Art of Murder: Hunt for the Puppeteer

Art of Murder: Hunt for the Puppeteer
Developer(s)	City Interactive
Publisher(s)	City Interactive
Distributor(s)	City Interactive
Series	Art of Murder
Platform(s)	PC (Windows)
Release date(s)	USA February 17, 2009 RU August 13, 2009
Genre(s)	Adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player
Distribution	DVD Digital download

Art of Murder: Hunt for the Puppeteer, also known as Art of Murder 2, is the second adventure game in the series of Art of Murder games, developed and published by the company City Interactive in 2008. The American version of the game was not published until 2009.

Gameplay

Art of Murder 2 is a linear, 3-D adventure game and is played from a third-person perspective. The player can move the character by clicking on locations shown in the main display; the scene will only crossfade when a character is finished with all the actions on the screen. Players can interact with specific objects on screens by clicking or dragging them, and can also interact with NPCs. Players can use an in-game hint system, which is located on the bottom left corner of a screen (in a shape of question mark). The items that are carried by the player can be combined with other items, when possible.^[1] The items return to their original position when dropped.

The game has interactive cut scenes, which will show up after a player has completed a locations objectives, before moving to the next one. To complete the game, the player must explore real life locations, such as Paris, New Orleans and Havana.

The game is non-violent, however, the player's character can die during the game. Before the players character dies, the game saves the player's progress automatically, which means that the player can start again from their last save. Some game stages have a time limit which, if you don't complete, is punishable by the death of your character. The game offers a range of mechanical and slider puzzles.^[2]

Plot

New Orleans

The game begins with a SWAT team arriving at a hangar in New Orleans on August 3, 2007.^[3] They find a body that is hung on hooks and devoid of blood. In the meantime, a detective named Nicole Bonnet receives a call from her boss informing her that the French police have found another body in Paris. She flies there. When she arrives on August 15, the inspector of the French police tells her that the body they found was that of a danseuse, and was completely drained of blood. The police also found a doll dressed in a French Revolution dress near the body.^[4] The inspector invites Nicole to a restaurant, which she politely refuses. Instead, she investigates the scene, and finds that the victim's name was Elizabeth Soapault.

The French inspector calls Nicole as soon as she finishes talking to Ruth and informs her of the murder of another danseuse, Jacqueline Lorrein. She arrives at the crime scene within the hour, which is located in room 13 on the 5th floor of a Montmartre apartment. The inspector tells her that they have a witness report that claims that the room was rented by an American named Jack Dupree, who recently moved to France. The witness claimed that she saw Dupree running in haste and dropping something into a grate. The inspector gives her a business card, but also tells her to forget about the case. As soon as she arrives in a hotel again, the clerk gives her a letter from Jack Dupree, who claims that he is innocent and wants to her to meet him in private at 11 p.m. at Pont des Invalides.

Pont des Invalides

Nicole accepts the invitation and drives to Pont des Invalides. There, she meets Jack, and he invites her to come to his apartment to show her his evidence to prove his innocence. While they are talking, a hooded teenager on a motorcycle passes by. He shoots at Jack, who has just mentioned to Nicole that someone wants to frame him. Nicole throws her laptop at the moving bike and knocks the gun out of the rider's hands. She picks it up and fires it at his back, but misses.

After this incident, she is confronted by the police, who bring her to Inspector Pety. The inspector orders her to leave France, assigning a fellow officer to accompany Nicole while she packs her bags. She and the police officer arrive at the hotel, and Nicole pretends to pack her belongings. She escapes through the hotel's back door, and puts a handkerchief in the police car's exhaust pipe.

Montmartre apartment

On August 16, 2007, Nicole goes to a Montmartre apartment, where she thinks she will find the evidence of Jack's innocence. Since she doesn't want to tamper with evidence, she decides to sneak into a room by going through a side window. In the apartment she finds a secret compartment, in which she finds a diary in a chest. The diary contains information on the framing. At this point, she hears someone enter the apartment. She hides in a closet and sees a man with a gun coming in. As soon he gets close enough, she jumps out and knocks him to the floor. Nicole jumps out of the window, with the man shooting at her back. After her flight, Nicole drives to a hotel, where she meets a man named Louis Carnot. He asks her about Jack and some documents. Nicole becomes very suspicious of him. After this, she travels to Moulin Rouge.

