Reviewed: Contradiction – The Interactive Murder Mystery Movie

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

You may have seen mention here on Kasterborous, or within the audio ecstacy of the podKast, of Contradiction – The Interactive Murder Mystery Movie, a game for iPad (and shortly PC and Amazon Fire TV) which is essentially a polished, modern version of the old interactive movies seen on platforms like the 3DO and CDi around 20 years ago.

Starring John Guilor (he gave Hartnell-esque life to the First Doctor’s dialogue in The Day of the Doctor and the Planet of Giants DVD missing episode reconstruction), Paul Darrow (best known as Avon in Blake’s 7, but has links to Doctor Who through The Silurians and Timelash) and Rupert Booth (a one-time fan film Doctor, and guest with John Guilor on a recent podKast) Contradiction puts you in Booth’s shoes as Inspector Jenks, sent to follow up some leads in the suspicious death of a business training student in a remote village.

But is the course, run by a company called Atlas, everything is claims to be, and was Kate Vine actually murdered? It’s up to you to find out, interviewing the people of the village and those connected with Atlas, and friends of the victim. Using a very clever compare-and-connect interface to progress through the game unlocks the next set of clues for the people you’re interviewing, and of particular interest are Darrow and Guilor as Paul Rand and his son Ryan. That isn’t to say the rest of the cast aaren’t good, as they’re rather superb and play their supporting roles perfectly (Magnus Sinding as Atlas student Simon, incidentally, has an aspect of Matt Smith about him). It all falls together like an interactive Midsomer Murder, with shades of devilry and unpleasant business practices leaving a bad taste in the mouth despite the beautiful English scenery.

To be honest, I’ve been putting writing this review off. It’s not that the game is terribly hard (more of a satisfying challenge), or that I don’t want to come down with an honest review that upsets anyone connected with Kasterborous… it’s just that I’ve been struggling to finish it! I had initially intended to review the game after completion, but now I’m stuck again, at 93%, and I think it’s time I talked you into joining in with the frustration and admiration that comes in equal parts when playing Tim Follin’s superb interactive murder mystery game.

The fact is, Contradiction is a gaming experience that you really won’t forget. Getting around the village can be a little bit of a chore at times (but hey, it’s not like you’re actually doing the walking, is it?) and matching up the contradictory clues can take a while (two weeks at one point for my good wife and I), but the sheer quality of the production and the performances means that this isn’t a game to ignore. It’s sumptuous, and should you ever get bored of the visuals (unlikely) you can turn your attention to the audio landscapes created by Tim Follin to accompany the scenes and your thinking. Here’s a nice taster:

Really, we’d love to tell you more, go in-depth. However, this would spoil a superb game and that would be criminal.

Originally released at £7.99, Contradiction is now just £3.99 and is, importantly for these things, ad-free. There’s no casual element to the game, but it isn’t really a game as you probably understand it, so don’t worry about that. Instead, turn off the TV, switch on your iPad and forget about “Bubble Blasting Fruity Jewel With Friends”, or whatever, and invest your time in this gaming masterpiece.

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