Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express is a 2006 adventure game developed by AWE Productions and published by The Adventure Company for Microsoft Windows. It is the second installment in The Adventure Company's Agatha Christie series. The setting is five years before the events in Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None, with a largely unrelated storyline. The story takes place in 1934 and follows an amateur sleuth, Antoinette Marceau, and her investigation of a murder with twelve possible suspects aboard the Orient Express, which has been blocked by an avalanche in Yugoslavia. She is aided by famous detective Hercule Poirot.
Murder on the Orient Express retains the main plot elements of Agatha Christie's 1934 novel of the same name. An additional ending is presented in the game which differs from the conclusion of Christie's novel. As with And Then There Were None, Christie's novel is bundled with the game. Some reviewers of Murder on the Orient Express criticized the game because of the repetitive nature of tasks the player must complete, and also complained about the inefficient and cumbersome inventory system. Others have praised it for improved graphics compared to And Then There Were None, as well as convincing voice acting and audio effects. Murder on the Orient Express is followed by Agatha Christie: Evil Under the Sun, the third installment in the Agatha Christie series.
Murder on the Orient Express is the first game in the Agatha Christie series to feature Hercule Poirot, Christie's most popular and famous detective. David Suchet, whose portrayal of Poirot achieved fame through the popular television series Agatha Christie's Poirot, was hired to provide Poirot's voice. His performance was generally met with praise. Some have criticized the game for not allowing the player to actually control Poirot; the developers explained this choice by saying that adventure gamers who make mistakes throughout the game do not reflect the genius of Poirot, but are better represented by amateur sleuth Antoinette Marceau.
Gameplay The player can navigate and interact with the game's environment, mainly carriages on the Orient Express, through use of a context-sensitive cursor. The cursor changes when it is placed over an item with which the player can interact, and can be used to talk to other characters, listen to other characters' conversations, look around the environment, and move. The player can walk to a location with a single click, and run to a location with a double-click. Double-clicking on the edge of the screen instantly takes the player to the next screen. There is a map of the train in the game's interface at the top of the screen, and once each carriage has been unlocked, the player can click on any part of the map and instantly be transported to that location, saving the player from having to travel through the train screen by screen. Another accessible feature is an objectives menu interface which states the general tasks the player should be attempting to complete. This menu is designed to guide players in the right direction without giving any explicit hints.
Murder on the Orient Express, as with its predecessor, features an inventory system. There are several components of the inventory, including a fingerprint examination screen, a scrapbook, and a passport screen for managing and viewing the passengers' passports. There are a total of eighty slots for carrying items in the inventory, spread across five separate screens. Items cannot be discarded from the inventory once they have been acquired. The player can access the inventory by clicking on an icon on the game's interface, or can simply right-click. After items are used, a right-click returns them to the inventory, and the exact slot they were originally placed in. Each item is labelled, and the player can inspect each inventory item in more detail by dragging it over a magnifying glass icon, and can also listen for a soft hissing sound which indicates that there is something relevant for the player to note about a certain item. In a divergence from other games in its genre, Murder on the Orient Express does not allow the player to combine items in the main inventory screen. There is a separate interface for item combinations, and the player must drag items into this screen if they wish to try to combine them.
A large portion of gameplay in Murder on the Orient Express has the player questioning characters and listening to lengthy periods of dialogue in order to acquire clues which may lead to the murderer. Other tasks the player must complete include collecting passports and other paraphernalia left by the passengers in an effort to acquire clues to lead to the solution of the murder, and retrieving certain objects for various characters. Combining items in the inventory forms a major part of the puzzles in the game. There are no puzzles with time limits in the game, although some puzzles require correct timing. There are also several single screen puzzles, such as a safe-cracking puzzle.
A unique feature of Murder on the Orient Express is Poirot, who serves as a hint system for the duration of the game. The player can access Poirot at any time during the game, and can receive hints to help them proceed. The game has two difficulty levels, and the player can determine which one they prefer to play at soon after the murder occurs. Poirot challenges the player, allowing them to choose to either readily accept help from him and allow him to guide the player through the game, or alternatively try to outsmart the famous sleuth by solving the mystery with obscure, and in some cases nonexistent hints. If the player has trouble once they have chosen the more difficult setting, Poirot will gradually become more forthcoming with information.
Synopsis
Setting and characters
Murder on the Orient Express is set in the year 1934. The game initially begins in Istanbul, Turkey, while the remaining majority occurs within the carriages of the Orient Express on its way to Paris, France, when it is blocked by an avalanche in the middle of Yugoslavia. However, the player has some opportunities to venture outside the train into the snowy exterior environment.
