Murder at the Met Reaction

I decided to play the ​Murder at the Met​ experience and was very underwhelmed by the

game. I chose to follow the “court path” which revolved around the murder of “Madame X,” a

figure depicted in one of the paintings in the American wing. Apart from complications with

certain wings being off-limits to the public, I felt that the game as a whole lacked complex

decision making and led the players on a zig-zagging walk around the museum that seemed to

follow no logical path. When I read about the game I was very excited because of what I

imagined in my head, but the execution greatly let me down.

My first issue with the game stemmed from the simplicity. It was so simple, in fact, that

you really didn’t even need to be at the Met to play it. The only mechanic of the game was to

click from page to page and make “observations” in your notebook, which were really just

statements from the “witnesses” such as “two men were in here that night.” It would have been

very simple to hide clues in different pieces of art and really make the player study the art and try

to dissect what they were supposed to find. Instead, the game just made you walk up to different

objects, and didn’t rely on you caring about what they looked like in any way. The only part of

the game that made you utilize an aspect of the artwork was looking at the time on the clock, and

it would have been very easy to implement many more instances like this into the game. In

“Clue,” which I believe this game was heavily inspired by, an important aspect of the game is

making guesses throughout and narrowing down your decision based upon those guesses. It

would have been a simple mechanic to have players “guess” something then have to analyze a

piece of artwork to find the answer.

 Additionally, I thought the game lacked complex decision making in determining one’s

path or choices as a whole. Rather than a few crossroads and the ability to make your own path

through the museum, the game took you from one room on one side of the exhibit, all the way to

a room on the next. I felt the whole point of doing a game like this in a museum is so that you

can see other art along the way, but if you were to do so the game would take several hours to

complete. It was hard to balance staying engaged and focused on the game and trying to see

some of the other art in the exhibits.

Finally, when you conclude the game and make your guess about who committed the

murder, there is a brief video to summarize what happened on the night of the murder. I thought

this was definitely a flawed mechanic considering you were supposed to be playing this game in

a museum, and watching a video in the middle of a museum is very disturbing to other guests.

Overall I was fairly disappointed in the game itself, but satisfied with the trip as a whole

because it gave me a good reason to go and explore the Met more. I think the idea behind the

game is very clever, and if executed properly could be a real pull to the Met and expanded upon

in other exhibitions or museums across the city.