Carol Reed Mysteries

Last updated
Carol Reed Mysteries
Genre(s) Detective adventure
Developer(s) MDNA Games
First release2004

The Carol Reed Mysteries is a detective adventure video game series developed by MDNA Games. The series consists of 19 games to date, with the latest being released in January 2024.

Contents

Plot

The games follow the adventures of female detective Carol Reed.

Gameplay

Carol Reed is a graphical adventure game series that has the player navigating photographs of backgrounds and people. They interact with characters and manipulate items to progress through the stories.

Games

NumberNameYearEngine [1]
1Remedy2004 Adventure Maker
2Hope Springs Eternal2005Adventure Maker
3Time Stand Still2006Adventure Maker
4East Side Story2007 Wintermute Engine
5The Colour of Murder2008Wintermute Engine
6Black Circle2009Wintermute Engine
7Blue Madonna2011Wintermute Engine
8Amber's Blood2012Wintermute Engine
9Cold Case Summer2013Wintermute Engine
10Bosch's Damnation2014Wintermute Engine
11Shades Of Black2015Wintermute Engine
12Profound Red2017Wintermute Engine
13The Birdwatcher2018Wintermute Engine
14The Fall of April2019Wintermute Engine
15Geospots2020Wintermute Engine
16Quarantine Diary2021Wintermute Engine
17Amos Green's Final Repose2022 Godot - EgoVenture framework
18The Game Maker2023 Godot - EgoVenture framework
19Dead Drop2024 Godot - EgoVenture framework

Development

Conception

The games are written by Mikael Nyqvist, who founded MDNA Games. The company is named after the singer Madonna; Nyqvist had previously run the largest Madonna-themed fan site and has an affinity for her. [2] The name of the female protagonist, Carol Reed, was chosen by Mikael's wife Eleen, despite reservations from him that the name was already associated with a male English director. [3] Aspects of the production for each game would include: scripting, planning, location scouting, photographing, and sound recording, while Photoshop photo retouching (about 40% of the process) and game programming would become the most time consuming, [4] [2] nonetheless, over the years Mikael has received some outside help to do tasks such as building the game's interface which is used as a template for each title. [2] The couple made the first three games together, and since then Eleen has taken on more of a consulting role due to other commitments. [2] Mikael acknowledges that his series and Her Interactive's Nancy Drew video game series share common themes, and are the two longest adventure game series, but explained that he was not inspired by the series when creating the Carol Reed Mysteries. [2]

Casting and characters

The couple decided to set the games in Sweden, but to have a main character from England; this meant that the Swedish characters would be forced to speak to Carol Reed in English with a Swedish accent, which allowed them to hire friends and acquaintances for a low cost. [2] Mikael does not like talking about how he visualises Carol's appearance, and expressed dismay at the German versions of the first six games having photos of "Carol" on the cover while the Russian versions had drawings of her. [2] Sarah Louise Williams, who voices Carol Reed and plays Stina, is the sister of Eleen. According to Mikael, "she was a natural choice for Carol's voice acting, as her English is excellent", having lived in England for ten years. Bjørn Larsen, who plays Jonas, used to be a colleague of Mikael at the Swedish Social Insurance Agency. Bigge is an old friend of Mikael's. Stina is Carol's oldest friend in Sweden. All of the cast members have other careers. [3] [2]

Filming

Practically all of the games in the series take place in summer. This is because of the challenges of shooting during Swedish winter: too dark, few hours of sunshine, and packed streets. In addition there could be continuity errors created because of weather inconsistency: snow-filled one week and clear the next. [3] Mikael shoots the field surveys early in the morning - starting at 4:00 am - due to the lighting and empty streets. When people unavoidably end up in his photos, he retouches them out. As the same locations are visited multiple times throughout the stories, he thinks it would be strange to the player to see the same character or moving object there at different times or on different days. [3] Set in Mikael's hometown of Norrköping, Sweden, the games use photography and local history of the city as a backdrop." [4] Carol Reed's in-game apartment is Mikael's real life apartment, which he photographed for the game; meanwhile the dacha seen in the game is Eleen's summer holiday house. [3] Sometimes he travels outside of the city. For instance the location of the in-game "Dead City" was an abandoned leper colony in Tenerife, Arico, Spain. [3]

