The Killings in Wasacona (Steve Kollmansberger)
Played on: 3rd Sept
How I played it: Online via IFComp webpage
How long I spent: 40 minutes to get the “Case Closed” ending
This review is a little spoilery – it won’t give away the solution but it will discuss what the solution isn’t. Also, there’s a paragraph about police brutality in this review. (It’s not as negative and serious a review as that makes it sound, but content warning anyway.)
This year is a comp of murder mysteries, so I’m told, and this is the first one that came up for me. There’s been a spate of killings in the little American town of Wasacona; they look unrelated on the surface, but so many deaths so quicky? You’re the fresh-faced new FBI recruit who’s been sent to investigate.
This was a pleasant surprise. I will be completely honest and say I had low, low expectations for this one. (It’s the AI art cover. Sorry, but it is. What’s up with how that white car’s parked?) But The Killings in Wasacona is a solid piece of work!
The game uses random chance in a way that’s pretty interesting. We’re on tabletop gaming rules: you have a set of skills with a stat value, and the outcome of your actions and investigations are decided by die rolls which are weighted by those stats. For example, if there’s a set of footprints near the crime scene, you’ll be prompted to investigate further, and depending on how observant your character is, either you’ll notice that one set of footprints is more distinctive than the others, or you won’t notice anything. So yes, you can miss clues if your luck is bad, but there are enough opportunities to gather clues throughout the game that this probably won’t hurt you.
At the start, you’re prompted to choose a character archetype as a basis for your stats, or build your own. Like many other reviewers, I went for the Analyst prebuild. This turns out to be a good choice, as there seem to be many more skill checks based on mental acuity than on physical attributes. Even the walkthrough recommends Analyst as one of the more viable choices for reaching the best ending. I had a good time, but I think players who go for an athletic or intimidating character might feel hard done by.
Once you’re set up, you’re dropped in Wasacona and left to your own devices. You have generally free reign over what locations you visit in what order, and who you talk to when. The smart part of this is that Wasacona is not a static town. Time advances in-game, and you only have so long to investigate, but the locations change and people move – if you leave it too late to question a shopkeeper, you might miss closing time, for example. What’s more, people do notice how you investigate and what you’re focusing on. If you treat characters gently, they might come to the police station later with new evidence; if you play hardball and accuse them of having something to do with the murders, they won’t open up to you. There’s some really lovely and responsive scenario design here which encourages you not just to solve the mystery, but to roleplay, to treat Wasacona as a living and sensitive community rather than as a puzzle box. It’s very well done. (For board game nerds, this put me in mind of T.I.M.E Stories, Chronicles of Crime, and similar puzzly tabletop games with an emphasis on time management.)
The mystery itself is serviceable. It’s constructed around the mechanics of the game, so that bits of evidence and leads are available constantly – this gives you a fighting chance even when you’ve had a run of unlucky die rolls. I managed to solve all the killings correctly; I couldn’t prove everything, but enough die rolls had gone right that I had a pretty good idea whodunnit for some of it at least, and was able to guess the rest. I will say that as a mystery in its own right, it’s not the most satisfying, but maybe I just had the wrong expectations going in. This is more like a police procedural than a closed-circle Agatha Christie mystery, and there aren’t any especially devious twists or dramatic reveals.
One strand I’m curious about, and I’m trying to choose my words carefully here but do let me know if I’m messing up: There’s a recurring motif of racial tension, which is woven throughout The Killings in Wasacona and provides potential motives for one or two suspects. Notably, one of the police officers is virulently racist against the Wasacona immigrant population, but the sheriff is a black man who is trying to tolerate it as best he can. It’s never really a critical plot thread, which feels a bit odd to me. Surely you can’t feature police officers as major characters in a mystery which implies that its murders are racially-motivated without invoking a Western history of police brutality against racial minorities? I think the game flirts with this fully intentionally; one of the victims is even described as having been beaten with something “like a police baton,” so I believe you’re meant to consider police brutality as a potential solution. But in the back half of the game when more concrete leads emerge, this thread appears to be dropped altogether. I don’t know, I feel like a theme as strong as police brutality is something you either commit to exploring or leave out altogether; I’m not sure I’m comfortable with it being used purely as a red herring? But I may have missed a scene that explores this more – I stopped visiting the police station after a point when the clock was ticking and haven’t seen everything there, so I’m happy to admit I may have been unfair on the game here.
I achieved the second-best ending. You need to be in the right places at the right times (and maybe have a little luck) to achieve the best ending. This is neat, as it rewards players who replay the game with knowledge of what’s going to happen who might wonder if they can stop things from happening. It’s a cool way to reward the dedicated player who pushes back on the game systems. (I didn’t replay the game, but the walkthrough has details of what you need to do to get there.) I also enjoy the stats for how players did – they’re a lot of fun to read though now that plenty of judges have run through the game. I’m pleased to report that no FBI agent has put in an “Abysmal” performance yet.
This was nice! I’m always happy when my low expectations are defied, but this is a pretty good game in its own right.