Search results
Murder By Numbers is a psychological suspense-thriller that tells the story of a tenacious homicide detective, Cassie Mayweather (Sandra Bullock) and her new partner Sam Kennedy (Ben Chaplin) who become pitted against two malevolently brilliant young men (Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt) in an ingenious battle of wits as they try to solve a ...
Cassie sifts through graphic crime evidence, which includes a dead body and explicit photos of a murder. Justin cuts off the dead girl’s finger. Richard puts a gun to a man’s head and pulls the trigger (sound effects communicate his death).
- Barbet Schroeder
plot: Cassie Mayweather (SANDRA BULLOCK) is a veteran homicide detective whose troubled past and inability to play by the rules or follow orders has given her a bad reputation with her captain, Rod Cody (R.D. CALL), and fellow cops such as Al Swanson (TOM VERICA), who's now the new assistant D.A.
Richard is a bored rich kid, Justin is shy, yet briliant and together they decide to complete the ultimate challenge: commiting a murder without being caught. Sandra Bullock is the cop on the case who has several personal issues to deal with as she tries to uncover the truth and find the murderers.
- Phoenix Wright meets Picross in this '90s murder mystery mash-up.
- Rise Like a Phoenix
- Grid Lock
- Verdict
By Tom Marks
Updated: Mar 11, 2020 5:32 pm
Posted: Mar 11, 2020 5:22 pm
A detective, a robot, and a drag queen walk into a bar. That’s not the start of a joke, it’s an actual level in Murder by Numbers, a charming visual novel/mystery-puzzler that’s chock-full of charismatic characters and colorful locations. It may land just shy of reaching the admittedly high bars set by its inspirations, but I still had a great time solving this series of ‘90s-style whodunnits.
You play as Honor, a TV actress unexpectedly thrust into life as a detective, accompanied by an adorable, scan-happy robot named SCOUT. Honor is an excellent protagonist: smart as a whip but a touch too overzealous for her own good. Watching her grow into a more confident person and adapt to an unexpected new profession as she helps solve a series of murders is genuinely rewarding. Meanwhile, the way in which SCOUT’s strange story unfurls is a little more hamfisted (it is a robot nonchalantly flying around Hollywood, after all), but their peppy and endearingly naive demeanor brings vital levity to some otherwise heavy scenarios.
All of Murder by Numbers is set during the ‘90s, and developer Mediatonic has done a fantastic job of capturing and then intentionally exaggerating the iconic look and feel of that decade. Neon colors and wild geometric patterns brighten every area you visit, even defining the style of its UI and menus. Be it a TV set, a fancy award show, or just Honor’s messy apartment, every location backdrop feels distinct and lively – despite actually being conspicuously devoid of any characters who aren’t taking part in the foreground conversation.
Characters are beaming with personality, and most are dressed like they could be walking down a Fashion Week runway that same day.
“
Thankfully, the characters you interact with are also beaming with personality. Most of them – and there are quite a few – are dressed like they could be walking down a Fashion Week runway that same day, and I don’t think I saw a single character I didn’t love the look of. The character designs, both visually and how the roles they play are weaved into the story of each case to guide you along or throw you off the scent, are top notch.
That said, Murder by Numbers does make the somewhat tiring decision to have a majority of the people you interact with be strangely agitating. I know you’re investigating a murder, but so many of your conversations will either be angry, impatient, or flippant, often making SCOUT’s charming jokes an oasis of optimism in a dessert of negativity. There are certainly pleasant and empowering moments, but like in life, you gotta go through the lows before you make it to the highs.
Instead of cleverly connecting evidence, you’ll be doing some quite literal puzzle-solving in the form of Picross challenges. SCOUT will occasionally be given the option to scan for clues, which is a fairly uninteresting task that puts an ugly green filter over a location’s otherwise lovely backdrop and has you hunt for an arbitrary spot where your cross hair turns red. It’s a boring but mercifully short process, and finding something launches you into a Picross puzzle where the real fun begins.
Full disclosure: I flippin’ love Picross, and this is some good Picross. If you’re unaware, Picross is a visual puzzle in the same realm as Sudoku – you are given a grid with numbers on each line and have to use those numbers to fill in the grid and reveal an image – in this case, a piece of evidence SCOUT is scanning. That “scanning” flavor is really just an excuse to shoehorn in these puzzles, but it’s a cute excuse all the same.
Anyone who unironically loved the Sugar Rush theme song from Wreck-It Ralph will likely be obsessed with this soundtrack.
“
While Murder by Numbers is missing a couple of the desirable features I’ve come to rely on from developer Jupiter’s best-in-class Picross S series (small things, like a timer or a way to easily count squares), it’s the closest competitor that I’ve played in terms of polish. It does a decent job of teaching newcomers as well, with plenty of helpful hint systems if you’re more interested in the story and want to breeze past the puzzles.
However, one area it absolutely surpasses Jupiter is music. The songs here are fantastic and varied enough to keep me listening for a long time – by contrast, I rarely play Jupiter’s Picross games without unplugging my headphones and listening to Spotify instead. The best way I can describe Murder by Numbers’ bubbly soundtrack is that anyone who unironically loved the Sugar Rush theme song from Wreck-It Ralph will likely be obsessed. I certainly am.
Murder by Numbers successfully blends a Phoenix Wright-style visual novel with a Picross-style puzzle game by making each aspect great in its own right. It may not be the game to dethrone Jupiter from its Picross pedestal, and its somewhat overly linear detective story doesn’t quite reach as high as its Ace Attorney inspiration, but that doesn’t me...
A tenacious homicide detective (Sandra Bullock) and her new partner (Ben Chaplin) uncover a trail of shrewdly concealed evidence that links two brilliant young men (Ryan Gosling), (Michael...
- (128)
- Mystery & Thriller
- R
People also ask
What is the movie Murder by numbers about?
Is Murder by numbers based on a true story?
What is murder by numbers?
Is Murder by numbers a puzzle game?
Loosely based on the 1924 murder of Bobby Franks by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb,”Murder by Numbers” is the story of high school killers, the manipulative Richard Haywood and the brilliant Justin Pendleton, obsessed with the game of committing the perfect murder.
