Back in the 1980s, having a murder mystery party meant that you would force friends to get dressed up, memorize lines like in a play, and come over to your house to solve a murder that had occurred. Live-action Clue was so much fun, but now it has changed. Thanks to COVID-19 and the rise of the 2018 title Among Us, something that still reverberates after nearly a decade, figuring out a murder and hunting down a murderer has certainly evolved in the right direction.
This brings us to KILLER INN from developer Tactic Studios and Square Enix. This game revolves around the idea that a group of people who are divided into two teams, wolves and lambs, and who don’t know which person is on what team, must try to take each other out before the other group wins. It’s pure chaos on a multi-tiered hotel mansion level. Like a super dangerous Grand Budapest Hotel.
As the gameplay goes in KILLER INN, it is simple in its design and focuses more on a player’s ability to not reveal their ‘group’ hand, while also committing murders. In my short time with this early access game, I found the tension to be high and the trustworthiness to be at an all-time low during gameplay. Trying to figure out who commits murders, what team they’re playing for, and all the while watching a team counter go down with every death, is enough to keep a player on an ever-shrinking edge.
During my first playthrough of KILLER INN, I was able to quickly understand what the hell was going on. After choosing my character from a long list of different character-types featuring varying attributes, I was thrust into the gameplay. The initial start had me waking up in a bedroom where I found three objects that helped me kickstart the gameplay experience. Two of those objects were defense and health-related, while the third was offense in nature, and varied between traps and thermal grenades. As players progress through the game, they gather more items and turn in more goodies to help improve their chances of survival.
Anyway, right out of the gate, after the beginning game countdown, I was thrust into a huge mansion that had me gingerly interacting with other players and trying to figure out who was on the other team. This involved snooping, hiding, and waiting for interactions to go down, such as watching the other team blatantly murder someone or finding someone’s body. It also involved collecting clues from dead bodies and keeping a close eye on people’s interactions with hotel staff and with other players.
The idea of playing a more adult version of Among Us was the first thought that went through my noggin during my experience with KILLER INN. Nothing in the game felt comfortable, which was the entire point of the gameplay process, and having people in the room with me made me even more uncomfortable, as not knowing their intentions was maddening. Now, once people started to die and disappear, the teams became more and more apparent, which dropped the illusion of solving a deep, Clue-like mystery that was led by deduction. As the teams became smaller, they also started to reveal themselves, and the action started to take over a more thoughtful process of elimination.
Now, pulling back just a bit, the size of the hotel mansion that players run around in is huge. This means that a player can comfortably hide in a spot and try to figure out who the villain of their story might be. For example, I found a way to sit outside on a balcony and wait/watch the other players slowly start to murder each other. Armed with a thermal grenade, I waited patiently to see how the game would play out and who would ultimately find me by the end of the match. The number of places the player can hide is near limitless, as hunting and finding players can become a long and complicated process if a player doesn’t want to be found. This just builds on the tension already established by the gameplay, and it creates a more satisfying experience in the long run.
Of course, most of the players I gamed with during my session with this early access time were a bit more blunt with their violent intentions. There were numerous times when players would just ‘be’ in the same room or vicinity as others. Each one looking at the other like it was a scene from The Good, Bad, and the Ugly. Eventually, someone would grab another character, kill them, and then chaos would ensue. It was quick and dirty on a non-mystery level, but also revealing at times, considering the player could watch the team count decrease and start the process of elimination bluntly.
The best parts of my experience with this early access title were with a more methodical gameplay reveal. When mystery led the action, the game felt like it was bigger and more cognitively engaging. Trying to figure out ‘who dunnit’ while planning someone’s future demise, or planting a trap in hopes of taking down, or at least stunning, a villain, made it more fun. What also made it more fun was playing with gamers that I knew, which made this more of a group effort with goofiness.
As KILLER INN stands, it needs to figure out how to gain that methodical focus that it occasionally totes and make the gameplay a guarantee of a longer, more strategic mystery game rather than a run-and-gun adventure. I think that Square Enix and Tactic Studios will point this ship in the right direction and get the gameplay more refined and intentional with what they are trying to accomplish.
Right now, it’s a good game with a high ceiling, and I hope it survives the test of time. It’s a good concept for a more mature audience that wants to go beyond little beings in space suits.
