The Killings in Wasacoma
Steve Kollmansberger
The premise of this grabbed me straight away—I love ‘FBI small town mystery’ as a subgenre (I’m a dyed in the wool Peakie and have recently started the X-Files for the first time—not gonna lie, I was waiting for aliens or cryptids or something for a while).
Personally, I would have preferred the mechanics in terms of dice rolls to not be so transparent, but this is very much an individual preference rather than a fault with the game. A recent thread on this topic shows that there’s a range of opinions on this matter and the more up-front approach will definitely work well for some people! It’s implemented very nicely here as well, I think.
So much to love here. Stats! Maps! The writing is really solid, though I did catch a couple of small typos. I would have liked to have had the opportunity to do more things in some places—for example, ask more questions of Melody’s parents. It would also have been cool to maybe be given options to use different skill checks to approach the same situation? These are pretty minor criticisms though. It’s very dynamic and fun—getting the call in the middle of the first night was genuinely exciting, made the world feel alive and gave a real sense of urgency. Some really fantastic little moments that affected stats too, such as finding the missing dog.
I was curious, so I read the ‘what actually happened’ page when I finished. The culprit was the person I had suspicions about, but I only accused him of one murder and his own suicide, because I assumed that the signs pointing to him were red herrings and there would be another, less obvious culprit (I watch a lot of TV). The logic there makes sense for sure, and if I’d trusted my evidence rather than second-guessing myself I probably would have got a more successful ending haha!
This is a very well-executed mystery with some great writing and fun features. Recommended!