Fallen Star: The Emily Hemingway Case (Studio Stamp) // Review

Fallen Star: The Emily Hemingway Case is a cold case murder mystery file from Studio Stamp. When a long-buried cold case lands on your desk, your superiors hope that you can close it once and for all. Examine over 20 pieces of physical evidence, along with a wealth of online content to discover the truth. Can you bring the killer/s to justice?

Players: 1-4 // Age: 12+ // Playtime: 2-3 hours

What you need: A pencil/pen and paper. An internet-connected device.

Story

“Emily Hemingway is a rising star in every sense of the word, until her life is abruptly cut short in 2009. Known to millions online as EmWay, the young ViewTube sensation is found murdered behind her home. The award she won that night lies bloodied beside her. She was livestreaming just before her death, and the recording has been preserved.”

First impressions

I’m a big fan of Studio Stamp‘s first cold case game, On Circus Grounds, which challenges players to solve the murder of circus Ringmaster Nicolaas Maester. It is one of, if not the most beautiful, boxed murder mystery/puzzle games on the market. If you haven’t played it, I would highly recommend getting your hands on a copy. When I heard that the Studio Stamp were working on a new case, I was very keen to check it out. A friend kindly grabbed me a copy from SPIEL Essen last October, and I finally sat down this week to play it.

Presentation

On Circus Grounds stood out, in no small part, due to its exquisitely designed components and distinctive box. Fallen Star leans into more traditional cold case territory with its presentation: an evidence-filled folder within a grip lock bag. It’s not a bad shout, given the huge success of similarly packaged games at the moment. The documents within are all paper-based, with a mix of police reports, photos and other documents. There is good attention to detail, particularly with the pages that have been torn from a spiral-bound pad and a Valet parking list with dirt stains on it. There is one document that you could choose to write on, but this is optional. If you don’t, then it is very easy to reset the game and pass it on to someone else.

As well as the physical documents, there is a wealth of content available online, including convincing websites, witness statements and more. A lot of the links on the website aren’t clickable, and these are indicated with an icon when you hover over them. The fact that you access everything via the Archive System explains this, as only relevant pages and data would have been saved.

There are also a couple of videos featuring Emily Hemingway that were well-acted and authentic. I’ve played some games before where the multimedia content has felt really staged and unbelievable, but this wasn’t the case here. If anything, I would have liked a little more multimedia content.

Gameplay

Getting started

If you’ve played a cold case file before, then you’ll know the drill. A letter addressed to you lays out the pertinent details of the case and offers a handy set of tips to get you started. These suggest you take notes, organise your information well and work to rule out suspects. The letter also contains login details for the Public Investigation Unit’s online archive.

You can start looking through all of the physical evidence as soon as you like. These documents will include the details you’ll need to unlock further evidence online. Make sure to take good notes, as these will aid you in the long run.

PIU Online Archive

A big portion of the gameplay takes place online, via the Public Investigation Unit website. This is the main hub for your investigation, providing you with access to the evidence archive. The search functionality is limited to full names, car registrations, bank account numbers or phone numbers. What you discover when you correctly input a search term will vary, perhaps providing a website link or witness statement. The feeling of finding threads to tug and unraveling new avenues of investigation makes gameplay really compelling. We particularly enjoyed the MySpace-style web pages, which harkened back to a specific moment in time.

There is some other really helpful functionality available here, including the ability to see how much of the online content you have locked. A handy ‘History’ section also keeps track of the terms you’ve already searched for, in case you lose track.

Once you are certain that you’ve correctly solved the case, you can click on the File Report button. This will take you through a series of multiple-choice questions that, if answered correctly, will close the case. You’ll then be able to access the epilogue, which wraps up the game.

Hints & Difficulty

Fallen Star isn’t overly difficult, provided you take thorough notes and methodically work through the evidence. As mentioned above, the online portal tracks your progress, so it knows how much of the online evidence you have discovered. This means that when you request a hint, it will automatically know what stage of the investigation you’ve reached. So you don’t have to try to work out what hint you need.

At the moment, hints offer up search terms that you haven’t used yet. You can then input these into the database and unlock further evidence to propel your investigation forward. On a couple of occasions, this meant we came across names that were contained in evidence we hadn’t unlocked yet. Studio Stamp are working on a more fine-grained hint system at the moment, so this may help with that issue.

Verdict