Murder by Numbers

I really enjoyed this game, the visual novel sections are cute at first, or at least first playthrough (mostly), while the nonograms are quite fun, though very grainy due to the small size (I belive the biggest was 15x20 or 20x20, but these bigger ones are VERY rare, most are within 15x15, or even 10x15). I would absolutely pick this game up on sale. The different cases are all quite interesting, and figuring out the back story for your sidekick is also engaging. The cases are also a nice length. They're convenient for a single session or two of playing, while mostly not feeling like they're dragging on. That said, there are three main issues in my opinion: - The inability to go back and replay any failed section without playing through an entire case to get to that one section. - When replaying a case, not being able to skip a TON of dialogue and visuals and transitions in order to get to the actual nonograms you want to solve to get to the ONE section you failed (usually the hacking for me, one time, in the 3rd case, by literally less than a second.) On repeat playthrougs, it should be made possible to skip the dialogue in an easy, one button way. The story isn't complicated enough to make a complete repeat necessary. - Tiny QoL change, being able to leave the Load Game menu. The way it sits now, you have to either load into a save file, be forced through a TON of dialogue to be able to quit to the main menu, or quit the game entirely, and restart from desktop. This is just plain stupid.

nonograms are my favorite puzzle type and I don't mind if they have some narrative but this is almost exclusively a visual novel with a dash of puzzles here and there, and it sucks both as a vn, a nonogram and a game in general, and it's really overpriced. starts with a loud intro instead of a menu with volume settings. unskippable tutorial with unskippable screens of text filling slowly between them. in fact, ALL DIALOG is unskippable as a whole. no instant text option, click each sentence twice, once to make them appear instantly, then to move on. if you only want to puzzle, you're in for a very bad (and long) time. in the first hour (and I didn't even read everything) there were about 10 puzzles, 2 were the tutorial. no separate 'speech' volume to get rid of the incredibly annoying text display sounds. constant screen flashes and shakes with punching sounds for some sort of impact, probably. can't turn them off, beyond insufferable, makes getting into the story impossible. who the hell wants the book they're reading to constantly shake and flash bright lights? mid-level saving somehow made it in (surprisingly and sadly rare in nonograms) but can't replay earlier levels, only full cases. some levels are timed, the cursor doesn't stick to the current line, can accidentally mark cells in another one. the level complete screen has an unskippable score counter. took a while to figure out it's the 'x' key to close the credits. I was about to alt+f4 because there's nothing to click, esc does nothing and hotkeys aren't mentioned anywhere because there are none, can't even press space or enter to advance text. there are some excellent (and much cheaper at the same time) nonograms on pc among all the ones lacking in basic functionality, but none of them are on gog, so you'll have to look elsewhere and avoid this dumpster fire. if you're interested in the story, watch it on youtube and save on 15 million mouse clicks.