Writing

For the first few games in the series, Mikael took photos in summer then spent the next 6 months creating the game from the footage. The 2013-released title Cold Case Summer: The ninth Carol Reed Mystery took a post-production of 13 months to complete, and Mikael foresaw future games taking about the same amount of time. He put this down to three things: the games having a larger scope, him taking longer to take the photos, and him being slower to create the games due to his age. [4] In terms of the tone, Mikael commented "Balancing light and dark, good and evil, etc, is no particular problem. That's simply the way life is". [4]

Design

In regards to the gameplay mechanics, Mikael wanted to keep the interface as simple as possible and not provide a barrier between the player and the gaming experience. This includes simplifying mechanics like saving/loading, accessing the inventory, and mouse clicking hotspots. [4] While the games were originally created using Adventure Maker, Mikael switched to Wintermute Engine for East Side Story: The fourth Carol Reed Mystery and kept using it until Quarantine Diary: The 16th Carol Reed Mystery. [4] In 2021, Nyqvist switched to EgoVenture, a custom framework for first-person point and click adventures co-developed with Dennis Ploeger based on Godot, with its source code released under the MIT License on GitHub. [5] Mikael has made it a design philosophy to not be too ambitious, and only plan things he knows he will be able to pull off. [4] There isn't any blood in the games and he avoids a shock/gore effect; while adventure gamers deem Carol Reed a 'non-bloody detective [series]", Mikael thinks that if the same games had been shot in night time rather than sunny summer days they would have been classified as horror games. [2]

Release

The games are exclusively available via the MDNA Games website. The team has had various American publishers, but prefers to work without one. [4] [3]

These days, we sell most of our games independently from our own web site. The download links are sent to the email addresses that are connected to they buyers PayPal account. It’s not unusual that people have old email addresses that don’t work anymore. So I have lots of experience of tracking down people in various ways.

— Mikael on the challenges of independent publishing, interview with Questtime [2]

Reception

Just Adventure gave it a B [6] and B+ [7] in two separate reviews. Adventure Classic Gaming gave it a positive review. [8] Adventure Gamers gave it 3/5 stars. [9]

Just Adventure gave it a B+ [10] Adventure Classic Gaming gaver it a positive review. [11] Adventure Gamers gave it 3/5 stars. [12]

Adventure Classic Gaming gave it a positive review. [15] Adventure Gamers gave it 3/5 stars. [16]

Quandaryland gave it 3.5. [17] Just Adventure gave it an A-/B-. [18] The game has a rating on Mobygames of 73% based on 4 critics. [19] Adventure Classic Gaming gave it a positive review. [20] Adventure Gamers gave it 3/5 stars. [21]

Gamezebo gave it 3.5/5 stars. [22] [23] Adventure Classic Gaming gave it a positive review. [24] Adventure Gamers gave it 3.5/5 stars. [25]

Just Adventure gave it an A−. [26] [27] Adventure Classic Gaming gave it a positive review. [28] Adventure Gamers gave it 3.5/5 stars. [29]

Gamezebo gave it 2 out of 5 stars. [31] Adventure Classic Gaming gave it a positive review. [32] Adventure Gamers gave it 3/5 stars. [33]

Adventure Gamers gave it 3.5/5 stars. [35]

Adventure Gamers gave it 3.5/5 stars. [37]

Just Adventure gave it a positive review. [38] Adventure Classic Gaming gave it a positive review. [39] Adventure Gamers gave it 3/5 stars. [40]

Just Adventure gave it a B+. [42] Adventure Gamers gave it 3/5 stars. [43]

Adventure Gamers gave it 4/5 stars. [45]

Related Research Articles

Dean Erickson is an actor, writer, and the founder and CEO of Bionic Capital LLC, a registered investment advisory firm. He is best known for playing Gabriel Knight in The Beast Within and Eric, Daphne's love interest and Café Nervosa waiter, in Season 1 of Frasier.

Nucleosys was a video game developer based in Argentina specializing in the adventure genre.

<i>Nancy Drew: Legend of the Crystal Skull</i> 2007 video game

Nancy Drew: Legend of the Crystal Skull is the 17th installment in the Nancy Drew point-and-click adventure game series by Her Interactive. It is available for play on Microsoft Windows platforms. It has an ESRB rating of E for moments of mild violence and peril. Players take on the first-person view of fictional amateur sleuth Nancy Drew and must solve the mystery through interrogation of suspects, solving puzzles, and discovering clues. There are two levels of gameplay, Junior and Senior detective modes, each offering a different difficulty level of puzzles and hints, however neither of these changes affect the actual plot of the game. The game is loosely based on a book entitled The Mardi Gras Mystery (1988).

