Hunt A Killer: Murder on Ice (Diary)

NoPro’s Blake Weil is signed up for the latest Hunt a Killer subscription, Murder on Ice. This diary collects the monthly reviews of each episode in the series.

Box 1

Who killed Laura Palmer? This is the central question to the seminal classic TV show Twin Peaks. The secret, of course, is that it doesn’t matter. Season two suffered from studio intervention that forced a resolution. The thrill was in the chase.

Murder on Ice understands this. Who killed figure skating legend Nathan LaPalma? Was it his protege? His rival? His jilted ex? The answer doesn’t matter. What matters is that the world of the catty skating rink is realized, the production is lush, and the chase thrilling.

Clues are delivered through vibrantly produced ephemera (“feelies” to PC game fans) and custom web interfaces. There’s a shocking verisimilitude at play; at least five different weights of paper stock were used in producing all of the documents, some with intentional print and scan errors. Writing, especially for an in-universe Twitter stand-in haunted by figure skating stans, reads incredibly true to life. The functional tote bag and shiny medal were the cherry on top for those like myself who love to nab a trophy from every production they enjoy.

The mission-based structure for each box gave a strong throughline to a potentially ambiguous starting point. Only one puzzle, relying on an unintuitive and somewhat illogical capitalization requirement, fell beneath the general high quality of the production. I almost wish it had happened sooner though. The hint page where we ultimately had to look up the answer was also dynamic and well designed, featuring totally unadvertised accessibility options such as audio transcripts.

But again, we have to ask. Who Killed Nathan LaPalma? I won’t find out for another five months, but that’s fine. I’m happy to unspool my red string and tack up my murder board. Hunt a Killer realizes the dreams of the armchair detective, and offers a cozy, giddy who-done-it.

Boxes 2 & 3

With the second and third boxes, Murder on Ice falls into a comfortable rhythm. Each box highlights a suspect (an ice skating darling with some online skeletons and his closet and his overbearing mother in these boxes), and you try to do your best to clear them. While I was expecting clear exonerations to enable the process of elimination, Murder on Ice surprised me and provided some ambiguity.

The writing continues to be uniformly strong. Hunt a Killer’s grasp on Twitter lingo, fan culture, and the parasocial world of celebrity gossip is second to none. However, the puzzles were a bit more hit and miss in these boxes. Box two had only one significant puzzle (and a few very small challenges), while box three was built around a brilliant central puzzle that required a wide array of skills to tackle. Still, they served the narrative thrust and kept my player group engaged.

The one surprising twist is the building tension of the story. Having never played a Hunt a Killer box before, I had assumed we’d be dealing with one murder. While the rest of the cast lives for now, brewing legal trouble and emerging threats against other cast members complicate the story. As I’ve started to develop a working theory of the crime here at the halfway point, this is a smart move. Even if future chapters confirm my answer, I’ll still be on the edge of my seat. Even the clear villains, murderers or not, are lovable, and I’m rooting for them to hold on until the finale.

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This sense of surprise extends throughout the experience. Every time I feel like I have my footing, a new curveball or unexpected use of a prop throws me off balance. Having only played one-shots, I doubted a series capacity to hold my interest. Today, though, I check my mail every day fingers crossed I’ll be able to dive into box four.

Boxes 4 & 5

While the puzzles remain fairly interesting, I feel my enthusiasm starting to wane slightly with boxes four and five of Murder on Ice. This waning engagement strikes me as the pacing issues inherent to any murder mystery exacerbated by a monthly structure. Certainly, now that I have a theory, I often feel like I’m killing time until I have a confirmation of my solution.

With box five, another character has come into prominent suspicion. But with a final box to come, I know there will have to be a final twist (and I can’t help but hope it will be my culprit of choice who did it). But the culprit I’ve identified has also been fairly unexplored by the narrative, only adding to my suspicion. This being my first Hunt A Killer experience, though, I can’t tell if this is typical of their offerings, with the killer’s identity only coming into climax towards the end, or if this is off-kilter pacing.

The puzzles’ ambiguity has begun to grate a bit as well. For example, we couldn’t identify an animal that a miniature pin was supposed to resemble. It was small, fuzzy, and long, but could have been one of several furry varmints. This led to agony over a substitution cipher that required the animal’s name to decode. Still, the addition of bonus puzzles beyond the main mechanical process that expand the narrative, including said cipher, are a net positive, wishing earlier boxes had that depth.

Still, I remain eager and excited for the final box. The obsessive nature of a murder mystery, the increasingly ominous messages from an unknown party in game, and the new plot wrinkles all serve to push me towards a conclusion. Like any mystery, I expect Murder on Ice will live or die on its conclusion. I wait with baited breath, watching like one would a skater midjump, praying that they stick the landing.

Box 6 (Finale)

For the fun I’ve had playing Murder on Ice, I can’t help but feel it ended with somewhat of a whimper. Yes, the writing is still fun, and I’m thrilled that my prediction on the murderer was correct. But the last box felt rushed, with simple puzzles to tidy up and confirm answers. The acting also got slightly hammier as the murderer had their final confrontation with the detective, and the verisimilitude I praised in earlier episodes began to crumble.

I don’t mean to suggest intentionality, but there’s a certain frustration I have receiving a flier for the next Hunt a Killer adventure, Renfaire Regicide, in box six. While it’s an equally fun premise to Murder on Ice, tracking the death of a Ren Faire “King” with suspects among his “court”, I feel vaguely gross about the prospect of continuing. When your first box is supposed to be the hook to a season, convincing you to continue, you have to stick the landing. Instead, I felt the story slowly fizzle, as if once I was on the line, the team lost the motivation to keep me invested, knowing I had to keep playing to resolve the tension the first boxes beautifully set up. I’m sure I’ll be thrilled by the death of the King, and the oddball suspects around him, but I worry that the resolution will be as quick, simple, and dull as the tidy wrap-up at the skating rink.

It’s not all bad. The feelies continue to be great, and the motive is legitimately well written, being both non-obvious while still possible to see coming. A fair play mystery is hard, and pacing it across several chapters is harder. I think I’ll turn next to Hunt a Killer’s stand alone experiences. Without the pacing issues present in a serialized narrative, I think their strengths will be freer to shine.

Murder on Ice — Hunt A Killer; $195 for Six Month Subscription; Remote (At Home Box); Ongoing.

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