Finding Guilty Party before Guilty Party finds you

11:00 AM on 02.26.2010   |   Nick Chester

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There's little mystery behind why the classic "whodunit?" board game "Clue" is so popular. Everyone likes to feel smart -- piecing together puzzles for those “ah-ha!” moments -- and everyone likes to point the finger. But there's a catch, as with most board games... all of that clean up.

Cards and other game pieces require set-up and post-game clean-up, which usually falls on one poor soul as the remainder of the players scatter off to use the bathroom or fix their hair. Okay, I admit it – I'm a bit lazy. And since I'm too busy to get my detective's license, what's my alternative to scratching that gumshoe itch?

Disney Interactive's Guilty Party, developed by Wideload Games (Stubbs the Zombie, Hail to the Chimp) just may be my answer. The four-player Wii-exclusive title mixes the crime solving of "Clue" with Wii Remote-based mini-games. The title's being designed exclusively for Nintendo's console with “family fun” style play, both cooperative and competitive, in mind.

At Nintendo's Media Summit this week, I had a chance to get a first look at the game, as well as solve a few cases myself. Best of all? No mess.

Guilty Party introduces players to the Dickens Detective Agency, a group of elite sleuths made up of crime solver stereotypes, designed to appeal to as many people as possible on the planet as possible. For example, there's Charlotte, the petite and elderly granny who just happens to know kung-fu, or  Butch, the hardened street detective type. The team is led by the Sherlock Holmes-esque character known as The Commodore who will guide the agents as they solve riddles and cases linked to his long-standing nemesis, Mr. Valentine.

The easiest way to describe the core of Guilty Party's gameplay is to once again reference "Clue." Up to four players take turns exploring dollhouse-like cutaway environments (a cruise ship or a mansion, for instance), finding clues and interrogating witnesses in order to piece together leads. The goal is ultimately build a character sketch based on clues -- hair style, gender, height, and weight -- and eventually start pointing fingers.

Both clues and information from interrogating isn't simply given to the player. Instead, the game features somewhere in the range of 50 different mini-games that are activated when viewing a clue, or speaking with a witness or potential guilty party. I saw and played a few examples in my hands-on, including waving the Wii Remote to dust for clues, as well as staring down a witness by tracking his or her eyes by pointing and twisting the Wii Remote to match their movements.

In the early tutorial case I played, I attempted to solve the mystery of who had eaten The Commodore's pudding. The case was fairly straight forward, with each witness giving me obvious clues, like flat out telling me the perpetrator's gender, weight, height, and hair style. The mini-games were also fairly simple -- I didn't have to dust long before uncovering a clue, and the witness I attempted to stare down didn't put up much of a fight.

But the game is being designed for a broad range of players of different ages, each  who may have different experience levels. Wideload explained that on the more difficult levels of play, clues won't be entirely straight forward -- you may have to use your lie detector to discover a witness may not be telling the whole truth, or hear from a testimony from someone who delves out information in a more riddle-like fashion. And because the game is being designed for family play in mind, each of the four player's can choose from a different skill level in one game, so mom and dad won't get bored by easily piecing together simple cases.

Guilty Party does feature a story mode which has the Dickens Detective Agency following the tracks of Mr. Valentine across the game's various scenarios. This plot (and the answer to "whodunnit?") never changes, but the title also features a a mode that will allow you to play each scenario that can play out different every time. The game will take all of the variables and different clues, mixing them up behind the scenes to create a unique case, which should go along way toward enhancing the game's replayability.

Coming from a studio whose last game was the more mature-flavored mini-game title, Hail to the Chimp, Guilty Party is a bit of a surprise. The game's not scheduled to ship until the second half of 2010, but it's already looking fairly polished in its current state. Sure, the game may not appeal to everyone -- its cartoon-y vibe may turn off older players -- but at the very least, it looks like living room alternative to pulling out your dusty box of Clue.

Oh, and if you're wondering (spoiler alert), The Commodore ate his own damned pudding.