Producer: US Gold
Retail Price: £8.99
Author: Artech Inc

At the Gargoyle Hotel, the world's greatest mystery writers - Mike Stammer, Agatha Maypole, Lord Peter Flimsey, Claudia Von Bulow, Sydney Meanstreet - are having a reunion, dancing to Suspicious Minds.

But one of them is a murderer and one is the victim.

Hercule Holmes is hot on the case - he must identify both before a talented 'tec is done to death. HH must also discover what the murder weapon is, find the scene of the potential crime, and unravel a motive. He has 12 hours for this herculean task, and all the time the clock sprints toward midnight...

Holmes has a choice of mysteries to test his skills. In each he's based at a desk where he can choose to examine files on each suspect, organise break-ins, tape conversations, monitor meetings and interrogate suspects.

Each profile contains information on the hotel's famous guests, which might indicate connections and antagonisms between them - and motives for murder.

Holmes can break into the guests' rooms when they're away and find valuable clues - if you can answer trivia questions about famous fictional detectives and thrillers. Wrong responses bring a security guard to the door.

A monitor screen allows you to view different parts of the hotel - bedrooms, library, foyer. You can set up a tape recorder to eavesdrop on meetings; three preset systems allow it to record in different places at specified times.

And Holmes can interrogate suspects, but first he has to find clues - otherwise the suspect refuses to cooperate. He can ask questions about intended victims, weaponry and murder scenes, and the suspects give weak or strong replies. Their expression onscreen changes as they grow more nervous...

Notes on phone conversations, break-ins, monitored meetings and anonymous phone calls can be reviewed.

Once satisfied with the investigation, you can accuse a suspect. But even if you're correct, your deerstalkered detective must still know what weapon is to be used, where the crime is to take place, and what the motive is. If you don't, Holmes's last case will be a wooden box...

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable, four directions and ENTER required; functions accessed by cursor and highlighted icons
Joystick: Kempston, Interface 2, Cursor
Use of colour: excellent
Graphics: superb animation is an integral part of the investigations
Sound: excellently used to highlight the characters
Skill levels: four

Elementary, my dear Watson'? This very good game is anything but elementary. The detective idea isn't new, but Killed Until Dead is varied and often highly amusing. I especially enjoy the expressions on the faces of suspects. Graphically the game is excellent - the sprites are large and well-defined - and sound is put to good use. When you phone suspects, a different tune plays for each! Definitely for budding Perry Masons and Philip Marlows.
MARK

I loved my first game of Killed Until Dead. It has much more then pretty graphics and superb little tunes - there IS some real depth, with all the elements of the great murder mysteries and a superb atmosphere. The mysteries area mixture of very simple logical puzzles and some real mind-benders for the professionals. If you're one of those people who devour all the Agatha Christie books and films then this is a must - and great value, with loads of different mysteries.
PAUL

There's a touch of The Fourth Protocol to Killed Until Dead - the former provided such armchair excitement for the sleuth, and US Gold's great offering does the same with so much humour as well. The packaging has C64 screen shots, predictably more colourful than the Spectrum's - but even on the Spectrum the graphics are excellent. Along with the clever use of sound, they make Killed Until Dead highly enjoyable. The puzzles and the different playing options add to it addictive qualities, too. Don't miss it.
RICKY

US Gold
£8.99

Okay, don't anybody try to leave the page until I've finished this review! It's taken a lot of hard detective work to get this far, sure as my name's Sherlock Hughes.

All you trainee gumshoes should pull on your gumboots and trench coats for one of the most original games you're likely to see this year. What Psi-5 Trading did for outer space, Killed Until Dead does for the inner workings of the criminal mind - but it does it even better.

That means it won't take a Marlowe to realise that US Gold has succeeded in translating a disk-style game, of the sod that's big business in the States, into a two cassette format. The only drawback is that it all loads in several parts and you've time to make several cups of coffee if you choose one of the more advanced adventures. But until the +3 establishes itself you'll just have to put up with those caffeine overdoses.

The plot is classic thriller stuff, with a knife in the back and a tongue in the cheek. A selection of ever-so-slightly psychotic mystery writers are gathered together for a meeting of the Midnight Murder Club, so called because on the stroke of twelve there'll be a dirty deed as an author passes on to that great publishing house in the sky.

It's up to you, as Hercule Holmes, to discover who's going to do whom with what and where... and you'll need to know why as well before you can bring the killer to justice. It's all a bit like Cluedo, as you gather clues and eliminate suspects by a process of deduction. In play, though, it's nothing like a board game... or an adventure or anything you've ever seen. All the action takes place from your desk because you're a hi-tech'tec, but that doesn't stop you getting about.

Luckily the instructions provide you with a smooth path into police procedure, so providing you use the PAUSE key (P) liberally to stop time slipping away while you read the next stage, you should be able to piece together the easier plots.

Start by reading the files on each character and, as well as picking up hints on personal animosities, you'll find some clues to the program writers' sense of humour. They're guilty of taking the classics of detective fiction less than seriously and of an odd strain of salacious wit. Some of the gags really slayed me!

The next step in an investigation is surveillance, which entails checking that one of the writers' rooms is empty, then answering a trivia question. If you fail you're barred from the room for ten minutes.

Once inside, various clues appear on screen and are recorded in your notebook for ready reference from the main desk screen. You'll probably find details of meetings, which may occur in the bedrooms or public areas of the hotel, You can either pry on them in person or set one of the three pre-sets on your tape recorder to get the details, which are again logged in your files. Eventually you'll have picked up enough information from snooping and the incoming phone calls, which are often anonymous, to start questioning. On first contacting a suspect you have to drop a remark that lets them know you've been in their room. As with all the questioning this is done via joystick selection of multiple choice statements.

