I am ashamed to admit that I knew little of Edgar Allan Poe before I encountered MumboJumbo’s latest game, Midnight Mysteries: The Edgar Allan Poe Conspiracy, but am now very pleased to know a little more about the life and work of this fascinating writer, editor and critic.
I’d read Poe’s famous poem, The Raven (1845) but what I didn’t know was how influential he truly was. He was the first American writer to earn a living out of his writing and possibly the inspiration for the evolution of both crime and science fiction writing.
Just as fascinating as his writing were his life and his mysterious death. In 1849, aged only 40, he was found wandering the streets, senseless and in great distress. Four days later he died, his final words rumoured to be, “Lord help my poor soul.” Over the years, his death has been “variously attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, tuberculosis.” (wikipedia)
Of course, no mysterious death would be complete without a conspiratorial murder plot and this is the creepy premise behind the game, Midnight Mysteries: The Edgar Allan Poe Conspiracy.
Assuming the role of a history writer you are transported back in time by a supernatural pocket watch. With just 24 hours and 30 ghosts from the past it’s up to you to figure out who murdered Poe and solve this 160 year old mystery.
Oozing with atmosphere, it’s the attention to detail in this macabre game that really helps it stand out in a crowd. An animated crow opens the game and the ghost of Poe, in chains, urges you to help set him free. From here the player gets taken on a hidden object adventure through some of Poe’s most famous literary works.
The gameplay will be familiar to fans of the genre – you search each background for a list of obscure items cleverly disguised in the scene. In line with the evolution of this genre towards more traditional point and click adventure games, some objects get stored in an inventory and can be used to solve more complex puzzles. For example, you might need to use a screwdriver to open a box in which another key object is concealed.
The game also features an array of logic-based mini-games and some beautifully animated cut scenes drive the story.
I’ve been trying to pinpoint exactly why this game has captured my attention when so many of the darker-themed hidden object games have not. I keep coming back to the ‘too many clicks’ consequence as a fine example of the creative attention to detail. Instead of the game eating a chunk of time or freezing my cursor like in so many of the games in this genre, Midnight Mysteries features an animated crow that flies through the scene, stealing my ‘hint’ lantern on the way. A wicked, one-eyed black cat then leaps onto the screen with a nasty hiss and a swipe of its paw. Just one of many features throughout the game that helps set it apart.
All in all the game captures the atmosphere of both the era in which Edgar Allan Poe lived and the dark and mysterious nature of his literary work beautifully. Highly recommended.
Midnight Mysteries: The Edgar Allan Poe Conspiracy is on sale for $9.95 at Club Casual
