Apple Arcade: Murder Mystery Machine offers episodic detective work
And there are strings attached.
I should probably never be put in charge of an evidence board. You know, one of those densely cinematic affairs where photos and newspaper clippings and the odd shell cartridge are connected by bits of string. It is weird to go to C&H Fabrics and think that so many of the people buying red wool may be detectives working hard to crack the big one.
Anyway, Murder Mystery Machine is an episodic detective game for Apple Arcade - the first episode is available now, the next should be here by the end of the month - and as well as visiting crime scenes, collecting evidence and interviewing witnesses, you can also do that thing with the evidence board and the string.
In fact, you have to. This is an adventure game at heart. As you explore each scene you collect information on the crime at hand, you cobble it all together with string - linking a gun to a bullet casing, say, or a newspaper clipping to a politician's unpopular policy - and then you try to answer the big questions: why? How? Who?
So far, Murder Mystery Machine is wonderfully compact and compelling. This is an atmospheric bit of crime-solving that you can tackle on the bus ride into work in the morning. It turns out I am very bad at detective work, but I'm still having fun. Just don't expect results from me any time soon.