Death Trick: Double Blind

Genre: Graphic Adventure / Visual Novel

Players: 1

.

Review:

(Note: This game is included in The Magic and Murder Bundle, along with My Lovely Wife.)

Death Trick, released in 2024 on PC and Nintendo Switch, is a game that combines Graphic Adventure and Visual Novel elements as players guide two characters both using different methods to try to solve the same mystery, the murder of a stage magician in a traveling circus currently visiting the small American town of Tulgey in 1952.

One of the protagonists is a young woman named Jackie, a fellow magician and acquaintance of the victim who has been summoned by letter to take the deceased’s place for the final performance in town while quietly looking into the rest of the circus troupe to uncover the killer. The other protagonist is a private detective named Jones hired by the circus’ owner after the murder was virtually ignored by the local police, who finds himself facing a second mystery when he’s assaulted on scene before meeting with the circus owner, but isn’t clear who his assailant is or why they attacked him. Both characters have different methods and perspectives that can help them to track down the culprit, and players alternate between the two of them throughout the game.

Players are given some freedom to select from a map and move around the circus to perform their investigations, but each in-game hour has specific events happening in the circus that affect who they can talk to, and they are limited in the number of actions they can take within that hour. As such, while questioning the various suspects or searching for information, players must be careful not to waste time on topics or searches that aren’t pertinent to their investigations, or they may find themselves running out of time before getting to vital information they need.

The game mitigates this somewhat with a fortune teller character that players can use to exchange “experience” gained by accomplishing goals for “time” in the form of more action points to ask more questions or perform more searches. And in a manner reminiscent of the Ace Attorney series, players discovering a discrepancy between a suspect’s statements and facts gleaned elsewhere can pair the two to confront or inform the person they’re speaking with about something that doesn’t add up.

I should note that the writing here is all excellent, with some really wonderful, well-written characters. There are a few noticeable typos and grammatical errors here and there, but overall this is an excellent story, with interesting characters who do a good job avoiding falling into tired cliches.

The presentation here is largely pretty good too, with some really beautifully-designed characters and backgrounds with lots of color and a creative style that stands out and looks fantastic. The characters have different poses they move between, and some small paper doll-style idle animations, but overall the art here is mostly static.

I think the sound is more of a mixed bag, with some decent sound effects that help to set the scene, and some of the instrumental music here is fittingly moving, but elsewhere the music gets grating and repetitive far too quickly.

However, I think this game’s biggest flaw is that its game mechanics are a bit clunky and at times confusing. It’s far too easy to accidentally hit the D-Pad direction to start inspecting a scene and unintentionally lose an ability point while trying to find the menu command you want, the game is inconsistent in letting you question some characters but not others, and some commands are unclear – for example, when you are talking with someone as Jackie and bring up her “mind-reading” skill, it’s not clear if the game will have her talk about this skill or actually use it. In a game where you can only take so many actions before you’ve lost your opportunity to do anything more, the distinction can be important.

The game has some irritating glitchiness going on too. It can take a while to load menus, and at one point the game absolutely refused to let me ask questions of a suspect until I saved, closed the game, and restarted, for some reason.

However, while the gameplay could use a bit of refinement and there are a few other areas that could use a little more work, overall Death Trick is an excellent Graphic Adventure and Visual Novel game that is absolutely worth investigating if you’re a fan of murder mysteries.

tl;dr – Death Trick is a game with Graphic Adventure and Visual Novel elements that puts players into the role of two characters both separately investigating the same mystery – the murder of a traveling circus’ stage magician. The story, characters, and presentation here are excellent, and while some of the game mechanics can be a bit confusing, this is overall a solid entry in the genre that fans of detective-style games will want to try out.

Grade: B

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