.

There is no release date for Murder Cases yet, but a demo is available on Steam for Windows PC, set right at the beginning of the full game.