Game Review: Whodunnit (ZX Spectrum, Mastertronic)

You play a detective (who looks like Sherlock Holmes) who has been assigned to track down who killed the “Butler”.

To work out the clues, you need to walk around the rooms, speak to suspects, and bribe the different characters in the rooms.

Skill Levels

At the start of the game, you can choose from three skill levels.  The lower the number, the harder the game is to complete.  The way this works is that you get a different amount of money number of suspects to find, question and bribe.

• Level 3 is low, with you beginning with £55 and 70 suspects.
• Level 2 medium, starting with £40 and 50 suspects
• Level 1, high starting with just £25 and 30 suspects

There is then a slight pause with the message please wait for around 5 seconds flashing on the screen.

A View to a Kill

You play the game looking down on various rooms.  Each room can be accessed via the cyan doors (no keys required), and you move around using the cursor keys (5, 6, 7 and 8).  You start in the middle of the screen.

You will see suspects appear and disappear in the various rooms for a few moments.  It is down to you to reach them before they disappear and each time you reach one of them, you can question or bribe them.

If you don’t reach them in time, you don’t get to ask the suspect a question or bribe them.  The number of suspects will decrease by one and running out of suspects results in a game over worded as no suspects left.

Suspicion of Murder

You have three attempts to name the murderer, name the weapon used, the time the deadly deed took place and which of the 10 rooms the crime took place.

After reaching a suspect, you will be asked if you want to view your notes and by process of elimination, narrowing down who the suspect is, decide to say who they were.

Get it wrong three times, and you’ll lose the game, but get these right and you’ll succeed in your objective of catching who murdered the butler.

I’ll Jot that Down

By viewing your notes, you can select if you want to view the names, murder weapon and time.  Pressing the selected choice, you can then press a A-J on the chosen row and put an X under the one you want to select.

The more clues you have and noted down, obviously the more accurate you’ll be in crossing them off your list in your notepad.

Who are The Suspects:

By viewing the names, you can see who they are:-

A: Mr Snipe
B: Punk
C: Nora Butty
D: Rev Smith
E: Mrs Snarg
F: PC Plodds
G: Sailor Sam
H: Hilda
I: Little Joe
J: Milk Man

Weapons:

A: Gun
B: Knife
C: Axe
D: Rope
E: Bow & Arrow
F: Cosh
G: Spear
H: Electric Shock
I: Spade
J: Chain

Perfect Timing (spelling of O’Clock shown as OClock in the game):

A: Twelve O’Clock
B: One O’Clock
C: Two O’Clock
D: Three O’Clock
E: Four O’Clock
F: Five O’Clock
G: Six O’Clock
H: Seven O’Clock
I: Eight O’Clock
J: Nine O’Clock

On a sidenote, room numbers are revealed as clues in your questioning of the suspects.

Very Revealing

At the end of each game, you will be shown the details of the dastardly murder and your score.  How the scoring works though was a bit of a mystery as it is only displayed at the end of the game.

Pardon the pun, but I suspect the scoring is down to choosing the right people to cross of in your notes. weapons and times of your notes.

Graphics

A mixed bag here, as they say.  There is an element of a good couple of well-drawn screens and some simple user defined graphics here.

Looking down into the rooms, the detective is flickering all the time.  This is because your character is always animated as if facing left and right which can be quite off-putting.  This may be down to knowing where you are on the screen but I feel it would have been better to have used colour and removed that animation instead/

The suspects, do not flicker but do have this animation of two frames which looks like they are waving a walking stick up and down (thankfully, not flickering.)

The main screen where you choose the suspects, weapons and times is excellently well drawn.  The vicar, sailor and policeman are clear and obvious (don’t mention VAR!)

Sound

The sound on the opening page is randomised beeping.  It’s randomised in the sense that it plays what sound like random notes but is the same each time  (I remember myself writing a very similar Basic programme which pretty much the same thing!)

Once the game starts, the game plays a short few notes of a tune.  I’ve heard this before but can’t name that tune (sorry!) but know its from type of murder mystery theme.

You will also hear a few well-timed beeps at appropriate times when choosing who to cross of your list and when selecting a level.

Playability

Unfortunately, moving the detective around the rooms is rather slow and unresponsive.  Although this can prove frustrating (but not unplayable)., it can make the game very difficult using the harder skill levels leaving you running out of suspects to question and bribe.

Pressing the other keys in the suspect page did worth well, although pressing Q to quite the notebook page wasn’t at all responsive and needed quite a few key presses.

Ironically though, despite these slow responses, it doesn’t totally ruin the game (which sounds an odd thing to say).  The level of detail given in the clues, holds the game together and makes for a good murder mystery.

Printing Error?

The game’s spelling on the loading screen is Whodunit (no double n).

Final Thoughts

Considering that this is a very early Mastertronic release, it is very fair to say that Whodunnit is better than average good.

Despite slow responses on the keyboard for moving around the screen, the rest of the game works well.

This was a leap-forward from boardgames to the electronic world of computing in my opinion.

Plus One and Labelling Code

Whodunnit was also released later as a Plus One tape (two games for the price of one!).  Both games are written by B. Jones.

The other game being Alcatraz Harry (labelled as IS 1537).  The label number looks different to other as it comes from Whodunnit IS 0015 and Alcatraz Harry IS 0037 (making IS 1537).

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