Herewith the Clues! - Actual Screenshots/CRL RRP œ24.99
            (Mouse-controlled detective game)

The idea behind Herewith the Clues was given to the famous author
Dennis Wheatley back in 1936 by a friend, Joe Links. Links
suggested that, rather than in strict book form, a "reader" could
be given a folder containing letters, photos and other evidence
connected with a crime and, from that, would have to deduce
who-dun-it. The first so-called crime dossier was produced two
years later and sold 250,000 copies in its first year, being
translated into eight languages.

In Herewith the Clues, Actual Screenshots have attempted to
transfer this sort of game to a computer. The loading screen
recreates the original dossier idea as you symbolically snip a
ribbon binding a folder bearing the game's title. The main screen
then appears which gives you access to all the information
available.

The main screen, which is a digitized picture in black and white
(as are all the graphics in the game), shows your desk, complete
with a cup of coffee for when you need refreshment! On the front
left are several letters giving the background to the crime - the
murder of Serge Orloff, a Russian who had supported Trotsky back
in his homeland but had fled to Britain when Trotsky fell from
power and ended up running The Milky Way, a club in Picadilly.

The Police had discovered that the Milky Way was being used as a
meeting place for a cell of IRA members. Orloff protested his
innocence in this matter and offered to help the Police to
apprehend the terrorists; in exchange they would endeavour to
make sure he was not sent back to the USSR where he knew he would
probably be shot.

A policeman infiltrated the club as a doorman where he managed to
photograph the suspects as they arrived on one particular evening
when Orloff had said that the complete group would be there for a
meeting. Meanwhile the Police got into position outside, ready to
raid the club. But before they could do anything, some shots rang
out, followed by an explosion. Somehow, one of the conspirators
had got wind of Orloff's involvement with the Police and killed
him - the question is .... which one of the suspects did it?

The rest of your desk is covered by a series of 16 files, one for
each suspect and one for the deceased, the set of photographs
taken by the undercover policeman and all the evidence collected
after the event (a feather, some hair, a collection of cigarette
ends etc). In each case, you click the mouse on the relevant
part of the screen to access that set of information. For
instance, selecting the pile of files will bring up a
representation of a card index, each card labelled with the
respective suspect's name, and clicking on the card for the
individual concerned will put his or her file up on the screen.

The information contained in the game is considerable but this
means there is an awful lot of reading, full of dates, names and
places, to be done on-screen. One of the letters from the Police
is 26 pages long and you have to start at page 1 with each page
being loaded (slowly!) from memory as you continue through it.
Clearly a lot of time and effort has gone into producing the
digitized graphics but they are generally unclear, especially the
one of the table in the room where the meeting was taking place,
and just seem to bulk out the game.

The game comes on two disks, one of which is used to load the
program and read the letters and select the files but the other
disk contains much of the information which is actually IN the
files - and it isn't made clear that you must swap disks. For
quite a while, I thought I was playing with faulty disks when I
couldn't seem to access the photographs or evidence.

All in all, this is a very boring game to play. The original idea
of a dossier with physical evidence inside it is great but
transferred to computer - forget it. With a game like this, you
want to be able to spread the evidence out so you can compare
various bits of it quickly so unless you make copious notes to
effectively do the same job, you'll spend ages while you swap
disks back and forth and wait for the different bits of evidence
to be displayed on the screen.

The other crazy idea is that you can't actually solve the game and
get the answer from the computer. No - you have to write to Actual
Screenshots giving your conclusions and deductions and, if you're
right and your reasoning sound, you'll gain a congratulatory
prize. Whether right or wrong, you'll get a full solution by
return.

I'd be interested to know how many letters, correct or not, they
received! I wouldn't imagine many people would have the will to
play it that long. I know I didn't.

                                          Sue