Review by: Toni Schwartz

Art of Murder: Cards of Destiny is the third in the crime series from Polish developers City Interactive, as we once again follow intrepid FBI Agent Nicole Bonnet on a new case. This time it’s a serial killer whose signature modus operandi is leaving a playing card at the scene of the crime. However, this case hits Nicole too close to home as the murderer constantly sends her strange packages, taunting her as she tries to get to the next potential victim before he does.

Cards of Destiny is a classic point-and-click game, which means that you’ll spend a lot of time looking at a particular scene and clicking on items and areas to see what you can pick up, use, or look at more closely. Fortunately you’ll never suffer from the frustrating task of pixel hunting, as you can always go to your UI and click on the large “?” to reveal all the clickable areas in a scene. Any item you pick up goes in your inventory within the UI, which you can then take a better look at by clicking on the eye icon. Some items can be combined to help solve puzzles so try pairing them with each other to see what you’ll get.

You access the inventory by dragging the mouse downward, which is a terrible method because it often pops up when you don’t want it to. For example, there are directional arrows that indicate where to move, and often times when you want to hit the down arrow your UI pops up. It would have been better if the developers had just made it so you had to hit the “I” key to bring up the UI/inventory.

Cards of Destiny has an engaging storyline. It almost feels like you’re in an episode of CSI as you solve puzzles to get closer to catching the killer and saving a life. At crime scenes you take photos of evidence and put them in a bag. Back at the FBI lab you have to use gloves while you process the evidence. And while most of the game doesn’t show any blood, it also isn’t squeamish in showing how people meet their end through creatively violent means.

With all that work they put in the storyline to immerse you in the game, there’s a lot of elements that can rip you right out of it. The game is set in a 2-D environment with 3-D characters similar to Oni Musha. While the environment is beautifully drawn, it still looks unbelievably flat, and it looks quite unrealistic to watch characters move in them. You always feel like you’re in a play and your character is moving in front of a backdrop. The characters themselves move stiffly and have unnatural movements, with mouths often improperly synced to dialogue.