Murder by Numbers
Solve Pixel Puzzles to find clues. Use those clues to interrogate witnesses. Work your way to the truth... ...and uncover the mystery of Murder by Numbers!
Murder by Numbers is a investigation, visual novel and puzzle game
developed by Mediatonic
and published by The Irregular Corporation.
Released on March 06th 2020 is available only on Windows
in 2 languages: English and Japanese.
It has received 1,535 reviews of which 1,287 were positive and 248 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.0 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 12.49€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Murder by Numbers into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
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Requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS *: Windows 7 or higher (64 bit)
- Processor: Intel Core i3 or higher
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: GeForce GTX 660 (2048 MB) or Radeon R9 285 (2048 MB) - Integrated GPUs may work but are not supported.
- DirectX: Version 9.0c
- Storage: 2 GB available space
- Sound Card: DirectX compatible
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Murder by Numbers is a visual novel styled detective/mystery game, that uses Picross puzzles as its method of gameplay. The story premise starts simple, the main protagonist is a detective-playing actress that gets herself involved in a murder case, after meeting SCOUT, a robot with visual recognition functions, that has mysteriously awoken with his memories lost, they team up together to solve the many incidents they somehow end up getting involved in, taking a mantle of a wannabe detective duo while trying to learn more about the past of SCOUT. The gameplay options are simple and concise. When the situation allows for it you can move through different locations relevant to the current chapter, question people and present evidence to them to get information or reactions. Additionally, you can scan the locations for any suspicious looking spots, here is where the Picross tie in happens, to scan for items, you'll have to solve Picross puzzles that will reveal evidence that may help the ongoing investigation. That is the simple explanation of the game, though I have a few comments about it. Firstly, besides the puzzles you'll encounter through the chapters, there are some extra set of puzzles on the "SCOUT's Memories" section. The way these are unlocked are by reaching different "Rankings" on each chapter, earning points as you complete puzzles. The thing is that if you happen to use hints during a chapter, you will miss out on bonus points, which from my experience of using only a few hints in Chapter 1, will not allow you to get the S rank and unlock all bonus puzzles for that chapter. Forcing you to replay the chapter and beat all the puzzles without using hints if you want to unlock them. This previous realization was annoying as they don't tell you this prior to experiencing it on your own, so it lead to being careful on the remaining chapters and use save scumming if I needed a clue on a puzzle, so that I could clear them "without hints" and get all bonus points. Even IF you do this, there are a few missable puzzles that can cause this frustration if you progress the story too fast in some situations. Another slight con is that there's no way to replay the puzzles found in the chapters unless you replay them completely, possibly a "Gallery" where you could access them would have been a good addition. Besides these minor gripes the game was very enjoyable, most cases were interesting and engaging, and it wraps up nicely for the few lingering questions that arise through the story. If you're doing the puzzles on your own then most of the playtime will be spent in them, the story on the surface is not incredibly long, but by the end it's interesting enough with its theme and characters.
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If you like nonogram/picross puzzles and ace attorney style story games mixed with puzzles, you will probably enjoy this game. If you only want the puzzles, steer clear as the pace of the story is slow and you will need to wade through a lot of it to get to the puzzles themselves.
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First things first: my play time is not accurate. I would often get up and get distracted doing other things since there's no time penalties or time related achievements. Secondly: it's very common to miss a puzzle in chapter 3 and missing it prevents you from getting S Rank. Make sure you check your locations after speaking to the other characters to make sure SCOUT doesn't have more he can investigate in the area. Like others have pointed out, it's more Ace Attorney than Picross, but unlike Ace Attorney the stories are more straight forward. I found myself solving a lot of the "crimes" very early on while Honor was coming up with sometimes outlandish theories and putting the wrong person in custody. But Honor doesn't have the benefit of knowing she's in a video game, so you just kind of have to go along for the ride. The character design is the biggest reason for the mysteries feeling flat. They're charming but they're also often too on the nose: if they look like a criminal, they're a criminal. I mean, the loan shark literally looks like a shark. Still, if you enjoy Picross and would enjoy reading a story with Ace Attorney Lite style mysteries, it's worth getting on sale at the very least.
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Murder by Numbers is a fun and enjoyable game in the style of Ace Attorney and other similiar VNs. It's cliché, it has various humerous characters and the soundtrack, while a bit repetitive, is nice to listen to. It's very much a western love letter to both Japanese VNs and the picross genre. You play as a former actress turned private investigator, solving murders together with a robot that you find. There are four cases where each have its own storyline and characters, but it also has overarching plot where you get to know both the main character, her companion and the recurring supporting cast (such as her mother, a police detective, a stylist, etc.). It all ties together neatly in the fourth and last case. Well almost. The gameplay is interesting as the developers mixes your typical VN together with picross which adds more to the game. With that said, I do think that some of the timed puzzles are very hardcore and at times it felt like pure luck was the reason why I managed to finished them (mainly during case 3 and 4). I definitely recommend this game! It's fun and the picross puzzles aren't too hardcore, but instead enjoyable to solve. I want more of this, and apparently so did the developers as there is a slight hint for a continuation towards the end of the game. However after this game release the studio, Mediatonic, released the popular game Fall Guys and subsequently got bought by Epic Games. I unfortunately do not see the studio working on any other games for a foreseeable future.
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Ace Attorney x Picross? I never imagined something like this would happen, but it's honestly pretty good! Cool story, charming characters, fun nonogram puzzles with REALLY good controls, what more could you ask for? The nonogram puzzles can be tough if you're not huge on those, that might just be me, since I don't use hints and am playing on Normal mode. Still a great fun time, I definitively recommend it to anyone that loves nonogram puzzles and games like Ace Attorney!
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Last Updates
| Steam data | 22 November 2024 16:04 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 20 January 2025 04:18 |
| Steam price | 23 January 2025 12:27 |
| Steam reviews | 21 January 2025 19:52 |
Online players
14
Developer
Mediatonic
Publisher
The Irregular Corporation
Release
06 Mar 2020
Platforms