Elden Ring is still beating me up. I can’t believe how deep this game is… how much stuff there is to do. I’m getting ready to do the Radahn Festival in Redmane Castle and I am still so very far away from getting to the Boss that will let me do the DLC.
Occasionally, I need a break from it.
Thanks to Steam’s Summer Sale, I found Crime O’Clock (currently 70% off! Six bucks!) and it’s, like, the *OPPOSITE* of Elden Ring.
It’s a mixture of hidden picture, mystery, and time travel. The basic idea is that you are an investigator from the future who is interested in solving crimes in the past. It’s not your job to fix them… that’s someone else’s job. It’s your job to figure out what happened. You get a series of pictures that show a crime, the aftermath of a crime, and the events that led up to the crime.
The tutorial level breaks it down for you:
There has been a crime. We hear that it has been a burglary. Who had their apartment broken into?
Well, there it is.
The game helpfully shows you the victim the first time:
And, from there, the game takes you to a picture taken right before the breakin hoping that you’ll find the burglar… and then, once you’ve figured out who the burglar is, you can see if you can find the burglar immediately after the crime. Where did he go? Where is the loot?
And so you jump back and forth in the timeline, looking at different snapshots of time, figuring out who was where and when and what they were doing.
And you can set the timeline right by putting a small coincidence in place that effectively breaks the causal chain that resulted in the crime (or, at least, get the stolen goods back to the burgled).
Along the way, you can zoom in and see all sorts of goofy little details that they put in there to make you laugh.
There are plenty of different maps to explore… I’m currently investigating a murder at a pyramid in the 14th Century BC (and there are cases to solve in the future as well).
It’s like they made “Where’s Waldo” into a mystery game.
If you’re looking for something downright relaxing that you can play by yourself or with the kiddos, you should definitely check this one out.
So… what are you playing?
(Featured image is the Crime O’Clock splash page. All screenshots taken by the author.)
Bought DA2 + Inquisitor for $6.98 on Steam. I’m not wild about these types of games… I feel like the game is playing me and I’m just pushing buttons to advance the story. But whatever… $6… will see if I stick with itReport
Mostly Elden Ring for now. There are still some unexplored areas before Stormveil Castle, but I decided I was ready to see how I fared against Margit. I did a couple attempts without any sort of summon helped to see if I could actually figure out what he was doing. Way back when I did it the first time, I just couldn’t even keep up with what his attacks were. This time, I took a few attempts to practice dodging. After that, I decided to try for real. I used the Sorcerer guy you can summon and the Spirit Jellyfish. It took me a few tries. On one attempt, I had his health bar down to a couple pixels, got too reckless trying to get that one last bit, and got comboed to death. After another attempt or two, I was victorious, and I actually felt like I beat him and didn’t just get lucky by flailing wildly.
After that, I went to the castle itself. That is where I stopped in my first game. I made it a lot further this time, though I may go back and visit the Weeping Peninsula and power up some more. I am only in my mid-twenties at the moment, and I am not sure if I even have any weapons at +2 yet. The Banished Knights kick my butt more often than not.Report