If you remember old Choose Your Own Adventure books, The Fine Art of Murder might feel familiar.
Visual novels are an interesting video game genre, and aren’t always ones for me. I like a book, and I like a video game, but putting them together doesn’t always seem to land. There are great examples though, with the likes of 999 having a fascinating multiverse story, and The House in Fata Morgana being full of twists and turns with a genuinely emotive tale. The Fine Art of Murder differs from these in the fact that it is literally a book on your screen. Written by gamebook writer Victoria Hancox, you’ll go on a brief adventure into your family’s history of drawings and death.
As the book opens, you’re told that your artistic uncle has passed away, leaving you little hints about the value of some of the family’s lost work. He was one of a set of triplets, all of whom were artists of various skill levels, and should you manage to locate one of their lost portraits, it would likely fetch a substantial sum of money. Of course, there is tragedy in their past, with one of the brothers missing and another dying due to illness. Perhaps in your search you could find out what happened to them too.
The Fine Art of Murder works exactly as you’d expect a choice driven book to work. You’ll read a passage and sometimes be presented with a choice of what to do next. Some of these decisions have wider reaching consequences than others, but ultimately you’ll still end up in the same place, though with a slightly different ending. Your first decision is whether to visit an art gallery or an auction to learn more about your uncle’s past, and whilst you’ll get a different set of passages, nothing here has any real impact on what happens. It’s only at the tail end of the story, when you return to the family home, that you’ll be able to do anything of value.
Unlike a physical book though, when you learn something from another character, it opens up other options further down the line. An example of this is the pond outside the house. On my first run through, I could simply dip my toes into it, but when I played again and another character told me there was something hidden below the water, I had new options. I liked that this meant that playthroughs done in different orders could result in different events, even if the ending was pretty much the same.
What I was less a fan of was the lack of anything puzzle based. A lot of game books have you solve puzzles either through text or images, but there is none of that here at all, save for knowing who wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray, and even that was of no real consequence. Any time a clue involving codes or hidden numbers would come up, you’ll simply be told that you’ve worked out what it means and where to go next. I understand why the author and devs would want to avoid picture based puzzles, as part of the reason for this presentation style is that even partially sighted or blind players can enjoy this thanks to the narration, but putting at least something in the text would expand the scope of this considerably.
Speaking of the narration, it certainly does sound like it’s AI driven. The lack of any emotion or tension in the voice makes the few moments of excitement feel quite drab. I’d have appreciated an English actor doing this being as the story is set in Britain. The fact that I didn’t even realise that this was the setting until my second run through is a little concerning.
The writing itself is solid enough, with some of the ghostly descriptions of the family home being quite well done. Unfortunately, this is a very short book though, with my first full playthrough taking about fifteen minutes. I’m no speed reader, so this feels very brief indeed. It comes across in the story itself too, with few of the characters, alive or dead, having little opportunity to develop beyond a basic motivation and a simple demise. Perhaps I should run through a couple more times to flesh things out, but as it stands there’s little meat to these bones.
The Fine Art of Murder is an interesting enough title if you go in realising how brief it is. The low cost of entry is fine, and achievement hounds will probably like how fast you can earn everything. If you’re after an engaging novel though, you should probably look elsewhere, as the lack of time for anyone in this story to breathe results in something feeling rushed and over too quickly. With that said, I’d be interested in taking a look at Victoria Hancox’s physical game books to find out if they’re more well rounded.
The Fine Art of Murder is available now on Xbox, Playstation, and Nintendo Switch.
