Not all games have to be lengthy RPGs or gory demon shooters to be enjoyable. Eastville Chronicles: The Drama Queen Murder is a game you play to have a nice short relaxing gaming experience. Completing this game will take you about 4 hours and give you just the fix you needed. Being available on the Nintendo Switch makes this game great to play on the go.

Murder on the scene

You play as Alex Hunt who has one of the best names ever to be an investigator. It’s your job to catch the murderer of Dolores Molinero. Dolores, an actress, was murdered in the Eastville Opera House by someone wearing a Scaramouch mask. With five prime suspects, a lot of work needs to be done in order to find the real culprit. Only after conducting an awful lot of questions at the suspects and cross-examining the evidence and statements, you can solve this murder. The opera house itself plays a huge role in hindering the investigation. The place is filled with clutter masking the much-needed clues to solve the murder mystery. Sifting through all the potential murder weapons will be a big part of your investigation.

Hidden Object Game

The Drama Queen Murder is a classic Hidden Object Game mixed with some extra puzzles. During the heydays of the Nintendo DS, a lot of these type of games were released. The touch screen on the DS (and 3DS) was especially useful to play these type of games. These type of games shifted a bit towards the mobile market but with the Nintendo Switch, they might make a comeback to the console market. For those of you who never played a Hidden Object Game before, you are presented with a static image filled with “stuff” and you need to find certain objects. Think of it as a digital successor of the whole “where is Wally” thing.

Getting to search through multiple of these “rooms” gets a bit dull after a while. Luckily, the good people who made The Drama Queen Murder found a solution to break out of the monotony a bit. Some rooms require you to find certain “key objects” which are highlighted in yellow. These objects are then used in a subsequent puzzle. In essence, they mix in a little bit of puzzle adventure in their game. Using a cog you’ve found during the classic HOG sequence to use in a puzzle machine, later on, is just one of the many original ways they integrated some extra puzzle elements.

Handheld and touchscreen

We got our hands on the Nintendo Switch version of The Drama Queen Murder. For anybody planning to buy this version, I strongly recommend playing this game in handheld modus and using the touchscreen to point out the objects. The use of the joysticks and buttons works, but it’s so much more intuitive to just “touch” the objects. Some of you might also be interested to know that The Drama Queen Murder also has a PC release.

Conclusion

The Drama Queen Murder is a classic Hidden Object Game which does exactly as it says on the box. Everything works as it should making this a fine little “breather” of a game to play. If you want a relaxing – no hassle – kind of game to play, The Drama Queen murder might just be your thing. Just don’t expect anything more than a simple hidden object game.

7/10

Tested on Nintendo Switch