Review Haiku for Bow Street Runner:
Mass Effect, Beware.
This game's writing is better.
Acting? Slightly worse.
I have a weakness for point-and-click adventures. And, apparently, I have a deep nostalgia for 7th Guest-ish video encoding. But my weaknesses are not at issue here. What's at issue is this charming-ass game, an episodic spin-off of a BBC series I've never heard of. It's fantastic, it's free, and it has the highest production values I've ever seen in Flash.
There are a few factors which make this successful as a casual promotional game. The first is the scope of interaction: there's not much choice, just a series of points, clicks and drags. But when you do interact with the game, the designers made damn sure that moment felt both enjoyable and surprising. If you can't take a little morbid delight in scrambling to pry open a dead man's fingers before they all curl closed again, well then we're very different people.
The second is the carefully tuned variance of play. There are spots where you can succeed or fumble in your investigation, but there's no "restart", no fail state. You have the means to complete the game without ever having to do the same thing twice: returning to try to complete tasks more effectively is a choice, not a requirement. The tasks that gain you "esteem" are sometimes arbitrary (hint: PLUG IN A MOUSE if you're playing this on a laptop), but the fact that my play had consequence made me more invested in the world.
The third factor in this game's success, in my opinion, is the consistent setting and tone. The designers allow a little dark comedy, and a few touches of deadpan goofiness, into their game, but never broke character. Let's face it, it's fun to be in BBC's slightly cornball 18th century London, and Bow Street Runner milks our (my?) love of powdered wigs for all it's worth.
The fourth factor is that it's beautiful, even when you're digging turnips out of a trough.
The fifth and final essential factor in this game's high quality? The guy who plays Thomas Williams. A startling reveal in the third scene, this gentleman/scholar steals the show. He is an ACTor, with a capital A, C, and T.
I usually dislike games that try to be movies... I'm no happier about a ten-minute cutscene than anyone else. Here, however, I was pleasantly surprised. I'd call this a success case for both cinematic and episodic games.