Intrigue 2016

Intrigue 2016 is a sort of point-of-view game where the player, having witnessed the brutal murder of his cousin Dr Ernest Merryweather, must unravel his ‘secret’ on climate change that will allow us to save our planet.

At first look, the game is a rich and ambitious attempt to engage on climate change: but who is it for? The average BT customer will struggle to negotiate lots of specialist information, and the professional will be pushed to find time since the game takes roughly an hour to complete – and that’s if you don’t get stuck for half an hour on finding an anagram for ‘newest river’.

The scenario smuggles education in through various puzzles, clues and exercises one must solve to uncover the ‘climate change secret’ that unnamed forces, which seem to include the police here, do not want us to know about. The puzzles are difficult, so the information does sink in if one is inclined to take the trouble to solve them.

There is also a carbon score given at the end of the game based on a player’s conduct throughout the investigation. I scored poorly because I failed to turn the appliances off in Merryweather’s laboratory. There was, in fairness, the bloodied corpse of a scientist on the floor to distract me.

In all, the whole affair is interesting but finally ill-judged, with an unclear sense of its audience and therefore exactly what it’s trying to do. This is particularly evident at the end of the game, where we find out the doctor’s secret: ‘It’s you. You can make the difference.’ Short change for an hour’s work.

Ben Hickman
Intrigue 2016
BT interactive game