I attended a murder mystery party when I was 15, taking on the role of a distraught and vengeful widow who was a red herring in the game. I decided that I wanted to blackmail fellow participants into giving me as much of their fake money as possible to make my evening more interesting. A subplot I thoroughly enjoyed. Because, as is the case with many a tantalising murder mystery, there’s many interwoven tales hidden within the main narrative.
And that’s inherently true with SUPERTHUMb’s Death at Fleming Manor, where you’re enlisted to “investigate a mysterious death in a British manor in 1959.” Only the role you’ve been handed here is that of a newly appointed coroner. Instead of donning your detective cap in the traditional sense, you must uncover crimes by looking at the intricacies of a scene and investigating the scientific.
I arrive in Cedarville, a fictitious town in the not-so-fictitious Buckinghamshire, to assume said role. But, my meeting with the police inspector is hurried as I’m promptly summoned to the first scene of a generous 12 episodes in this sprawling game. To begin, I must investigate a car crash that has taken the life of a woman and left a cyclist suffering under the wheels.
The scene, though slightly overwhelming at first, was quickly explained to me as one that could be approached in stages. Only the shining spots that glisten to me are symbols of points of investigation. Clicking anywhere else is utterly pointless. Every piece of information you come across weaves a story that I, as the coroner, must build into something substantially accusatory through witness statements, death certificates, forensic investigations and other relevant documentation.
But, filling out all of these is not done manually. Instead, when you examine a scene, you gather words that are underlined in red, which will then be used to paint a picture that’ll *hopefully* uncover crimes. After all, your job is to get to the bottom of things and I’ve decided I’m going to take that job very seriously.
What you’ll also learn from episode one is that your story will lead you to a perplexing puzzle surrounding the convalescent home of Fleming Manor, opened and run by national treasure and decorated war surgeon, Sophia Fleming. But, without giving anything away in this review, that’s as far as I’ll go in detailing the story.
Instead, I’ll delve into the mechanics that this murdery mystery has built itself upon and, in particular, the signature system of your role as a coroner (and in Death at Fleming Manor as a whole) – the Medical Dictionary. This book is your trusty companion, detailing everything you need to know about defining pretty much everything from cause of death including strangulation, types of poisoning, blood typing, fingerprint analysis, and so much more. During each episode, it’ll contain everything of relevance to uncover the secrets of the scene.
I’m not the best at science, admittedly. In fact, even that might be an understatement. So, yes, having the Medical Dictionary was the crutch I needed to make sure that I could detail exactly what was going on even if reading it made my brain feel like I was back under the judgemental eyes of my physics teacher. Even with it in hand, I still struggled at points, but its offering is like being handed the pieces of a puzzle with a few bits already attached.
Fortunately, Death at Fleming Manor is not a punishing murder mystery. If you don’t get your definitions spot on when it comes to defining information like time of death, cause of death, names of those involved, manner of death and so on, you get to try again. Not only is there the opportunity to ask for hints, though limited only to the answers SUPERTHUMb assumes you’ll most likely be looking for, but once you submit a document three times, you’ll dissolve three sugar cubes into your cup of black tea that’ll let you see exactly where your mistakes on each page lie.
In fact, if you’re a bit of a completionist or fancy knowing how well you’re doing in each episode, it’s summarised by incorrect attempts, black tea consumed, hint uses and answer views. I won’t tell you how many I used, though I know that when defining the potential window for time of death on a particularly puzzling episode, I drank a lot of tea to dwell the fizzing in my head, swimming in information.
It’s positively British to check your mistakes over a cup of tea and I did worry that sometimes I was just drinking tea because I’d given up trying to work out the answer myself, which mirrors real life where I drink a cup of tea when I’m lost on what else to do. Though, if I didn’t have the cup to hand, I’m sure my frustration would’ve caused me to stop playing entirely. So, I’m thankful for it, even if I felt that I was abusing its sweet relief at times.
What’s also important in a murder mystery is the narrative and Death at Fleming Manor reads like any great crime novel, perplexing with its secrets and shocking with its twists and turns. Like any good whodunnit, it caught me off guard at times when I felt like I was working so hard to spot any mistake or telling sign. And the characters helped build that story out, especially Avery, the forensic pathologist akin to 007’s Q and a shining example that the developers of Death at Fleming Manor have clearly consumed and been inspired by the works of Agatha Christie and other great crime novelists.
In a world where I get to consume captivating murder mysteries from Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club to an entire trilogy of Knives Out movies, I must say I’m feeling like quite the armchair detective. And what Death at Fleming Manor presents players with is an opportunity to prove that you do in fact have the power of deduction and an eye for oversights.
But, despite there being a real draw for crime and thrillers in the modern day, Death at Fleming Manor is overwhelmingly a love letter to some of the OG detective writers. Doffing its cap to the likes of Agatha Christie’s moustachioed Poirot, as well as channelling inspiration with an art style inspired by 1960s European detective comics, it’s an ode to murder mystery which fans of Overboard and The Case of the Golden Idol will surely enjoy.
But, ultimately what Death at Fleming Manor does is carve itself a unique take on the genre. Playing as a coroner is an incredibly clever device as the bodies pile up. If I were to nitpick, a couple of details didn’t quite line up, including a mobile number on a business card in 1959 or a surname misspelt. Details in a murder mystery matter, of course, but resoundingly Death at Fleming Manor is a great success that I found both enjoyable to play and challenging to just the right degree.
Filled with impressive puzzles and facts disguising as the truth, there’s a lot to decipher if you’ve got the heart for it. And for all your hard work, you’ll be rewarded with The Truth, as well as four different endings to play for. And sometimes, it appears, The Truth is hiding in plain sight all along…