<i>Sinking Island</i> 2007 video game

Sinking Island: A Jack Norm Investigation is a third-person perspective adventure game that uses point and click game mechanics. Released in France on October 4, 2007. it was developed by White Birds Productions, a company founded and led by Benoît Sokal.

<i>Necronomicon: The Dawning of Darkness</i> 2000 video game

Necronomicon: The Dawning of Darkness, also known as Necronomicon: The Gateway to Beyond, is a 2000 video game developed by Wanadoo Edition and released for Windows and the PlayStation video game console.

<i>Salammbo: Battle for Carthage</i> 2002 video game

Salammbo: Battle for Carthage is a first-person perspective adventure video game. It began development at Cryo Interactive, but the company went bankrupt during production. The Salammbo team was ultimately acquired by DreamCatcher Interactive, which finished the game's development.

<i>Casebook</i> (video game) Episodic point-and-click video game

Casebook is an episodic interactive movie point-and-click adventure game developed by New Zealand studio Areo Cinematic Games and published by Big Fish Games.

<i>Monty Pythons The Meaning of Life</i> (video game) Adventure video game

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life is an adventure game created by 7th Level in 1997 for Windows. The game is based on the 1983 film of the same name and was the third of three Monty Python games created by 7th Level. It was rated Mature by the ESRB in North America.

<i>Nancy Drew: Ghost of Thornton Hall</i> 2013 point-and-click adventure game

Ghost of Thornton Hall is the 28th installment in the Nancy Drew point-and-click adventure game series by Her Interactive. The game is available for play on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X platforms. It has an ESRB rating of E for moments of mild violence and peril. Players take on the first-person view of fictional amateur sleuth Nancy Drew and must solve the mystery through interrogation of suspects, solving puzzles, and discovering clues. There are two levels of gameplay, Amateur and Master sleuth modes, each offering a different difficulty level of puzzles and hints, however neither of these changes affect the actual plot of the game. The game is loosely based on a book entitled Uncivil Acts (2005).

<i>Chewy: Esc from F5</i> 1995 video game

Chewy: Esc from F5 is a 1995 point-and-click adventure released for MS-DOS compatible operating systems in 1995. A Microsoft Windows version followed in 1997.

<i>Santa Fe Mysteries: Sacred Ground</i> 1997 video game

Santa Fe Mysteries: Sacred Ground is a video game, the second in the Santa Fe Mysteries series after The Elk Moon Murder.

<i>Murder in the Abbey</i> 2008 video game

Murder In The Abbey is an adventure video game, developed by the Spanish studio Alcachofa Soft and released in 2008. The game is inspired by the 1987 title La Abadía del Crimen.

<i>Jewels of the Oracle</i> 1995 video game

Jewels of the Oracle is a 1995 adventure game developed by ELOI Productions and published by Discis Knowledge Research Inc. It was released on Macintosh, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Windows. A sequel developed by Bardworks and published by Hoffman and Associates was released in 1998 entitled Jewels II: The Ultimate Challenge.

<i>Byzantine</i> (video game) 1997 video game

Byzantine: The Betrayal is a video game, released September 30, 1997 for Microsoft Windows.

<i>Karma: Curse of the 12 Caves</i> 1995 adventure video game

Karma: Curse of the 12 Caves is a 1995 FMV adventure game. In 1998, DreamCatcher Interactive re-released the game as Quest for Karma. The game was released in Japan for PlayStation and Sega Saturn as Takuramakan.

<i>The Forgotten: It Begins</i> 1999 video game

The Forgotten: It Begins is a 1999 adventure/puzzle video game developed by Ransom Interactive and published by DreamCatcher Interactive. A sequel was to be released called The Forgotten II: The Collection. The Forgotten narrative was originally supposed to last over 7 games ("modules"), but these were never completed.

<i>Beyond Time</i> 1997 video game

Beyond Time aka Shadow of the Obelisk: Delve Into the Corridors of Time is a 1997 full motion video adventure game developed by Jones and Jones Multimedia and published by DreamCatcher Interactive.

<i>Aurora: The Secret Within</i> 2008 video game

Aurora: The Secret Within is a 2008 adventure game developed by Italian company BluMiAl Studio and published by Lexicon Entertainment.

