Legends of Murder is a fantasy/role-playing/murder mystery game. In Volume 1 of the series you, Inspector, have been summoned to a small castle near the harbor city of Erdwyn to investigate the murder of the King. Hired by the advisor of the deceased King, an elf named Ash, you set foot in the castle after a long journey across the sea, and the game begins...
The ultimate purpose in the game is to discover the murderer of the King. The character is walking on a tiny map sized in 1/5 of the screen, and when he comes inside new room, the description is written. There are numerous riddles and puzzles to solve along the way, as well as many people to meet and places to explore. It is very important that you talk to everyone you encounter, search all rooms of the castle you enter, and make note of what you learn for later reference.
The Inspector (of Fighter/Mage class) has a number of personal attributes, common for RPGs, which affect the play of the game. Spells must be learned from special books. The higher a character's level, the more powerful the spell he can learn.
Legends of Murder is a fun fantasy RPG/murder mystery game designed by Jamie (later James) Schmalz, who would years later be famous as one of Unreal designers. Similar to MicroProse's The Legacy, the game combines RPG and adventure elements into an engrossing game, even if the graphics are primitive. The storyline and basic gameplay are as follows:
"As the Inspector, you have been summoned to a small castle near the harbor city of Erdwyn to investigate the murder of the King. This castle -- the site of the murder -- is a day's journey across the Northern Sea from your own kingdom. Hired by the advisor of the deceased King, an elf named Ash, you set foot in the castle after a long journey across the sea, and the game begins...
Your ultimate purpose in Legends of Murder is to discover the murderer of the King. There are numerous riddles and puzzles to solve along the way, as well as many people to meet and places to explore. It is very important that you talk to everyone you encounter, search all rooms of the castle you enter, and make note of what you learn for later reference."
With an excellent blend of elements from both RPG (character statistics, casting spells, gaining levels) and adventure (puzzle solving, exploration) genres, Legends of Murder is one of the more memorable releases on SoftDisk's "Big Blue Disk" monthly. The writing is also above-average, and the game is quite atmospheric. One notable anecdote is that the game was programmed entirely in Assembly language (!). The only complaint I have is that the game is a tad too short, and the character a tad too small. Other than that, you'll probably enjoy this old game if you like RPG hybrids that place more emphasis on gameplay than graphics.
How to run this game on modern Windows PC?
People who downloaded Legends of Murder have also downloaded:
Legends of Murder, Volume II: Grey Haven (1991), Legacy of The Ancients, Legend of the Silver Talisman, Legend of Faerghail, Legend (a.k.a. Four Crystals of Trazere), Lord of The Rings 2: Two Towers, Lord of the Rings 1: Fellowship of the Ring, Laxius Power 3
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