Mystery City

"Another cigarette and a shot of whiskey. It would be a cold and lonely night like any other, if I were not called to investigate an ingenious murder at the Casablanca Hotel..."

Thomas Falken is a retired police detective, facing the midlife crisis, divorced and far from his children. He is tired of dealing with common cases like scams, robberies and adulteries. His monotonous life has suddenly changed when he got a call to investigate a murder that appeared to be much more complex and deeper than any other case he has been used to. Mystery City is a dirty, dangerous place. A cosmopolitan city, alive, vibrant and full of puzzles!

ABOUT THE GAME

Mystery City is an interactive fiction, a graphic/text adventure game by Rogerio Biondi picturing the Noir Movie theme. It has been released digitally by Loopdigital, with a possible deluxe physical edition coming a few months later. The game is greatly inspired by the great adventures of the past, such as the Infocom and Aventuras AD releases. It tries to revitalize the genre while paying an homage to those great games of the past. It's also a hardcore adventure, whose puzzles require cunning, lateral thinking and some must be solved outside the game.

AVAILABILITY

Mystery City is currently available for the following computer systems and languages: 

• Brazilian Portuguese
  
• English
• Spanish (Preview)

• ZX Spectrum Next
• MSX2

Experimental Versions:

• ZX Spectrum 48k/128k with ESXDOS
• MSX1
• Commodore 64
• Web, directly using the webMSX emulator

REQUIREMENTS AND INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS

Spectrum Next

Spectrum Next has machine specific improvements and the game will take advantage of the hardware.

• Check if your core is up-to-date;
• You'll need to create a folder MYSTERY inside the /games/Next directory of the Next Distribution SD card;
• Copy all the files to that folder;
• Start the game from the Next browser, selecting the MYST_PT.TAP (Portuguese), MYST_EN.TAP (English) or MYST_ES.TAP (Spanish) for each language and pressing ENTER.
• When asked, select the Next / +3 mode (N) mode to start the game. 

MSX2

• Real MSX Machine: you'll need a MSX2 with 128Kb of RAM or higher. Create a directory in your HD (IDE) or SD Mapper storage. Copy all the files to that directory and start the game by typing 'MYSTERY'. Select the desired language (1 - Portuguese, 2 - English or 3 - Spanish)
• Emulators: tested with WebMSX and OpenMSX. Configure the emulators for the minimum requirements (IDE/HD, MSX2, 128kb RAM) and load the files as required by each program.  

SAVING / LOADING

Mystery City has a lot of puzzles and enigmas to solve and may take several sessions to complete. Saving and Loading your progress will be possible. You'll be asked the filename and your progress will be assured.

GAMEPLAY

The game uses the simple syntax based on two or three word logic, such as OPEN DOOR.  If you feel confused, when playing, you should type the command: LOOK AT NOTEBOOK. The game will present your notebook where you'll track your progress, and you'll get the basic overview of the game and how to play it.

HINTS

• Read the entire game manual before or consult it during your play sessions;
• Pay close attention to texts, character dialogues, descriptions of places and objects;
• Not all problems are solved within the game. You should use your head and even a pencil and paper to solve some of them;
• Draw a map of the city to help you familiarizing more with the environment, especially in the first hours of the game;
• Explore the map and talk to the habitants of Mystery City. You may discover valuable clues in order your investigation may go ahead;
• Go to the city archives and investigate everything you can;
• The command VERBS will list all the verbs accepted in the game.
• There will be aways a way to earn money in the game, belive me! :-D 

CREDITS

Type VERSION and CREDITS to see which version of the game you're running and who contributed to the development of the game.

LEGAL

Mystery City is (C) 2020 Rogerio Biondi and Loopdigital. All rights reserved.

DONATIONS

I've created this game only for pleasure and hope you like playing as much as I had designing and developing it. Mystery City is a project that has been envisioned several years ago but never implemented properly.   

If you like and want to support this project as well as other games on Itch.io, please rate, comment it and donate.

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