Humor, horror, mystery, and ads | Full Review - Murders on Budapest

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Murders on Budapest is a narratively focused murder mystery game with both comedic and horror undertones and presented in a messaging app style format.

🟩Pros

+intriguing self-aware murder mystery game

+interesting fourth-wall breaks

+combines both humor and horror

🟥Cons

-Intrusive ads while playing the game

-Tickets are needed to progress, and they run out fast

Just fresh from my review of another fourth wall breaking mystery game, now we have another mobile game in Murders of Budapest. This time it’s less of a detective point-and-click mystery and more of a murder mystery visual-novel this time around.

Players still control a detective, this time named Doyle, who just got stranded in the mountains along with other strangers, and have just sought refuge in a huge eerie estate filled with equally creepy house staff. Little did they know, a murder mystery is about to happen, and the whole premise is both humorous and slightly unsettling. Every now and then, the player is presented with dialogue choices that basically have branching out effects or different outcomes. Making it a “Choose your own adventure” type of game.

Murders of Budapest is a fairly simplistic game. No deep mechanics, no over complicated puzzles. It’s more of an interactive adventure story with some mini-games every now and then to spice up the gameplay. As for the presentation, the characters have cartoonish looks and the game is presented in cartoon-style visuals.

The dialogue and events are told in a messaging app style format, which the players can scroll around. There is no voice acting so prepare yourself for a 100% reading heavy experience for the entirety of the game. The use of a messaging app style format also adds to the game's immersive quality, as players may feel as though they are directly communicating with the game's characters and participating in the story as it unfolds in real-time.

As a murder mystery story, Murders of Budapest is brimfilled with influences and direct references to popular mystery-fiction figures, like Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, or even stories like The Labyrinth or characters like Sherlock Holmes. Even the characters themselves are avid fans of murder mystery and are seemingly self-aware of the situation that they’re in. Even up to the fourth wall level.

These characters break the fourth wall nonchalantly and usually as part of a joke or an explanation as to how things are the way they are. The characters constantly do this and usually react to what’s happening or to their environment in this manner. They are self-aware about the setting, that it’s a game, and even the cartoonish art-style is noticed.

Murders of Budapest really has something special cooking with the story as it got me hooked on after a few minutes or so. Despite the simplistic visuals and dialogue, it still manages to instill a creepy, if not scary, atmosphere while still maintaining that humorous aspect in tandem with the fourth-wall breaks.

One major downside of the game are the intrusive ads. Ads banners that appear at the bottom, and ads that play every now and then. Also, the game isn’t entirely free to play, even with the ads, you need “tickets” to make choices and they do run out pretty fast. Your only way to replenish Tickets to keep playing is to keep watching more ads, or purchase tickets directly. Which is a shame because the story really is interesting. Watching ads for the whole experience doesn’t really work because the game will also run out of ads to show you.

Conclusion:

Murders on Budapest seems to be a unique and intriguing self-aware murder mystery game that incorporates elements of both humor and horror, with some fourth-wall breaks to create a captivating storytelling experience, just don’t expect a seamless free to play experience from top to bottom, even if you are willing tolerate the ads.