Agatha Christie: Death on the Nile Review by Casual Explosion

A review from Casual Explosion!

Reviewed by Uesugi

Flood Light Games is a company of practical jokers. They’ve taken the world’s most famous neat-freak detective, Hercule Poirot, and set him as the hero of a cluttered room “hidden item” game. I’m still laughing at the idea. I want to go work at Flood Light Games. I have a great idea for a game about Sherlock Holmes opening a puppy daycare business.

Agatha Christie: Death on the Nile is based on one of Agatha Christie’s more famous and trickier mysteries. As you may know, Christie remains the top-selling author of all time. Her books have been published more times than Shakespeare’s plays. I’m a big fan of Shakespeare and Agatha Christie, but I haven’t read all of Shakespeare’s plays. However I have read every single one of Agatha Christie’s 66 novels, and even the novelizations of her stage plays written by other people. So I kind of remembered who the murderer was when I saw the staged shooting in the opening scenes of Death on the Nile.

Unlike the novel, the game takes place entirely aboard the S.S. Karmak. Beautiful, wealthy Linnet Doyle has been shot in her cabin, and all the other passengers are suspects. Except you, for you are famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot! The game follows a series of your investigations into the murder. In each investigation, you’ll have several rooms/cabins you want to inspect, and in each of them a list of items you want to examine. The rooms are all extremely cluttered, though not to a ridiculous extreme. Still, I kept expecting to hear Poirot say, ‘Mon Dieu, such disarray!” (After all, this is a man who can barely abide a book sitting catty-cornered on a desk.) Once you find an item, click on it and it will be crossed off the list in your detective’s notebook. Some rooms have small puzzles. For example, you might have to find all the pens and place them in a pen holder. Or find the next numbered ball in a mathematical sequence and place it in a jar. (I do that sometimes myself at my friends’ houses.) Most rooms have simple but effective background animations.

Sometimes you’ll find a clue in an item you’re examining… for example, a bloody “J” marked on the wall near poor Mrs. Doyle’s body. Could that be a reference to Jacqueline de Bellefort, a woman who had been following the Doyles? Is someone trying to frame her? And Linnet’s jewelry box is empty - rather odd for a woman as wealthy as her. And so on.

If you can’t find a certain item, you can use a hint (it’s actually your magnifying glass). You have five hints available in each investigation, so don’t waste them. As is usual in these “hidden item” games, you have a set amount of time to finish an investigation, and random clicking will cost you a thirty second penalty. Flood Light Games is not too strict, like other companies. If you like random clicking (I know I do) you’ll probably still enjoy Death on the Nile.

The end of each investigation involves a puzzle of some sort. For example, you may have to piece together a torn up letter or photograph. The passengers of the Karnak are not a group you want to leave your important documents with, for they will surely tear up any paper they get ahold of! You’ve been warned. Other puzzles entail using your magnifying glass to examine objects (out of character for Poirot, who prefers applying his “little grey cells” to problems rather than fiddling with clues).

You get to interview and question the passengers, too. After each investigation they will be assembled in the ship’s salon. Highlighted suspects can be interviewed about certain topics, and as you find more clues in subsequent investigations, new lines of inquiry will open up. This part of the game is optional, and not as interesting as clicking on apples and spiders. But you should give it a try. A tip: try not to get confused by which passenger is which… think about who everyone is and keep their relationships in mind when questioning them. At the end of the game, you will be asked who the guilty party is!

Death on the Nile is simply the best-looking “hidden item” game I’ve seen yet. It’s easy to tell that the items cluttering up the various rooms are custom drawn. Sure, sometimes they’re nailed to ceilings and faded into backgrounds and inside a mirror’s reflection, but they look like they belong, not like they were dragged onto the screen from some Windows 95 clipart CD-ROM. The animations in the rooms add a sense of realism to the scene (clouds moving by in a window, parrot swinging in a cage, etc.). And sometimes the animations cleverly hide an object Poirot is looking for. Finally, unlike Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst, I didn’t notice any items out of place for a 1930s Nile passenger boat. Flood Light Games, you’re heroes!

The music is vaguely Egyptian, and also sometimes sounds like the BBC series, Agatha Christie’s Poirot, or maybe that’s just my imagination. It fits the game perfectly. While investigating rooms and hunting items, you’ll also hear the soft shuffling sound of Poirot walking about.

Death on the Nile is a fantastic game that you’re guaranteed to enjoy. Flood Light Games has taken some liberties with Christie’s novel and the character of Hercule Poirot, but it remains a nice adaptation. If you’re a Hastings fan, remember that he unfortunately doesn’t appear in Death on the Nile. And there aren’t any scenes where Poirot opens a door and a roomful of squirrels leap out.