Gail On Tech

Casual games: Women’s Murder Club whodunnits

If you’re a fan of James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club, the PC games based on the franchise should be of interest. If you are unfamiliar with the Women’s Murder Club, it is based on Detective Lindsay Boxer and three of her female friends (and assistant district attorney, a medical examiner and a crime reporter) who pool their collective talents in an unioficial capacity to solve Lindsay’s cases.

This week, I got a chance to play the PC/Mac versions of two of the games — ‘Death in Scarlet’ and ‘Twice in a Blue Moon’ — based on Patterson’s characters.

The games use a ‘hidden objects’ platform. However, they add several more layers to the usual games of this type. Players need to examine crime scenes to collect clues in the usual ‘hidden objects’ manner, but you also need to interrogate suspects, and use other facts gleaned from solving challenging puzzles to solve the murder cases. You play different members of the Women’s Murder Club in different aspects of the case.

Twice in a Blue Moon also includes a free game, Mahjonng Investigations: Under Suspicion — a kind of mashup of traditional mahjonng with Women’s Murder Club.

Women’s Murder Club games sell for $19.95 and are exclusive to EB Games.