(some mild spoilers)
In 2016 Abigail Corfman pulled off a rare feat. She won XYZZY awards for two different games in the same year: Best Puzzles for 16 Ways to Kill a Vampire and Best PC for Open Sorcery. Having played and enjoyed both I was looking forward to her IFComp game this year, A Murder in Fairyland.
A Murder in Fairyland appears to be set in the same general world as Open Sorcery, although you play as different characters in the two. In both you’re a sort of spirit that inhabits computer networks. In A Murder in Fairyland you’re browsing the Internet when you find yourself blocked by a pop-up from the queen of Fairyland. A Fairyland prince has been murdered, and the queen isn’t allowing travel through Fairyland until the murder is resolved. You decide to take on the investigation.
There’s quite a bit of gameplay in A Murder in Fairyland before you reach the actual murder investigation; in fact, for a while I thought the game was misnamed and misblurbed. It took me about an hour and several puzzles before I encountered the queen and the body of the murdered prince. Then the investigation took me another two hours or so before I managed to identify the killer and achieve what I think is the best ending.
An interesting design choice is that you don’t have to find this best ending. The queen is satisfied with you accusing any of the major suspects, even without sufficient evidence – or even evidence of any kind! Then she lets you leave Fairyland and continue on your way. However, if you want to identify the true murderer, you’ll have to perform a lengthy and detailed investigation. This means that the game can be experienced on more than one level: An hour will probably get you to the point where you can open Fairyland to travel once more, but there’s a lot more game for those who actually want to solve the murder.
The puzzles are varied and many are unique. As an open sorcerer, you’ve got a set of spells. There are also some word search puzzles to solve near the beginning, as well as a few challenges where you have to use word clues to put your memories back in order. Most of the puzzles from midgame and on, though, are of the information-finding variety. This is natural for a murder investigation, but I also spent a lot of time trying to discover facts I needed for a myriad of forms required by the Hall of Edicts. (Fairyland bureaucracy rivals anything I’ve seen on earth. Perhaps this was an homage to Infocom’s classic Bureaucracy.) I enjoyed most of the puzzles, but all the form-filling did get to be tedious after a while.
I haven’t authored anything in Twine, so I’m not certain of this, but it seems to me that A Murder in Fairyland does several interesting things technically. The word search puzzles alone look like they would have been difficult to code. There’s also health-tracking, inventory, fifty save game slots, a quicksave, and a different attractive background for each location in the game.
I was a bit confused by the characterization of the PC. You’re apparently incorporeal enough that you inhabit computer networks, yet in Fairyland you have a body physical enough that you must travel the world in a wheelchair. This affects gameplay, as some of the puzzles are based on the fact that it’s not easy to access certain locations in a wheelchair. I suppose this does allow the game to highlight the challenges that wheelchair-users face, but it also seems to clash with the initial characterization of the PC.
Overall, I enjoyed A Murder in Fairyland. I was frustrated early on because it took so long to reach the murder investigation, I found myself knee-deep in red tape, and once I did begin investigating it didn’t appear to matter whether I did a good job or even who I accused. However, once I set myself the goal of truly identifying the killer, as well as accepting that this was going to take much longer than the estimated hour play time, I was able to enter into the game the way that I think Corfman intended. And I found that, once again, she has created an intricate game with plenty of challenging puzzles.
An Exercise for the Reader 
Great review. I enjoyed this game quite a bit myself. (At first I had trouble because I start every game on mobile, but the word search bits don’t work on mobile, so I had to switch to PC.) I thought the fairy bureaucracy was hilarious. The classic fairy mythology reminded me of the Dresden Files, although the story is completely different, of course. I got a bit stuck with finding the best ending, though. I’m curious what evidence can be found regarding Nyx. The available “walkthrough” is nothing of the sort, but only a few general guidelines for being able to complete the game at all.
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Nyx was the hardest one for me. You have to establish that Nyx wasn’t in the palace at the time of the murder. Maybe I’ll leave it at that. If you’d like a further hint, feel free to ask.
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Thanks for the hint. Hmm, testimonies say Nyx was in the kitchen around 8:30 and at the body at its discovery after 1, and the autopsy report gives the time of death as 12:36. A guard says Nyx left as the prince was coming in, but I don’t have any concrete evidence, as he didn’t see when Nyx came back. The queens have nothing to say about the murder; Lirana and Rinecoat won’t say any more at this point (if the design isn’t cruel, I won’t have missed anything important from them); and I’ve used all the form rules, so I’m inclined to think another form won’t help either. I can’t find any other conversational options I haven’t seen. I must be missing something, but I don’t see what.
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There’s a flyer on the notice board in town describing an event that was taking place at the time of death. Try confronting Nyx with that.
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Ah, I knew the comment about being incinerated if you leave early was suspicious, but I didn’t put it together. Fantastic. Except the autopsy report still isn’t actually proof of the actual murderer, even though I’ve disproven everyone else. Why isn’t that enough? Hmm.
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The forensics report shows a possible cause of murder that wasn’t apparent before. Take another look at the body, using the new info from the report to focus your search.
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That’s…awfully tricky. I had already examined the body, multiple times, I thought, although I guess I didn’t recheck it after reading the report and all. I had no idea I could find something else. Thanks, I think that’s the last thing I needed.
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