<i>Santa Fe Mysteries: The Elk Moon Murder</i> 1996 video game

Santa Fe Mysteries: The Elk Moon Murder is a video game, the first in the Santa Fe Mysteries series, followed by Santa Fe Mysteries: Sacred Ground. In The Elk Moon Murder, a famous Native American artist named Anna Elk Moon is murdered in the American Southwest.

<i>Tunguska: Legend of Faith</i> 2000 video game

Tunguska: Legend of Faith is an action-adventure video game by German-based studio Exortus GmbH, released on PC and later PlayStation. It received largely negative reviews from critics.

References

  1. ↑ "Carol Reed series". ScummVM Wiki. ScummVM. Retrieved 10 June 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 QuestTime.Net, Klaverm -. "Интервью - Interview with Mikael Nyqvist, The - Автор: Klaverm". QuestTime.net (in Russian). Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Google Translate". translate.google.com. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Mikael Nyqvist - MDNA Games - Interview - Adventure Classic Gaming - ACG - Adventure Games, Interactive Fiction Games - Reviews, Interviews, Features, Previews, Cheats, Galleries, Forums". www.adventureclassicgaming.com. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  5. ↑ Ploeger, Dennis (27 March 2021). "Announcing EgoVenture". DEV Community. Archived from the original on 28 March 2021. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
  6. ↑ . 2017-09-28 https://web.archive.org/web/20170928131010/http://justadventure.com/2013-05-20-21-09-14/611-remedy-the-first-carol-reed-mystery-review-12. Archived from the original on 2017-09-28. Retrieved 2017-12-27.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  7. ↑ . 2015-03-22 https://web.archive.org/web/20150322122239/http://justadventure.com/2013-05-20-21-09-14/612-remedy-the-first-carol-reed-mystery-review-22. Archived from the original on 2015-03-22. Retrieved 2017-12-27.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  8. ↑ "Remedy: A Carol Reed Mystery - Review - Adventure Classic Gaming - ACG - Adventure Games, Interactive Fiction Games - Reviews, Interviews, Features, Previews, Cheats, Galleries, Forums". www.adventureclassicgaming.com. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  9. ↑ "Remedy: A Carol Reed Mystery Game Information, Screenshots & Media". Adventure Gamers. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  10. ↑ . 2017-09-24 https://web.archive.org/web/20170924222400/http://justadventure.com/2013-05-20-21-09-14/613-hope-springs-eternal-the-second-carol-reed-mystery2. Archived from the original on 2017-09-24. Retrieved 2017-12-27.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  11. ↑ "Hope Springs Eternal: A Carol Reed Mystery - Review - Adventure Classic Gaming - ACG - Adventure Games, Interactive Fiction Games - Reviews, Interviews, Features, Previews, Cheats, Galleries, Forums". www.adventureclassicgaming.com. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  12. ↑ "Hope Springs Eternal Game Information, Screenshots & Media". Adventure Gamers. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
  13. ↑ "Time Stand Still: A Carol Reed Mystery Coming Soon at Quandary". 2006-11-15. Archived from the original on 2006-11-15. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  14. ↑ "Time Stand Still starts moving". Adventure Gamers. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  15. ↑ "Time Stand Still: A Carol Reed Mystery - Review - Adventure Classic Gaming - ACG - Adventure Games, Interactive Fiction Games - Reviews, Interviews, Features, Previews, Cheats, Galleries, Forums". www.adventureclassicgaming.com. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  16. ↑ "Time Stand Still - A Carol Reed Mystery Game Information, Screenshots & Media". Adventure Gamers.
  17. ↑ "East Side Story - A Carol Reed Mystery Review by Quandary". 2008-02-28. Archived from the original on 2008-02-28. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  18. ↑ . 2015-03-22 https://web.archive.org/web/20150322105054/http://justadventure.com/2013-05-20-21-09-14/609-east-side-story-the-fourth-carol-reed-mystery2. Archived from the original on 2015-03-22. Retrieved 2017-12-27.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  19. ↑ "East Side Story - A Carol Reed Mystery". Metacritic. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  20. ↑ "East Side Story: A Carol Reed Mystery - Review - Adventure Classic Gaming - ACG - Adventure Games, Interactive Fiction Games - Reviews, Interviews, Features, Previews, Cheats, Galleries, Forums". www.adventureclassicgaming.com. