Suicide Or Murder - Advent Software RRP œ5.95           
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                  Reviewed by Andy Thompson

Suicide Or Murder is set on and around the Smallpiece estate.  You 
play  a  detective.  Someone  has called  you  to  the  Smallpiece 
mansion,  but gave you no details about the crime.  So it's up  to 
you  to  find  the  victim,  question  the  suspects,  gather  the 
evidence, and take the criminal to the local police station.

The  game starts outside the mansion of Lord Smallpiece.  You  try 
knocking  at the door........no answer,  so your first task is  to 
get inside the mansion.   This is easier said than  done,  because 
there is nothing to break down the door,  and all the windows  are 
locked.   Deciding to explore the grounds you soon find a maze  of 
waste  land,  get through this and you reach the edge of  a  lake.  
There's an island in the distance,  but nothing to take you there.  
So  it's back  to the  waste land  to find  a boat.  After  having 

crossed some  quicksand,  you'll be able to reach the island,  and 
eventually let yourself into the mansion and the main  part of the 
game.
    
Once  inside the mansion the game really starts to get  going,  as 
you soon find a walled garden where you meet the first of the many 
people in game.   The problem is,  this one is  dead  with a knife
in his chest!  Inside the garden shed you find the maid,  she says
she  was  knocked unconscious and locked in the  shed, but can she  
be believed?   After questioning her further you find out that the
gardener  has gone missing and that both the family solicitor  and 
the  Lord's brother had visited the house that morning.   The plot
thickens!

The garden also gives access to the rest of the estate,  including 
a  forest,  a village pub,  a church,  a quarry,  and  the  police 
station.  Whilst exploring these places you'll meet the solicitor, 
the Lord's brother,  the gamekeeper,  and a few other people,  all 
can be searched and questioned.          

Although the plot of the game is good,  the parser is so bad  that 
it really spoils the game.   It's been written using STAC,  so you 
could  only expect limited understanding of sentences,  but  other 
STAC games have done better.  You tend to find with this game that 
you  may know the answer to a puzzle,  but can't find the  correct 
wording to make the game understand what you mean. For instance to 
get  to  the island using the canoe,  when you type  'Row  to  the 
island' the game says 'You can't do that!',  but if you type  'Row 
TOWARDS the island' it accepts it and takes you there! 

I  didn't  notice  any bugs during the game  which  is  good.  The 
graphics, though not exceptional, serve their purpose and  help to 
describe  each  location.  The puzzles are fairly  easy,  but  not 
obvious,  so  no  gripes  there.   If the vocab  and  parser  were 
improved I would say buy it,  it's a good STAC game with some nice 
features,  but as it stands at the moment I feel it's too annoying
to be addictive,  and can only be played with a thesaurus close at 
hand.