Blue Toad Murder Files is an episodic Murder mystery for all the family. You must solve puzzles in an attempt to identify which one of the prime suspects are the crime culprits. Little Riddle may be a quintessentially quaint English village, but it hides some shady secrets and murder is afoot…or ahead – depending on which end of the recently deceased you are standing at.

The game is available to download via the Playstation Network so you could happily still buy this in time to play this Christmas but whether or not you should be buying it may still be a mystery to you.  Fortunately, that is one mystery I can help solve…

Whodunnit?

Blue Toad Murder Files is the next game from Relentless Software – the people that have up to now produced the hit Buzz series of quiz games. Bored of monkeying around with quizzes they have decided to turn their skills of cerebral examination to the solving of MURDER mysteries.

Yes, MURDER!

(Above) Your Choice of 4 Blue Toad detectives – I went for the old man with the detecting beard

Who detects the detectives?

You (and up to three friends) can take control of one of the four Blue Toad detectives and attempt to get to the bottom of the mysteries that confront you on your arrival in the quintessentially quaint English village of Little Riddle. Other than their names and appearance there is no difference between the characters in terms of the way you play through the game.

Going through the game in one player allows you to play through all of the puzzles and after a round of investigation you must answer questions on what you have seen and heard so far. Playing through in multiplayer means that you and your fellow detectives take turns with the puzzles and the questions are split between you.

Whether you choose to work with the people you are playing with is up to you.  When we played through we helped each other on the puzzles, but kept the identity of the final suspect a closely guarded secret – and I can be smug in the knowledge that out of the four of us, I was the only person to correctly identify the guilty party in both episodes.

(Above) The quintessentially quaint English village of Little Riddle hides many a puzzling secret

Who Makes Puzzling Progess?

Along the way you will have to solve a variety of puzzles. These can be split into 4 types: math-based puzzles (such as calculating the total numbers of guests staying in the hotel), text-based puzzles (such as decoding mysterious diary entries), audio puzzles (such as helping some old bag find her bag by working out what she is waffling about) and visual based puzzles (such as the vitally important reconnecting of the pub’s beer pipes).

(Above) Can you solve the mystery of the pub’s pipes and get the beer flowing again?

Players can compete for the gold, silver and bronze medals awarded for correctly solving puzzles. A gold medal is achieved by solving the puzzle with no mistakes and within a set amount of time.

All puzzles correctly solved will allow you to continue your investigation and gain further information from the suspect that the puzzle relates to.  Most of the characters are very comical, well-executed and seem at home in their quaint English village. For a downloadable game the voice acting is of the highest quality and lead to some laugh out loud moments for myself and the people that played through the game with me. The “Yes/no-ing” of the pub bar maid and the not so ‘fawlty’ performance of the hotel manager were notable highlights.

Some puzzles are much easier than others and so will need to be solved in a shorter amount of time. None of the puzzles are overly difficult but some will require some lateral thinking and it probably helps to have as many brains, ears and eyes helping out as possible – just make sure they are not using their mouths when a vital clue to the final mystery is revealed!

(Above) The Usual Suspects from Episode 1 (fortunately no Ja-Ja Binks in sight)

Who Makes The Final Lineup?

So with all things considered should you be lining up a download? For me it comes down to preference and price. If ‘puzzle+mystery+quaint english village humour = win’ is an equation that makes sense to you, then Blue Toad Murder Files will probably appeal to you.

It does, however,come with a warning: your stay in the village of Little Riddle is all too short.

Start to finish, each episode is about an hour and a half in length. While this would be a problem in itself, it soon becomes one when there is little or no replayability to each episode (unless you do not correctly identify the culprit the first time).  This is because nothing changes on subsequent playthroughs, with puzzles and the identity of the final guilty party remaining the same.  This is possibly as a result of wanting to stick to a continuous story arc across the planned six episodes, but seems like a missed opportunity to add some value to each episode.

The need to buy all 6 episodes to fully get to the bottom of all the mysteries of Little Riddle means that this should perhaps be compared to a full price game (as it adds up to a near full price price) and with limited replayability it may come up a little short.  Unlike a full game though, you do not have to pay all the money at once and do not have to continue to pay should you find it is not what you are looking for.

It is a game that you could play with all members of the family and could entertain grannies, children and all ages in between, in equal measure…and perhaps that is something that is more than worth paying for this holiday season.

There is nothing like a good murder to bring the family together at Christmas!