Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None

Other products by Dreamcatcher

Product Features

• Video game based on the best-selling murder mystery by Agatha Christie
• Challenging murder mystery with over 20 hours of engrossing gameplay
• Breathtaking third-person graphics that truly immerse the player
• New twist and turns to the original story, plus a brand new character--you
• Developed by veteran studio AWE and designed by famed author Lee Sheldon

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000AA878M
• Item Weight: 13 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: October 25, 2005
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #14,793 in Video Games (See Bestsellers in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Platform: PC

From the Manufacturer

Agatha Christie’s world-famous novel, And Then There Were None, is brought to the PC with all of its original baffling suspense! Ten people, strangers to each other, are invited to a lavish estate on an island. Through a recording, their mysterious host accuses each of his "guests" of murder and proceeds to exact "justice." The tension mounts as, one-by-one, the number of people are reduced through the ingenious plotting of the unseen killer. Prepare to play the video game based on the best-selling murder mystery of all time! This game includes the original book.

Product Description

Agatha Christie’s world famous novel, and then there were none, is brought to the PC with all of its original baffling suspense! 10 people, strangers to each other, are invited to a lavish estate on an island. Through a recording, their mysterious host accuses each of his ‘guests’ of murder and proceeds to exact ‘justice.’ The tension mounts as, one-by-one, the number of people are reduced through the ingenious plotting of the unseen killer. Prepare to play the video game based on the Bestselling murder mystery of all time! This game includes the original book.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An ok tribute to Agatha Christie, but could have been better., December 1, 2005

By	Lestor neeker Wong (Singapore) - See all my reviews

Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

You'll probably enjoy this game if you're a fan of Agatha Christie. Otherwise, you'll find And Then There Were None a journey of boredom. To put it simply, there aren't really many things to do in this game apart from walking around, picking up items, and then using them. Yes, this basically sounds like a typical point-and-click adventure game, but one can't help but feel that the developer could've given the game a better boost in terms of gameplay.

Based on Christie's popular novel of the same title, And Then There Were None puts ten people on a desolated island, and has them killed off one by one by their invisible host. Playing as the 11th man, you've to find out the truth before the murderer kills them all. You do so by exploring the various areas on the island, including the mansion where the lot of you stays in, and its surroundings. Unfortunately, there aren't much you can do to prevent the deaths of these people, not until late in the game at least. As such, most of the time, you'll be simply exploring areas for conversations and events to trigger the beginning of the next chapter of the game. Before long, you'll be wondering why do you even bother.

The good thing of this game is that it offers a different murderer (and motive) than what the book prescribed. This would certainly please Christie fans, who must have read the book several times before playing the game. Also, depending on what you do during the later part of the game, you've the opportunity to save some characters, and therefore unlock different endings. Regardless of which ending you achieve, however, you'll get to solve a last puzzle to view the original ending, so players who've not read the book can still admire at how amazing the plot is.

What the game really lacks is a better challenge. Despite being an adventure game, the amount of puzzles to solve is few and far between. They're also extremely easy to solve, making the experience more like going through the motion at times. Players who're expecting a reasonable amount of challenge could find themselves really disappointed by this game.

The situation isn't help by some inept attempts at graphical and audio presentations. The characters modeling look decidedly slipshod, even though you do have an option to sharpen their features in the main menu. Needless to say, this requires more memory from your PC. Therefore, if you prefer more defined looking characters, and don't have a high-end machine to run the game, you may have to do without them. The music is actually quite nice, and fits the mood of the game greatly. However, there's only one number throughout, and two chapters into the game, you'll be wondering whether you'll have to listen to this for the full ten chapters. The answer is yes.

Now, it may sound like I'm slating this game throughout this article, but that's hardly so. I enjoy the game despite its flaws, and I thought it was a credible effort from The Adventure Company on the whole. However, as a Christie fan, I find the game too ordinary for gamers who're not fans of her to engage in. At times, it feels like a trimmed down version of Trace Memory (for the DS), albeit with much lesser puzzles to solve. I'd still recommend this game for Christie fans though, if only as a tribute to the author. Otherwise, you should consider other options. That said, I do hope to see more of her books get adapted into adventure games in future, since it's a genre that I particularly enjoy.