The player character is Antoinette Marceau, a devoted junior clerk at the Istanbul offices of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. At the encouragement of her employer Marcel Bouc, she is to tend to the wishes of Bouc's friend Hercule Poirot, and the two work together. She is also aided by Poirot's friend Dr. Constantine. Ten of the thirteen murder suspects from Christie's novel are included in the game adaption. These suspects are Count and Countess Andrenyi, Colonel Arbuthnot, Mary Debenham, Princess Dragomiroff, Greta Ohlsson, Antonio Foscarelli, Cyrus Hardman, Caroline Hubbard, Hector McQueen, and several staff on the Orient Express. The victim is Samuel Ratchett. In total, there are twenty characters featured in the game.
Plot In 1924, on the outskirts of New Paltz, New York. Police have a farmhouse surrounded and issue a final warning to surrender. The men inside refuse. A fierce exchange of gunfire follows, echoing across the countryside. When the shooting ends, silence settles over the scene. At last, the farmhouse door creaks open, and two unknown men step out with their hands raised, surrendering to the waiting officers.
10 years later, in 1934, Antoinette Marceau begins her adventure in Sirkeci Terminal, Istanbul. She becomes acquainted with Poirot, whom she admires, as well as the other characters who later accompany her aboard the Orient Express. Soon after the train departs Istanbul for Paris and makes a brief stop in Belgrade, the passage is blocked by an avalanche stopping it between Vinkovci and Brod. The sudden stop causes Poirot to fall out of his bunk and sprain his ankle, rendering him bed-ridden. Soon after, Ratchett is found murdered, with twelve possible suspects to the murder, and the investigation begins. Marceau is challenged by Poirot to find the solution to the murder and do the legwork by gathering clues. Marceau splits her time between seeing to the duties of the train (such as helping to fix the heat in the engine), interviewing passengers about the murder, and examining the train and surrounding area for clues. She travels to several additional locations that Poirot does not travel to in the book, such as the engine, the baggage car, and an old shack outside of the snowed-in train. Additionally, a sabotaged ham radio is in one of the compartments which, when repaired, allows Antoinette to contact Barnaby Lewes, a young friend of Poirot's, and ask him to research the passengers.
Ratchett is eventually revealed to be Cassetti, the criminal mastermind behind the Daisy Armstrong kidnapping. Each of the passengers on the train as well as the conductor are connected in some way to the Armstrong family, each with a motive for murder. Additionally, each person had an alibi corroborated by other passengers.
When Marceau believes she has solved the murder, Poirot gathers the passengers and poses a series of questions to Marceau about the clues found. Three possible solutions to Ratchett's death emerge. In the first, Poirot suggests that an assassin may have come aboard the train during the night, killed Cassetti, and then escaped the train, which is supported by evidence such as a bloodied stiletto with fingerprints that do not match anyone on the train. The second solution pieces together a number of clues showing that all of the train's passengers and the conductor, Pierre Michel, are responsible for the murder, to which they confess.
Unique to this adaptation of the story, Antoinette finds additional clues such as a crate full of living accommodations in the security vault of the baggage compartment and a picture of Michel's family, despite Barnaby Lewes reporting that the man has none. After explaining the second solution, Poirot reveals that Michel is not who he appears, but is in fact Robert Perkinson, Cassetti's criminal partner. Perkinson confirms this to the shock of the other passengers, and reveals that Cassetti kept Daisy Armstrong at his house. But when he and his brother, Jeffrey, refused to kill Daisy, Cassetti decided to do the job himself. In doing so, he gunned down Perkinson's daughter, Teresa, whom he mistook for Daisy. Afterwards, Perkinson and his wife fled to France and raised Daisy as their own daughter.
Perkinson reveals that, after his wife's death, he had sought out Pierre Michel, and that Michel had told him of the plan to murder Cassetti. However, in spite of his own loss, he was too afraid to go through with it himself. Since the others had never seen Michel in person, Perkinson volunteered to impersonate Michel and stab Cassetti on his behalf so that he could get revenge for Teresa's death. He then reveals that the now 13-year-old Daisy Armstrong has been hidden in the baggage compartment of the train during the journey, having boarded at Belgrade disguised as an attendant. Daisy then comes out to meet the people who thought she was dead. Poirot, Dr. Constantine, and Antoinette decide to tell the police when they arrive in Brod, the first solution – that an unknown assassin came aboard the train, killed Rachett, and left. The passengers are overjoyed that Daisy is alive and Poirot concludes that it is "a most satisfactory solution indeed."
Development Murder on the Orient Express was announced in May 2006, as the second installment in The Adventure Company's Agatha Christie series. As with the game's predecessor, And Then There Were None, Murder on the Orient Express was developed by AWE Productions, in collaboration with producer The Adventure Company. The production team remained largely the same, with Lee Sheldon reprising his role as Lead Designer, and Scott Nixon from AWE Productions reprising his position as Managing Director.