Moulin Rouge

Nicole arrives at Moulin Rouge the next day. As soon as she arrives, she goes to the backyard, and opens a hatch with a metal pole. She enters a dressing room, and opens the door with Jack's key, which she took from his desk in the apartment. In a dressing room, she finds a phone and reads a message about the next victim. After that, she snoops around the dressing room, where she finds aspirin. She overhears somebody talking, and leaves the building. Nicole runs outside and gets into her car, but is delayed by an unknown man in her car. He points a gun at her and forces her to drive to a hotel. In a hotel room, the man tells her that Jack Dupree has been killed, and that he wants the chest that Nicole took from a secret compartment in Jack's apartment.

She opens the chest with the key she got from a dressing room drawer. Inside, they find a diary and broken pieces of paper which, when combined, reveals half of a map. They set out to find the remaining half, using letters from a man named Marc Taine to Jack as a clue. In his house they find photos of victims, including planned ones. Nicole is shocked when she discovers that the murderer chose her to be his next target and already prepared the doll for her. Before she leaves, she finds Taine's head in a cooler and has a confrontation with the killer. He kills her accomplice and she escapes to Spain.

Spain

In Spain, she turns in the car to a mechanic, and then begins traveling on foot. Aside from a vacation, she needs to find an antiquarian. She finds a 70-year-old man who is sclerostic and has considerable knowledge about antiques. She discovers that he is also wanted by the killer. She wants him to go with her to Paris, where she assumes he will be safe. He tells Nicole that he has the killer's list, with full names, dating back to the French Revolution. However, he is killed before they can leave. Behind a safe, which she found in an antique showroom, she finds a secret compartment which contains the list that the antiquirian told her about. She gets on his bike and travels to Marseilles.

Marseilles

When she arrived to Marseilles she went through a gate, behind the house in which Louis Carrot was living. She climbs the wall, and then opens a window in a basement by using a glass cutter. In a basement, she finds Jack Dupree tied and gagged. She takes the gag from his mouth, and asks him some questions. From him she learned that Louis Carrot is a puppeteer, and that Jack was an eyewitness to the second victim, Jacquiline, his mistress. He told her that the killer let him live, when he and Nicole were on a bridge. It was Louis that was on the motorcycle trying to eliminate Nicole from participating in the investigation. After the chat, she went to the kitchen stove, where she found a coin and a key underneath. She then went upstairs to open one of the doors. She gets past the security guard by sneaking around him. As soon as she enters the room she locks the door, upon fear that the guard might hear her at any time. She went to the fireplace, on top of which she found a picture of a killer and Marc Taine. Nicole discovers that Louis was Marc Taine's brother. She then finds a secret compartment. Behind the bookcase, there was a door that led to a room. Inside the room she found the second fragment of the map. After that she runs to the door, and tries to unlock it, but the key gets stuck. She then takes a statue that was standing on the fireplace, and wraps it into a map, both of which she then tosses out the window.

After that, she opens the door and sees the two guards with two dobermans. The guards start to interrogate her about her visit, and accuse her of sneaking in without an appointment, which she lied to them about. After did not get the information they wanted, the guards made a bet to each other: They will send the dogs to chase after Nicole, as she tries to climb over a wall. The chances that she will succeed, in the guards opinion, is zero. She begins to run, picks up the statue on the from the ground, and jumps onto a rope. Nick, her coworker, that have just arrived, rescues her from behind the wall. Nick suggests her to fly to Havana, Cuba, where she will be safe, and she will find plenty of information on Marc Taine, who turns out to have ancestry in Cuba. Nick gives her the number which she'll need to call to arrange the flight. Nicole goes to a phone booth, calls the number given to her by Nick, and receives a call back confirming her tickets for the flight are ordered, and that she will fly to Havana from Provence Airport.

Cuba

Havana

She arrives in Havana in the evening via rickshaw, where her first task is to meet an archivist. She finds a note on the door, that reads: "Meet me at the cafe". She meets the archivist, an old man, and introduces herself. He asks her if she has any cigars, which she does not. She then goes to a hotel and finds a box of cigars in a broken elevator. She returns to the old man and gives him cigars and a lighter. The man then says that as soon as he finishes the cigar he will help her find the person she is looking for in the archives. At the archives, Nicole explains that she is looking for information on the Montoute family. The archivist tells her that he is being watched, and that he would like to have this discussion somewhere private. Nicole does not realize that since arriving in Cuba, she has been followed by a man in a blue shirt. The man tailing her enters the office. She tries to talk to him unsuccessfully, then traps him in an elevator. She returns to the archivist and receives files on Eduardo Montoute. The archivist replies that there is an estate that is located in Las Tunas, that is owned by one of Eduardo's living relatives. He lends her his car to investigate further.