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  21. ↑ "East Side Story - A Carol Reed Mystery Game Information, Screenshots & Media". Adventure Gamers. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  22. ↑ "The Color of Murder: A Carol Reed Mystery Preview | Gamezebo". 2012-04-20. Archived from the original on 2012-04-20. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  23. ↑ "The Color of Murder: A Carol Reed Mystery Review | Gamezebo". 2012-04-20. Archived from the original on 2012-04-20. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  24. ↑ "The Colour of Murder: A Carol Reed Mystery - Review - Adventure Classic Gaming - ACG - Adventure Games, Interactive Fiction Games - Reviews, Interviews, Features, Previews, Cheats, Galleries, Forums". www.adventureclassicgaming.com. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  25. ↑ "Carol Reed: The Colour of Murder Game Information, Screenshots & Media". Adventure Gamers. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  26. ↑ . 2016-10-24 https://web.archive.org/web/20161024063741/http://justadventure.com/2013-05-20-21-09-14/536-black-circle-a-carol-reed-mystery2. Archived from the original on 2016-10-24. Retrieved 2017-12-27.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  27. ↑ "Just Adventure: PC, PS3, Xbox 360 & Blu-ray walkthroughs & reviews". 2011-11-09. Archived from the original on 2011-11-09. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  28. ↑ "Black Circle: A Carol Reed Mystery - Review - Adventure Classic Gaming - ACG - Adventure Games, Interactive Fiction Games - Reviews, Interviews, Features, Previews, Cheats, Galleries, Forums". www.adventureclassicgaming.com. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  29. ↑ "Black Circle: A Carol Reed Mystery Game Information, Screenshots & Media". Adventure Gamers. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
  30. ↑ "Carol Reed 7: Blue Madonna demo walkthrough". 2011-08-27. Archived from the original on 2011-08-27. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  31. ↑ "Blue Madonna: A Carol Reed Mystery Review - Gamezebo". 2015-11-10. Archived from the original on 2015-11-10. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  32. ↑ "Blue Madonna: A Carol Reed Mystery - Review - Adventure Classic Gaming - ACG - Adventure Games, Interactive Fiction Games - Reviews, Interviews, Features, Previews, Cheats, Galleries, Forums". www.adventureclassicgaming.com. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  33. ↑ "Blue Madonna - A Carol Reed Mystery Game Information, Screenshots & Media". Adventure Gamers.
  34. ↑ "Just Adventure: Shop - Amber's Blood The Eighth Carol Reed Mystery". 2012-11-16. Archived from the original on 2012-11-16. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  35. ↑ "Amber's Blood Game Information, Screenshots & Media". Adventure Gamers.
  36. ↑ "Just Adventure: Shop - Cold Case Summer The Ninth Carol Reed Mystery". 2013-03-18. Archived from the original on 2013-03-18. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  37. ↑ "Cold Case Summer Game Information, Screenshots & Media". Adventure Gamers. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  38. ↑ . 2015-03-23 https://web.archive.org/web/20150323015745/http://justadventure.com/itemid-fix-2/1755-release-date-for-carol-reed-s-bosch-s-damnation. Archived from the original on 2015-03-23. Retrieved 2017-12-27.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  39. ↑ "Bosch's Damnation: A Carol Reed Mystery - Review - Adventure Classic Gaming - ACG - Adventure Games, Interactive Fiction Games - Reviews, Interviews, Features, Previews, Cheats, Galleries, Forums". www.adventureclassicgaming.com. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  40. ↑ "Bosch's Damnation: A Carol Reed Mystery Review". Adventure Gamers. 9 April 2014.
  41. ↑ "Google Translate". translate.googleusercontent.com. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  42. ↑ Washburne, Bob. "Shades of Black Review". justadventure.com. Archived from the original on 2017-12-27. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  43. ↑ "Shades of Black Review". Adventure Gamers. 21 August 2015. Retrieved 2017-12-27.
  44. ↑ . 2017-05-24 https://web.archive.org/web/20170524101825/http://www.justadventure.com/2013-05-20-21-09-14/3718-profound-red-the-12th-carol-reed-game-to-arrive-in-january. Archived from the original on 2017-05-24. Retrieved 2017-12-27.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  45. ↑ "Profound Red Game Information, Screenshots & Media". Adventure Gamers. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.