Mystery Case Files: Huntsville and Prime Suspects. Two games - One Story.
Huntsville, an old town in the middle of nowhere became unexpectedly popular to the whole world one morning due to the success of the brand new puzzle released late 2005...
Mystery Case Files: Huntsville was just the beginning of successful detective game series. Who knows how many more of them Big Fish will release given the growing success of each new version.
So far only two of them have been ported to Macintosh. And we're happy to present them to you.
The first question you might ask is what the difference is between the two versions of the game? Hmm... Good question. But it is to mention each version of Mystery Case Files has a story underneath.
At MCF: Huntville, you're to solve the crimes by a bunch of criminals that break peaceful way of life in a remote town of Huntsville as multiple things are stolen from the local stores and shops. Thus this game is your investigation around the town of Huntsville(you'll have to work in a number of places like watch shop, attorney's office, hairdresser's and even cemetery).
MCF Prime Suspects offers you more serious involvement with crime solving: here you're to investigate the theft of royal diamond and track the criminal out of 20 suspects. You have a chance to get familiar with each of them and study his personality in detail.
After a case study you're to collect a fixed number of clues and eventually decide whether a suspect is guilty or innocent by solving a puzzle at a crime computer.
In a nutshell, the game play in both games is a crime investigation that a player is to carry out.
It's a normal detective job: first you'll have to collect a required number of clues in different locations. Afterwards you're to unravel a criminal case and bust the criminal by solving a sort of jigsaw puzzle at a crime computer.
However, as you start playing yourself, you'll see it's not as easy and boring as it sounds. In fact, developers did their best to make things as more complicated as possible. You'll have to tackle at least three problems:
1) clues to find are minute (e.g. domino blocks, butterflies, eye balls) and each location is a complete mess! Most often, each picture has a dark background, which makes it even more difficult to hunt for clues;
2) the objects to find are located in the places you will never expect them to be(artist brushes on the train windows, telescope in a pile of old books). Moreover, because the game settings and graphics is a retro-style. Apparently, things will never look as you expect them to look. Thus, if you see a telephone on the list of clues to find, don't look for a brand-new shiny Smartphone. You're most likely to run into that funny black gizmo invented 100 years ago.
That's the reason why the game is not very easy for young kids.
3) the time for each case is limited as well as the number of hints you might use.
But here's what you can do to obtain a good hand at sleuthing at the shortest time possible:
Mystery Case Files Games tips and tricks:
1) Always play the game in full-screen mode
2) Take your time (although it's limited) to look around the place.
Notice and memorize every little thing although it is not listed in the list of clues at the current level. You might be asked to find it in the next location.
3) If you're stuck and there's no hope for you, use the hint option.
By the way, there is another thing you can do if you're at a complete loss. Try to click random spots on the playfield with the interval of 3-5 seconds in hopes of running into a required clue at a chance. But beware that continuous frequent clicking will only reduce the time allowed for each case.
Anyway, if you still have not downloaded the game, follow the example of the rest of the world and try it. There are three things that bring the games of the MCF series to where they are now: fresh and previously unseen puzzle concept, good sense of humor, state-of-art graphics and sound. But I guess it's all about developers talent and a flair for what a player needs...
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