And for that game, I hope that's it's a little more difficult than this one.

75 of 83 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Well ... good enough, November 5, 2005

By	Lynn S. Hendricks "Wordmama" (Carson City, NV USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

An enjoyable little game for the Agatha Christie fan. As you know if you've read the book or seen the play or the movie(s) by the same name, the plot is designed so almost anybody can be the actual murderer, so you needn't worry about knowing whodunit; it's not who you expect it be. And it's always fun to be in the middle of a plot you're familiar with, to see how the characters and situations actually play out.

That said, there are definitely some areas where improvements could have been made. The voice acting is mediocre and the character graphics wooden and clumsy; in many scenes, you have the feeling a couple of Barbie and Ken dolls are being bounced around a doll house by a hyperactive child. There are also far too few puzzles, and none of them are either challenging or even particularly interesting. The action consists mainly of questioning your fellow dolls about the latest death and wandering aimlessly around, trying to find something that will trigger the next scene.

All the same, I'll keep it on my machine for a while. The game has some replayability, and the scenery has a lovely brooding quality to it. I'd also like to see these publishers be encouraged to try again; they'll do better next time, and there are lots and LOTS of Christie novels that would make great games.

As an added bonus, the original novel is included with the game. If you find the game doesn't do anything for you, you can always shut off the computer and go read for a while. (grin)

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Oh, Agatha, March 26, 2006

By	Z. Woodruff - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars 

I bought this with the intention of giving it to my mom, but naturally I thought I'd "test" it out first to see if it was something she'd enjoy. After playing it through, I have decided to sell the game rather than subject her to its frustrations.

This game is based on a mystery, but this is not a mystery game. Don't worry about trying to figure out who's the killer because even if you did figure it out, there's nothing you can do about it. Your job is just to explore things, pick up objects, solve a handful of puzzles (mostly object-manipulation based), and figure out what is going to trigger the next cutscene and "Chapter." (In each chapter, one of the 10 characters gets killed.)

Technically the game seems to be stuck in a past era. The character animations look hokey. The areas you move through are static shots from one angle. Isn't it time all games had 360-degree views and movement? Your character runs from one side of the screen to the other. It gets dull. Even worse, whenever you talk to a character, there is no way to bypass the dialogue if you've already heard it.

The game does not function like a mystery. There are few clues. Everybody is equally suspicious and always has equal opportunity to commit each crime (so watching who's where when doesn't help). Even if you solve the mystery (which you can if you figure out how to test for fingerprints), there is nothing you can do about it. You have to progress the game to chapter 10, watching people get murdered, by jumping through the game's predetermined hoops.

Simply put, the game isn't much fun. It also doesn't show much imagination. The way they've shoehorning a popular Agatha Christie novel into a tired old game format is (1) a shrewd way for the game company to turn a profit, and (2) an exercise in blowing the opportunity to make something innovative and cool. If you've got the rights to one of the best-selling mysteries of all time, why phone in an uninspired adaptation of it? Why not jump on the opportunity to make something that people will really dig and recommend to friends?

I would like to see somebody make a real computer-game mystery sometime. It wouldn't be that hard to do. So far, it just hasn't happened. I guess mysteries, with their definite endings, aren't open-ended enough to be considered worth the time and money it takes to develop a detailed, high-quality game. Too bad. A long time ago I played the all-text Infocom games, which included some mysteries -- "Deadline," "Witness" and "Suspect." They were quite enjoyable little mysteries and they had multiple ending possibilities ("And There Were None" does, but each ending is very nearly the same). They had the added advantage that you could type in precise questions for the suspects, so you actually had to come up with dialogue to solve the story (rather than selecting from pre-fabricated dialogue). The Infocom games also had a sense of humor, and they had red herrings and game results that showed the creators had anticipated various things the players would try. How hard would it be to use these same principles in a modern game?

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