Las Tunas

She arrives to Las Tunas on April 21, where she needs to find the relative. Unfortunately, the relative can't be found, and the secret compartment she found in the garden was looted. She goes out of estate and meets a mechanic with a rickshaw. The mechanic tells her that he is in need of a cap, that he lost the one he had. Nicole lends him a cap, and asks him about the estate. The mechanic replies that he knows nothing about it but if she wants to, she can ask a shaman under the name of Madame Budoe in the village. She pays a visit to Madame, but the lady that guards her tells her to wait till tomorrow, because Madame Budoe is busy with other clients. Nicole tells her that her case is urgent, and that she doesn't have time. The lady then makes a compromise: If Nicole will fix the fan, then she will let her in right away. Nicole fixes the fan, and the lady fulfills her promise as well. She then goes to the shaman. When she came there she saw an old woman sitting in a rocking chair and surrounded by jars which contain different plants. Nicole asks Madame for a last piece of map, on which Madame replies that she might have one. She also asks her about the relative, on which she gets the answer that the shaman is probably an ancestor to the estate. Madame Budoe tells her to collect for her some herbs and made sacrifice to Lazarus. She collects the herbs, and brings them to Madame, in exchange of which she gets that last piece of map. While preparing a sacrifice she gets knocked out unconscious. While being in that state, Nicole sees the killer's face. After she gets up, she finds out that the shaman lady is hanged, and that the doll is lying by her that is dressed up in ancestral clothes. Moreover, the streets are empty. She hops into her car and goes to Louis Carrot's estate. There she finds a note from Jack Dupree in the basement, which tells her to go to the Montmarte cemetery.

Montmarte cemetery

At the cemetery, she overhears two thugs that interrogated Jack Dupree. She also hears the argument over the map and that one of the keys is in Jack Dupree's apartment. Nicole jumps onto her motorcycle and drives to Jack's apartment. She came a bit late. The thug was already there trying to break the door. She then goes downstairs, and rings a bell, from which the woman's voice answers. She tells the woman to call the police, which she does. Soon, the thug is being captured, with Nicole free to go inside. In Dupree's apartment she finds a dagger, that was well hidden behind a picture over a fireplace. After she takes the dagger, she jumps on the motorcycle and pays a visit to the hotel on the way to the cemetery, where she picks up the box she found in Jack Dupree's apartment. She arrives to the cemetery and goes to the rest of the thugs unafraid. The apparent puppeteer, tells her to open the grave, in which he believes the treasures are being stored. Nicole demands the map, and by placing the dagger and the key that she found in Jack's box on the map opens the grave. As soon as she matched the dagger and the key, she got the path on the map, which she gives to the killer. The killer however didn't fulfill his promise. He said that he is afraid to trust her because she might tell on him to the police, even though he mentioned, he is innocent. Then he lives her with his accomplice, and takes Jack Dupree with him. As soon as he and Jack leave, Nicole started a fight with the accomplice, that resulted in him falling on the bricks near the asphalt, and crack his head. After that, she goes into the tomb. There she goes down by a rubber hose, after which she travels through an underground lake. Then she finds an opened door and goes in it. The apparent killer turns his gun on her and fires it. Nicole falls on the ground unhurt, but the gun is by her side and not in her hands. She tries to get the gun but the apparent killer warns her that if she will do it he will shoot Jack. Then, out of a blue, the real killer shows up. From him Nicole found out that he was the one behind the murders of eight people, that he was a puppeteer she was looking for, and that he did it out of revenge that was 200 years in the making! After that dialogue the real killers brothers calls him a fool, on what the killer opens fire, killing his brother and injuring Jack. Nicole, realized its time to act, grabs the gun and fires it into the puppeteer, killing him. After that, she and Jack gets out from the tomb and go straight to the cafe.

Reception

The game received a score of 56 from Metacritic,^[5] and a 2.5 from Adventure Gamers which mentioned that: "the game is not bad, but it does have many faults."^[2]

References

External links

• Art of Murder 2 on Adventure Gamers
• Art of Murder 2 on Gamezebo