''Murder off Miami'' is a 1987 whodunnit adventure video game based on the book of the same name by British thriller novelist

Dennis Wheatley Dennis Yeats Wheatley (8 January 1897 – 10 November 1977) was a British writer whose prolific output of thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling authors from the 1930s through the 1960s. His Gregory Sallust series ...

. Players take the role of Detective Officer Kettering, who is inspecting the supposed suicide of a British financier on a cruise ship in the waters near Miami. His job is to unravel the mystery.

Gameplay

Players progress by collecting clues, interrogating people, and interacting with the environment. The interface is largely text-based, with occasional images to set the scene. Commands are given to complete actions. Gameplay is split into three parts which represent the three days of investigation.

Development

The game was co-written by Fergus McNeill, who had previous authored ''

The Hobbit ''The Hobbit, or There and Back Again'' is a children's fantasy novel by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the '' ...

'' and ''

Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's b ...

'' parody games ''

The Boggit ''The Boggit: Bored Too'' is a text adventure game by Delta 4 released in 1986 for the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, and ZX Spectrum home computers. The game is a parody of the J. R. R. Tolkien novel ''The Hobbit'' and of the earlier game based upon ...

'' and ''

Bored of the Rings ''Bored of the Rings'' is a 1969 parody of J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings''. This short novel was written by Henry Beard and Douglas Kenney, who later founded '' National Lampoon''. It was published in 1969 by Signet for the ''Harv ...

''. It is based on a novel of the same name by Dennis Wheatley; this text already had some interactivity through the use of physical clues provided with the book such as a blood-stained curtain and cigarette butts, plus an envelope at the end cover to reveal the answer. There was a fatal bug in the first batch of Spectrum units, resulting in the game restarting each time the player tried to get out of their chair at the beginning of the game.

Reception

Sinclair User ''Sinclair User'' was a magazine dedicated to the Sinclair Research range of home computers, most specifically the ZX Spectrum (while also occasionally covering arcade games). Initially published by ECC Publications, and later EMAP, it was publi ...

'' thought the game would have used a packaging style similar to that of Weatley's novel. Meanwhile, ''ZX Computings review was cut short due to the bug, but the reviewer was impressed with what they experienced and looked forward to reviewing it again the following month.

References

External links

* {{IFDB, id=d2m3ypvs09f7qfg3 1980s interactive fiction Interactive fiction based on works 1986 video games Amstrad CPC games Commodore 64 games Video games about police officers Video games developed in the United Kingdom ZX Spectrum games Video games set in Miami CRL Group games