Photos above are property of Joy Swift's Murder Mystery Investigations
Company: Joy Swift's Murder Mystery Investigations
Games: Cold Case
Country: United Kingdom 🇬🇧
Language: English
Type of Game: Digital Mystery Game 💻
Genre: Detective, Murder Mystery
Date Played: September 10, 2021
Difficulty (based on 1 player): 5/10
Size of Team: Minimum 1 Player (Ages 16+)
Time: 10-20 Hours
Price: £9.99
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Charlie Walmsley was found brutally murdered in his home in Cambridge. A senior Detective noticed the strange markings on Charlie bared a striking resemblance to wounds found on a series of victims in an unsolved investigation spanning ten years ago. Alongside, Detective Constable Investigator Trish Roberts, you seek to unearth the mysterious tie between the recent death of this Reader at Kings College and a string of international murders from years ago. With COVID lockdown, it won’t be easy, but DCI Roberts and you are up for the task!
Video above is property of Joy Swift's Murder Mystery Investigations
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Much like a true to life investigation, the game begins with an extensive pile of evidence (over 100 pieces!) to work through and piece together. After reading the incident report, you have access to interviews, recorded phone calls, videos of suspects, letters, newspapers, reports, and more that are divided into chapters to ease players into digging through the evidence section by section. Ultimately, the goal is to figure out how all the evidence reveals what happened, both past and present. There is an investigation board and notebook on the website that can be utilized to note down details digitally but a good old-fashioned pen and paper can work just as well. With all this evidence to go through, I recommend the “divide and conquer” method if you are playing with friends so you take turns debriefing what was learned.
Each chapter contains an incident report to review that I recommend viewing before reading through the evidence. Keep a timeline together to track the murders and ongoing events to help “sus” out suspects. When I felt like I’ve gone through everything in the chapter (and I have the pages of notes to support this), I simply moved onto the next chapter. At the end up the twelfth chapter, I filled out a conclusion report that contained questions not only about the murders but about motive, codebreaking, symbolism behind the wounds, and more. This report is multiple choice, so I recommend checking it out if you are not sure what you’re looking for but, be advised, it contains minor spoilers because of the multiple choice. There is also a section called chapter summary that provides general summaries of the chapters, help with puzzles and translations, and a lot of help in unpacking the importance of clues.
Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
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This is not an escape room style experience but more of a murder mystery detective thriller. There is some puzzling with code breaking and translations, but deduction is the key to solving this game. I found building a timeline and noting crossovers of characters helped the most as I was able to identify if the suspects were close to the scene of the crime and if they had motive. I recommend using multiple screens as well as having pen a paper to make notes for each chapter. I also recommend noting down any dates you come across with evidence as it makes it easier to cross-examine when flipping between chapter notes.
The difficulty I found in this game was knowing if I found everything in the chapter that needed to be found. There is a summary you can watch but I would have liked a chapter conclusion report to refer to see if I was able to answer the main questions of the chapter before moving on. That said, I usually felt confident moving on once I finished reading and watching everything. If I didn’t understand something it was usually referred to again in more detail in subsequent chapters. This is a long game and, keeping in mind I am usually a fast player, took me around ten hours to complete. Some players have said they took well beyond twenty hours of gameplay.
Photos above are property of Joy Swift's Murder Mystery Investigations
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As someone who loves strong storytelling and deduction, I thoroughly enjoyed my time diving into Cold Case #1: Lockdown. The ciphers here and there added to mystery while the evidence and videos prompted me to dig deeper behind the motivations of each character and really ask myself who they are. There was dimension to each character’s motivations and the twists in the story were unique and refreshing. This game provides an extremely satisfactory end to the adventure (complete with a beautifully illustrated certificate) and I felt invested in this adventure to the very end. I recommend this game for those who love murder mysteries and strong narratives with a dash of code breaking. After the thrill of case one, I cannot wait to see what is in store when I play Cold Case #2: Family Ties.
Check out our interview with the creators to understand more on the development side of these game:
Video above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
(If you do decide to try this game, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)
Disclosure: We thank Joy Swift's Murder Mystery Investigations for comping our tickets for this game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.
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