Murder on Space Station 52 is a unique point-and-click mystery game developed by solo developer Christopher Mathes (Made From Strings). This Agatha Christie-inspired detective title puts us in the shoes of Edward Locke, a mechanical engineer who lands on Space Station 52 after its previous repairman went missing.
From the moment I landed on Space Station 52, I knew this game was going to be one to remember. As Edward, our first encounter is being probed by The Dockmaster about why we’ve brought our own “coffin” with us, which Edward explains is required to charge his suit which he can’t live without. We’re then introduced to The Sheriff, who sounds like Stitch from Lilo & Stitch and sets us up with our first task of repairing the moisture recycler.
It’s here that we’re both introduced to Murder on Space Station 52’s point-and-click and inventory mechanics where we can pick up and combine items to solve puzzles and move across the map. Eventually we’re able to open up the moisture recycler, only to find the body of our predecessor stuffed inside. When we later examine the body, we find that the corpse has a key stuffed into its forehead, dubbing this killer as the ‘Keychain Killer’ whom Edward takes it upon himself to uncover.
From the get-go, Murder on Space Station 52 launches with a bucket load of style as we’re thrown into a James Bond-style intro sequence. The game has a very low budget look and feel but uses this to its advantage to create an audiovisual style which is quirky and unlike anything else on the market.
The graphics are sketchy and washed out, proudly showing off the hand drawn brush strokes and shading and it just works so well with the overall tone of the game. I was really impressed with the visual design of Space Station 52, it looks like a mixture of Star Wars and Bioshock, showing some really creative imagery. On top of this, all the characters have just as much imagination put to them in their designs and after discovering Mathes’ Instagram page with all of his gorgeously drawn creature concepts, it’s very clear that this developer is immensely artistically talented.
Audio-wise, Murder of Space Station 52 opts for a blues-style soundtrack which once again goes remarkably well with the overall style of the game. The voice recordings for the characters aren’t high quality, but once again this somehow just works with the game and the way it uses its low budget with style. The only thing I didn’t like about the audio mixing is how going into a conversation turns down the music and ambient sounds as this can be quite immersion-breaking.
The voice acting is another thing to note as, aside from three characters, both Edward and all the NPCs are entirely voiced by Christopher Mathes using a range of vocal styles and editing to make them sound entirely different from one another which I was amazed by. I did find that the characters that weren’t voiced by Mathes didn’t have the best voice acting but they weren’t present enough for this to be a big problem, plus two of them have the same surname as Mathes, so I imagine these characters have been voiced by friends and family.
In terms of the puzzles, they certainly did a good job at making me feel challenged and in turn it was very rewarding when I had finally worked them out. That being said, I did think Murder on Space Station 52 is in real need of some form of hint system – even if it’s something vague to at least point the player in the right direction. Sometimes upon opening a puzzle it’s not entirely clear what the player is supposed to be doing in order to solve it, making them think outside of the box, but at the same time you can get completely stuck if you genuinely can’t think of anything – there was even one puzzle that I accidentally solved and even after seeing the solution, I still wasn’t sure how I was supposed to work it out.
I did also encounter one soft-locking bug and another potential bug while playing Murder on Space Station 52. The soft locking incident involved needing to cross some planks of wood over a body of water to reach a rock where a boat motor was stranded. In the water was a creature that wouldn’t let me cross, and I had to distract it by throwing fish at one of three marked spots. I was supposed to throw the fish into one spot, and then again to the spot next to it in order to get across the two planks. But instead I threw it to the first section, crossed the plank, and then tried to throw it again but found out I could only throw the fish from the pier. So, I tried to return to the pier, only for Edward to comment that he should get the boat motor first before returning. So I was stuck and needed to reload a save and repeat an hour’s work. I’m not sure why the game would insist I get the boat motor first before returning to the pier, but if it had just let me return I would have worked out I needed to go back for the boat motor anyway and the game would have avoided and instances of people getting stuck.
The other potential bug involved some items not combining when they’re supposed to. I would often realize this after being stuck for some time and repeatedly trying to combine items to ensure I hadn’t missed anything, then suddenly two items I had already tried to combine would randomly do so. This could possibly be because the game is programmed to only combine them in a certain order but this shouldn’t matter when it’s only two items that need to be combined.
While I found Edward’s reasoning to suddenly start a murder investigation when he’s hired as a mechanical engineer was a little flimsy, it didn’t affect the story and his skillset works well in explaining how he’s able to create new things from scrap he finds. I enjoyed the dialogue, it’s quite light-hearted and often humorous, making references to other games and often making fun of common point-and-click concepts such as casually pocketing dangerous tools or substances. Although the scene descriptions were beautiful and really set a picture, making me feel like I was reading a detective noir novel, I do think they felt a little unnatural being included as part of Edward’s dialogue and maybe would have been better suited as voiceless scene descriptions or described by a separate narrator so that they don’t sound like something Edward is casually saying.
There was also the apartment feature where Edward is able to collect currency from interacting with objects for descriptions and then using them to buy items for his apartment. This feature did feel a little pointless as we’re not actually customizing anything, just buying stuff that’s already set to be put into the apartment. On top of this there’s never an instance where Edward actually goes to his apartment as a hub area, it’s just hanging in the game menu so doesn’t really feel like a part of the story.
Overall, despite its gameplay flaws which didn’t take away from the overall experience, Murder on Space Station 52 is a fun and challenging point-and-click mystery game with a colorful cast of characters. It has a stunning visual design put together by a very artistically talented developer and has great audio to match. It’s truly brimming with style which really sets it apart from games in the same genre.
Jess reviewed Murder on Space Station 52 on PC with a review code.
