Art of Murder: Hunt for the Puppeteer Demo

Detective flicks have always been rather popular with the audiences, especially if they do a good job at keeping the mystery interesting and portraying the one in charge of solving it. Thus, the Nancy Drew book series and the CSI TV franchise have managed to stay on top for quite a long time in the genre, although they are obviously very different from each other in many ways.

Art of Murder: Hunt for the Puppeteer is a point-and-click adventure game that allows you to be part of the mystery and tackle the case by yourself, in order to see whether you would be able to catch the culprit and navigate the bureaucracy surrounding such gruesome events. Thus, your main purpose is to observe the evidence, gather clues and put them head-to-head in order to find the identity of the criminal.

Just like in the previous episodes in the series, you play as Nicole Bonnet, an FBI agent who happens to be investigating a serial killer nicknamed The Puppeteer. However, after the murders stop happening in the United States, they resurface in France, where the killing of a ballet dancer matches all the signs of the notorious psychopath. In order to continue the investigation, Nicole must travel to Paris and put the evidence together.

The rest of the game evolves as you might suspect from an adventure title, but the case is not very original and you certainly won’t remember too much from it after you are done. The jealous local inspector motif is obviously present as well, as are many other cliches taken from classic detective stories. Not much can be said about the puzzles either, since they are certainly not very clever and they do not make you feel like you are actually trying to solve a murder.

Fortunately, the game features pretty pre-rendered graphics when it comes to the environment and the landscapes, which works wonders for the atmosphere sometimes. Beside the fact that the Eiffel Tower seems to be visible from everywhere, the visual presentation is quite impressive and you certainly might get involved in the action just to see more locations.

Despite its best efforts, Art of Murder: Hunt for the Puppeteer does not manage to keep you playing after the first few minutes, since it works extra hard to flood you with cliches and unremarkable dialogue. However, you can still go through the entire thing if you are really curious, although there’s nothing you haven’t seen before.