The Deed | a Review
originally published on 24/10/2022;
Hello everyone, I am the English bourgeois aristocrat… Or maybe just the English aristocrat, G.E.M.Simov, a goon with a plan to perform a foul thing, come here to tell you about The Deed.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
This is a top-down Adventure game. It is mostly a puzzle solving game, as it involves going about and solving the puzzle of how to commit the perfect murder, getting no suspicion on yourself (the Player Character [PC]) and getting away with that murder by pinning it on someone else.
To do that, you (the Player) need to obtain a number of items (up to two), you need to perform certain actions - mainly talking to certain people and picking the appropriate dialogue choices - then you ought to plant some evidence and go commit the crime. After that, an investigation will go through and, depending on whether or not you’ve done the right maneuvers, said the right things and placed the right objects where they might have needed to be placed, you’ll be told if your deeds raise suspicion or are perfectly reasonable.
Finally, you will be told if you were successful or not. If not, try again until you succeed. If yes, then congratulations… But can you pin it on someone else?
The game is simple. It works entirely off of the mouse, and the Escape key as a means of planting evidence, and that’s pretty much all that is needed, as the game works quite flawlessly on that front. It does get the Poin&Click Adventure feeling and mechanics down to a T, and, not only that, but the way it is designed - with the game itself telling you what you did wrong - being quite exceptionally helpful in making sure you don’t mess up in the future.
With most Adventure games of this kind, you just have to try and try and try, without having any idea what is going wrong and what must be done, you must perform outlandishly stupid deeds and so on and so forth. In The Deed, everything works off of logic… Which is quite refreshing. The game tells you how to play it and highlights what’s important - which might be related to Presentation, but it is tied to Gameplay, so I’ll mention it here.
When hovering the cursor over an object, the cursor might turn into an eye - which will lead into the PC commenting (in their thoughts) about the object. If the cursor turns into a textbox, the PC will engage conversation with the character that has the cursor hovering over them. If the cursor is a grasping hand, then the PC will attempt to use the object - most often opening a drawer or grabbing a weapon.
That’s simple and concise, and very understandable. That is good stuff. One little issue would be one’s inability to put things back. Even though there are 2 prompts checking whether the Player is certain they want to pick something up, it seems weird that there is no option to go and put an item back. That could be tied to programming limitations though, so I’ll not hold it against the game.
There is, however, something that feels off about it. It might be that the means of going through the dialogue are so clunky, it might be that it requires many repetitions to get through to the end, it might be that I simply derive no amusement from the act of purely playing the game… I can’t perfectly put it into words. The movement might be lackluster, being this somewhat sluggish prancing, rather than a satisfying run, or perhaps there’s something else… In any case, there’s a measure of jank forced upon the game by RPGMaker, and that amount of jank does affect the experience negatively, at least in my eyes.
All in all, this is a very great Point&Click Adventure game, even if it is monstrously short. 2/3
Presentation
This is a top-down game made in the RPGMaker engine, on one of the earlier versions. However, it does not look quite like a game of that make, due to the fact that the models seem to be attempting to emulate a real person’s body and also appear quite tall when compared to the models in most RPGMaker games.
On top of that, this game features still images of 3D objects (which 3D objects are models of heads) as pictures depicting the characters in the game. While that is interesting, they appear very, VERY uncanny, and, on top of that, the lanky shapes of the characters in the game world is also quite… Funky.
There’s the matter of the remainder of the game’s presentation, and I must admit that it is decently done. The music isn’t bad, it could even pass off as quite good, though the Sound Effects leave a decent bit to be desired. Then again, this game focuses on the story it gets to tell and the means of getting to it, thus it has a focus on Story and Gameplay. Presentation just needs to be passable so that these two things can do their thing and work. It does that. 2/3
Story
The Player Character is Arran Bruce. Ex-heir to his hundred-year-old noble family’s fortune, he’s decided that he would like to be the heir once more. So, he will go back home to get rid of the next heir - his mentally unstable sister - whilst celebrating his abusive father’s 50th birthday in the presence of the faithful butler and the new, pretty maid. It’s all a set-up, as each one of them could be made to seem the murderer in Arren’s stead.
So then Arren goes around, doing things, procuring an item to use as evidence, to plant in a room, and then another item to use as a weapon. Dinner is then called, and there’s a little argument during dinner - nothing out of the ordinary - after which Arren goes, plants the evidence and proceeds to murder his sister, fleeing the room in an attempt to create a bit of an alibi for himself.
An inspector arrives and interviews everybody, after which he concludes what’s what. Arren is either found guilty… Or not. The open-ended-ness of this game is very intriguing. There’s a lot of stuff that can be done in it, and I quite like that. The mother can be set up to be guilty, the butler can be set up, so and so can take place - it’s all quite intriguing and pleasant to bring to fruition.
The story is short and sweet, and I quite like that. It allows for repetition, and it allows for a multitude of stories to be told. Good stuff, I dare say. It might even lean towards exceptional, but a few of the characters involved are quite… Similar to caricatures, rather than actual people. Most intriguing and unnerving. 2/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? I was tempted to grant it the point, based on the fact that it is a very well done Point&Click Adventure game, but then the few issues I have with it make me apprehensive. So NO, it does not get the legendary point. 0/1
Conclusion
6/10. A surprisingly good Point&Click Adventure game. Comparing it to previous ones I’ve played, this one is quite worth it - especially considering the price-tag, as that’s a good selling point. Any fans of murder-mysteries are welcome to have a gander, as well as any folks who like Adventure games. I might even suggest it as a gift - it’s not a bad one.
I tuck it under my belt, dangerously close to the bag of mediocrity, but still outside of it. It is a modestly bright achievement, even if it could have been a lot more shiny. Alas, that’s that.