Once you've shocked them into rapping it's time to start the squeeze, watching the animated face which will warn you if you're on the right track. Information is automatically recorded and can be sorted in any of the key categories, so that you can slowly unravel the plan.

You'll soon be ready to make an accusation, and if you get the right details you'll have to suggest the motive, based on what you've seen and heard. You're a hero if you get it right, but a wrong accusation results in a shadowy figure shooting you!

For a brain-game this is amazingly involving as you try to find where people are meeting, check your files and answer the phone, all before you have the sadistic satisfaction of seeing little old lady Agatha Maypole turn white when you quiz her about the axe handles in her bedroom!

Obviously it'll lose its appeal once you've solved all the cases - perhaps US Gold could put out extra data tapes? - but there are so many included that it'll take some time before you can brag, 'Elementary, my dear Spectrum,' with any real sense of conviction. So, there's only one possible solution... It would be a crime not to make Killed Until Dead a megagame!

Label: US Gold
Author: Artech
Price: £8.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Gary Rook

'Bonjour Monsier Slammair! I 'ave to tell you zat I am suspecting you of attempting to murder ze tres belle Mademoiselle Claudia on ze patio avec le bombe surprise.

Vous aves un alibi tres good? Sacre nom de Bertlillon! Ma reputation as ze greatest half-French half-English detective, she is up ze spout!

"Eau neau, a revolvair is being pointed at moi through le fenestre! I am being shert! Ma foi, I am daid! I lay down! Now ze murderair will be able to perform ze fould deed wiz impunity .

Killed Until Dead is a murder mystery game. Not so much an adventure, as a business management game for budding private detectives. A bit like The Fourth Protocol was a business management for spies.

Anyway, the basic plot is simple: you are Hercule Holmes and you know that a murder is going top be committed tonight. Both the victim and the murderer are members of a world famous crime writers association, the Murder Club, you have to identify murderer, victim, location and method and stop the devilish affair be- fore it happens.

It's very reminiscent of that old favourite, Cluedo, except that instead of challenging other players to tell you if they have or haven't got a particular card, you try to weasel useful information out of the five suspects. They will tell you things like; 'If Claudia is the killer, then it won't be with the bomb', or 'if the victim is Sydney, the method won't be poison' After you've collected a whole slew of these, you can start eliminating certain combinations, until you've reached the point where you think you know the answer.

At that point you challenge the killer, reveal your guess, and if you're right you win, if you're not you get shot by a mysterious figure at the window.

At the start of the game, you access your files and read the profiles of the five potential murderers/murderesses. All should be familiar to anyone with even the slightest grounding in detective fiction (and you'll need to know something about the genre). There's the Agatha Christie old woman sleuth, the vamp (rather daringly called Claudia von Bulow - very similar to the name of a certain gentleman acquitted of attempting to murder his wife not so long ago), Lord Peter Flimsey, Mike Slammer and Sidney Meanstreet. They all have their own pictures as well.

To help you in your quest to get the necessary proof, you have a number of useful gadgets on your desk top, and can perform various actions.

Then you try to get further information by searching their rooms. To get into each room, you have to be able to answer a murder trivia question, like 'Who was Mike Hammer's partner?'. It's not as difficult as it sounds, as the questions have multiple-choice answers and if you don't get it right this time, you can always come back later and try again, although you lose time (you have only 12 game hours).

Once you're in a suspect's room, you find various interesting things, which you make notes of. Later, you can ring up that particular suspect and let slip that you know something about him or her that you shouldn't. Get the right button, as it were, and they say 'have you been spying on me?', which shows immense perspicacity.

Their eyes get big, and they look very nervous, and you can start pumping them about the case. You do this by a menu-driven system, so you can cover the whole spectrum of who, where, and with what, although they'll clam up after a while and you'll have to try something else.

The whole thing actually works pretty well, considering the limitations that the game structure imposes. The windowing helps you stop you getting too bored from sitting at your desk all the time - you get to see the people you're talking to by phone. The great thing is when you show you know all about them - their eyes pop and they start waving their hands about. Claudia even starts looking green, before she disappears off-screen to throw up. Sidney's cigar moves around his face, like some sort of signalling device - all very amusing the first few times at least.

There are four difficulty levels, and seven different scenarious to choose from, which makes at least 28 different plots to sort out. Actually, it looks like there are far more than that, if what US Gold tells me is kosher - who, where and with what are chosen randomly each time, so that means there should be seven factorial times four factorial take away the number you first thought of and add the ABC figure which means a lot.

A very big figure. And that's a close as I can get.

So at £8.99, well worth loading up - amusing graphics supported by some logic problems that should push you to the time limit with ease, plus extra mystery trivia for the murder buffs.

Amstrad, £9.99cs, £14.99dk
C64, £9.99cs, £11.99dk
Spectrum, £8.99cs

This game doesn't just set you the task of solving one case but 21. The cases all involve five authors of murder books, who are collectively known as the Midnight Murder Club.

All the cases take place at the hotel in which everyone is staying. The five writers are all amusing stereotypes and the investigations will reveal plenty of funny facts. However, solving the cases is still a matter of digging for information and working out what it all means.

Information comes your way from a number of sources. You can plant bugs in rooms, use cameras to monitor rooms, break into rooms, or use the files. Phone calls to and from the characters can also be useful, and often provide a few laughs.

A lot of guesswork goes on but its a very entertaining game that takes a more lighthearted view of the whole detective genre.