There’s one week to go until Blazing Griffin, the Glasgow-based digital entertainment company, releases its next title: Agatha Christie – Hercule Poirot: The First Cases, for PC and console.
The game, which was developed in conjunction with Agatha Christie Ltd. and is published with Microids, is a detective and adventure game starring a young Hercule Poirot before he became the legendary detective of the novels, movies and TV adaptations.
Agatha Christie – Hercule Poirot: The First Cases’ gameplay recreates a multi-faceted core detective case. The game offers a narration fully integrated in gameplay mechanics and the story, being told over a series of chapters and acts, feels like a classic Poirot novel. The immersion is enhanced by the mindmap feature, illustrating the detective’s thinking process.
A Dastardly Murder
In his early years as a detective, a young Hercule Poirot is invited to a reception by the influential Van den Bosch family, for the announcement of their daughter’s engagement. But tensions among the guests run high as a snowstorm descends on the town, trapping everyone inside the manor. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the happy event is soon marred by the murder of one of the guests! Poirot being in the right place at the right time immediately begins to investigate. What buried secrets and deadly rivalries will he uncover?
Blazing Griffin, in collaboration with Agatha Christie Limited, have just released an exclusive developer diary which explores the game’s inspirations and ambitions with exclusive behind-the-scenes footage.
In this diary, Neil McPhillips and Justin Alae-Carew, who head up games at Blazing Griffin, explain how they tackled the creation of a brand-new and original Hercule Poirot experience yet stayed authentic to the franchise.
The Early Years
Story-wise, the writing of an engaging murder case for the game intended to be as compelling as one of Agatha Christie’s – the so-called ‘Queen of Crime’, was achieved by the contribution of TV & film writers from Blazing Griffin, who closely collaborated with the game’s narrative designers.
Poirot has a huge audience of fans around the world, for the original novels and for the many on-screen adaptations. So Blazing Griffin chose to set the game during Poirot’s youth, when according to the studio:
“his fame had not yet been established and he’d have to struggle to make his voice heard, at a time when the world was changing drastically and raised many socio-economic issues, embodied by a varied cast of characters archetypes.”
In addition to the developer diary, Blazing Griffin also put together a comprehensive video summarising everything you need to know about Hercule Poirot: The First Cases. The video features gameplay footage and is narrated by the developers.
“We were delighted to work with Microids on this in-depth look into how Hercule Poirot: The First Cases was made, filmed in our Glasgow offices. With only one week to go, I’m excited for players to get a hold of this new Agatha Christie experience on all platforms.”
Justin Alae-Carew, co-head of games, Blazing Griffin
Hercule Poirot: The First Cases will launch September 28th 2021, on PC (Steam), Xbox One consoles, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, and will be backward compatible on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series.
