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Investigate This
Kareem Ali 3

Investigate This: Scarecrow

 

  • The good

    Some of the cutscenes look great

  • The bad

    Gameplay is almost non-existent and mystery not very captivating

  • The ugly

  • Investigate This: Scarecrow is a story-driven mystery game developed by Twist-EdGames.com starring two young private investigators, Carson and Hannah. They’re hired by a mysterious character named Don who found out about them through their website and wants to hire them to investigate the appearance of a “living” scarecrow at a farm owned by a Mrs. Dinkley. Apparently someone or something is either trying to scare Mrs. Dinkley out of selling her farm or scare her into selling her farm. Don refuses to explain his connection to Mrs. Dinkley, why he’s interested in this case or even how he became aware of this case. What he does say is that he will pay the duo for a week to solve this case and they accept after some hesitation. It’s up to you as either Carson or Hannah to solve the mystery behind the “living” scarecrow and as a result bring peace back to the quiet town where this farm is located.
     
    GAMEPLAY

    I wasn’t sure where to begin writing about the gameplay because the gameplay here is almost nonexistent. Well let me correct that…Investigate This: Scarecrow allows you to be an observer of a story that takes place so the “gameplay” is what you choose to see. It’s absolutely possible to fail in this game because you only have a week to solve it so you have to choose wisely what you want to see. However you will spend about 95% of your time just hitting ‘A’ after reading some text to read even more text. There’s no voice acting here nor can you speed up the text. The graphics aren’t breathtaking at all but in comparison to some other games it’s solid enough to view while playing and the best quality of this game.

    You start off by choosing either Carson or Hannah and even though the two work together on this case you do get a few scenes that are different based on who you choose. First one is a corn maze in the beginning where Carson and Hannah race to see who can get the fastest time. This is one of the 3 times in the game you’ll actually control the movements of a character and it’s basically choosing which path to go. I guess this first maze was just practice for the other two times you had to navigate a maze. None of them were difficult and sadly they all were a welcome break from just being an observer.

    Hannah and Carson are shown in a diner every morning and afternoon and this is where you choose what to do for the day. Hannah developed an app that’s a t0-do-list and you select where to go, who to interview and assign either one of them to perform a task. Some tasks or interviews require both of them while other tasks are character-specific. And once you select a task that requires both of them or assign both of them to a task a scene unfolds with the character you selected. You can do this twice a day so this is where you have to choose wisely. The problem is that’s all you get to do. There are no questions to ask.

    Investigate This: Scarecrow

    Well it can be a major step…oh, you meant the task

    There are no clues to investigate or items to examine. It’s just watching a conversation unfold and there are no options given during these scenes. And too often the banter between Hannah and Carson during a scene digresses from the story and is uninteresting. And the story itself started off more interesting than it ended. You interview Mrs. Dinkley, her son, a real estate agent and two neighbors, a mother and her son. There’s a rival who introduces himself in the diner, Bart Brannigan, and wants to solve the case before the duo can but there’s no explanation as to how he became aware of this nor is there any meaningful action that would make this character necessary. And that’s the overall feeling I got from the conclusion of the story: was any of this even necessary? Apparently, no.
     
    SUMMARY

    When I saw Investigate This: Scarecrow I was hoping this would be an enjoyable mystery/detective type game but it was really just a mildly interactive story. The banter between the two characters went on way too many tangents and there are no options when talking to other characters. The to-do-list and assigning characters to certain tasks was a nice touch but in comparison to the overall story and the lack of interaction the potential was lost. I just can’t recommend this game especially considering the price of it in comparison to other Indie games. This came off as an episode of Scooby-Doo that was left on the cutting room floor. Even if you think you’ll enjoy it for the story like some other games such as, Dear Esther, I suggest watching back to back animated Scooby-Doo episodes because you’ll enjoy them more than this game.

  • Gameplay ( 6 )
    Graphics ( 6.75 )
    Sound Quality ( 6.5 )
  • Total score 6.4

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