Cruise for a Corpse

STORY / GAMEPLAY
The story takes place somewhere in 1927 and you play the role of Police Inspector Raoul Dusentier, invited to spend some time aboard a luxurious boat owned by Niklas Karaboudjan, a very rich person. Upon your arrival, Niklas is found dead! A coincidence maybe? Or maybe not! And here's when the action begins since you are called to gather as much evidence as possible and question the other passengers and Niklas' employees, piecing the events together and deciding who could have possibly committed such a terrible crime. People are left for dead one by one while you have to be in the right place at the right time to investigate and question the passengers, before they are vanished for good. By using a simple point-and-click system you can interact with your environment(s), establishing links with the evidence you find in many of the different areas of the boat. Much like in most point-and-click adventures, each object found can be highlighted and will activate a list of possible actions. For example, finding a cupboard you can either search, examine or open its drawers. The boat is quite large so you need to walk a lot by using the map or by guiding Raoul in the direction you wish. There are also several animated story sequences that add to the plot and give clues on what to do next. Different events happen through the game as well. Some cabins may be inaccessible earlier in the game but later can be accessed granting you with interesting clues. There is a list of conversation topics displayed relating to the character that allow you to question the suspects based on information you gathered earlier. According to the answer, new conversation topics may be added to the initial list. An unnecessarily annoying feature here is that actual time progresses through the game, but it seems that it only moves on whenever you pick up another clue. The game can be completed in a variety of ways, so the story is not linear (as in most adventure games of the time, except of the almighty Monkey Island series and a few others).

GRAPHICS / SOUND
This game is superb and some of Delphine Software's finest, using their great, cinematic, unique and incredibly powerful adventure interface. It offers detailed, bitmapped backdrops along with vector-style, animated characters (remember Another World and Flashback?). Overall, the game's graphics sport some nice touches of humor with nicely details indoors and outdoors and the characters' animation works well, especially when you get the chance to question them. The Atari ST version looks great with its 16-color screens and smooth enough vector-style characters' animation. The sound on the ST version is quite good, with a nice introductory tune as well as several in-game short tunes that accompany some of the screens or actions. The sound effects are ok but unfortunately not sampled as on the Amiga version.