Perry Mason: The Case of the Mandarin Murder

[Mr Creosote]

Alright, I'll start playing the Perry Mason game. I know it's "already solved", but not by me For now, I'll start with the C64 version. Is that a good one, or is it better on another system? Feel free to read along if you want to see me stumble, be clueless and undoubtedly fail many times...

[Mr Creosote]

Preliminary note: I have never read a line of Perry Mason or watched it on TV.

So my first two surprises: the tone is very much noir. Second, is it normal in the US that a defense attorney swooshes off to the scene of crime to do his own investigations? Well, OK, let's accept it this far. I feel more like a detective than an attorney right now.

I poked around the apartment where the body had been found. The game seems a bit inconsistent in its observation behaviour. Some items, I can examine. Others, it insists I pick up before being able to look at them at all. Picking up too many things, the policement threw me out quite quickly. Now I fear I'm already "dead man walking". But the game goes on.

[Mr Creosote]

I studied witness files and questioned my defendant in prison. Phew, that woman will not make a good impression! I don't have any hopes I'll get her out. Off to court anyway, because it looks like I exhausted my options.

[Mr Creosote]

Seems like we jump straight to questioning the witnesses. This is much more along the lines of what I expected from this game. I really like small details like: "He wears a suit that is at least five years out of fashion."

[Exemptus]

I played the PC version, but I have no reason to think the C64 is any different. Do investigate the apartment thoroughly and examine everything. If you miss things there, then some key questions won't be available in court. You will find some interesting bits but it's up to you to decide which are relevant to the case. Remember you can freely move between several locations before going to court. Take your time and be systematic.

The game is basically a maze of questions and quite difficult: needs to be played many times to find the right path through the witnesses. The case turned out to be simpler than I had expected from the clues, but took me a good while to untangle.

[Mr Creosote]

Oh, are you saying I can go back to the apartment after having been thrown out? I'll play to the inevitable failure first, then I'll give this a try. Thanks!

[Exemptus]

Oh, are you saying I can go back to the apartment after having been thrown out? I'll play to the inevitable failure first, then I'll give this a try. Thanks!

No; I'm saying that you can avoid being thrown out for longer, if you're careful. It's worth experimenting a little and see what things you can and can't do. Good hunting.

[Mr Creosote]

Alright, I'll look out for that.

Recently, I played a game called Objection! which, it seems, taught me well about the possible grounds for... objections against the prosecutor's questions. I'm quite at ease with this part.

What now really strikes, I think, is my bad preparation and investigation before going to court. When it is time to question the witnesses myself, I don't really know what to ask about. It does not help that I'm running into major wording issues. The game nicely exposes its complete vocabulary in its manual. Nevertheless, it's not easy to find an accepted sentence. The manual proposes DELLA, TIP for support on this. But as of today, it feels like a cheat.

Worse, some of my questions are misunderstood in clearly misleading ways. Such as when one witness proclaims he had an affair with the defendant (attachment). I don't think this is really intended by the game.

[Mr Creosote]

It's very nice that the game gives an indication of how I'm doing after each witness by giving a general tendency of the jury.

Another thing I like is how efficient the game is about defining the personalities, educational background of the characters. Their manner of behaviour, their choices of words, it's all very clear and clearly distinguishable.

[Mr Creosote]

Well, as expected, this round did not turn out well for my client. It all seems rather fascinating, though. Going to try again.

[Mr Creosote]

I was experimenting mood today. I went to court without having performed any investigation or research. Just raised objections whenever I could. Never asked any questions to the witnesses myself. The verdict was a "hung jury", which I believe means the defendant will be tried again. Meaning I couldn't get her off free with this strategy, but just disturbing the case of the prosecutor is already quite a powerful mean.

[Mr Creosote]

I had another stab at the apartment. Using emulator save states, I managed to find quite a bit of damning evidence. Well, not quite. To be honest, neither the letter, the document or the earring told me anything I didn't already suspect. Though having these items may very well be of use later on, I think, to prove a point instead of just making a claim. It is, of course, difficult to believe that these items would not have been previously found by the police... or maybe they did, but they didn't care?

Then, there is the blood in one place and the weird absence of blood in another which the game deftly describes. Not sure yet what it means, but I am quite sure that it will become important. Otherwise, it wouldn't be mentioned so prominently.

[Exemptus]

Then, there is the blood in one place and the weird absence of blood in another which the game deftly describes. Not sure yet what it means, but I am quite sure that it will become important. Otherwise, it wouldn't be mentioned so prominently.

You're on the right track, but admittedly, this is a bit convoluted to sort out. Get curious about it.

[Gunness]

I hadn't noticed this thread. I have a very soft spot for the Telarium series of games*, but I probably should revisit Perry Mason. I played it many moons ago and while deeply fascinated with this one, I found all the FROWNing etc. pretty confusing. Running a murder case is a far cry from the usual treasure hunting of the era

* Rendezvous With Rama was just frustrating, but I don't want to derail your thread!

[Mr Creosote]

By now, I've gotten her off free. I understood there is a way to identify the real killer as well. Meaning there is still something to achieve. I really like this approach of having various degrees of success. Clearly, this whole design is built around the idea that you have to play repeatedly and use that knowledge gained on previous playthroughs. Not always failing completely gives a sense of progress.