We occasionally fell back on trial-and-error, but the game makes this very bearable, keeping its pages turning just as well as a good book. The mind map gives you chance to demonstrate some understanding and logical thinking, but also prompts you both explicitly – with to-do lists and markers to show which connections you’ve already tried – and implicitly – with connections often clued by how neat the line would look on the map.
Your progress is inevitable and not really down to your wits, but in exchange for ceding that agency, you are spared the adventure-game frustration of getting stuck on one obtuse puzzle for ages. This arrangement makes The First Cases play like a very interactive visual novel rather than an adventure game. The loop is walk/examine/talk to add facts to the map, then connect facts on the map to prompt Poirot’s deductions, opening more opportunities to explore the world. This structure is supported by a second interface, the mind map, in which all your facts are organised and planned out on a logical diagram. You walk Poirot around with the thumbstick in a fixed-perspective 3D setting, examining scenes and talking to people to tease out the story fact-by-fact. The First Cases tells a new Poirot story with all the well-loved tropes of upper-class intrigue, love affairs and feuds, and of course the slaughter of one feckless individual for the sake of our entertainment.
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