Dead By Murder

My spreadsheet instincts kicked in immediately when I saw Dead By Murder land at a mixed Steam rating with only 45 reviews. Sixty-two percent positive is the kind of number that tells you more about who the audience is than whether the game is broken. The short answer: it is rougher than sandpaper in places, but the concept underneath the friction is honestly appealing in a low-budget, passion-project kind of way. You play as a homicide detective working through a series of murder cases set in Los Angeles in 1945. The aesthetic commits hard to a black-and-white comic-book presentation, and the characters are styled after Golden Age Hollywood archetypes, which gives the whole thing a distinctive visual identity that most indie games at this price tier simply do not bother with. The turn-based structure means you are reading clues, building a logical picture of events, and eventually pointing the finger at a suspect. That loop is functional and, in its better moments, engages the same part of the brain that lights up during a well-constructed puzzle game. Here is where the numbers get less comfortable. The UI is stripped to the bone. Players in the community forum have flagged that mid-game access to settings requires fully quitting to desktop, and slowly-typing dialogue text has no reliable in-game skip function once a case is underway. There have also been reports of a post-update black screen on launch that traps the process in a loop requiring a hard power cycle. These are not minor polish issues; they are the kind of friction that erodes your patience for the mystery itself. The case logic in some scenarios has also been flagged as non-intuitive, meaning you may need a player-written walkthrough to untangle the intended solution rather than reaching it through deduction. From a pure decision-depth standpoint, Dead By Murder is shallow compared to genre benchmarks. There are no branching investigative paths, no evidence-weighting system, and no dialogue choices that meaningfully shift the case. You are reading presented information and matching it to a conclusion, which puts this closer to a static puzzle than a proper detective sim. The developer indicated that new cases can be added over time, but post-launch content cadence has been minimal and there is no mod pipeline worth noting. If you are looking for Obra Dinn-style logical deduction with clear feedback systems, this will disappoint. That said, for players who simply want a short, atmospheric noir diversion with a low time investment and a price tag that reflects its scope, Dead By Murder scratches a specific itch. The 1945 Los Angeles setting is underused in gaming, the visual style is cohesive, and the individual cases are brief enough that even a frustrating one does not cost you much. Go in treating it as a stylized puzzle book rather than a strategy game and the modest ambitions become easier to meet on their own terms.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

Be the first to comment on Dead By Murder.