Touch and Go

Balancing out the pleasure you get from online games is the hoops the makers put you through in order to get you to buy from them – coins, energy, gemstones… all the in-game currencies that apply in that universe. Understandable, I suppose. But I’m miserly and would much prefer to watch their advertisements to support them than fork out cash just because I’m impatient.

Most games would like you playing them – a lot. Anything to keep you hooked and coming back for more. Running out of currency? A sudden gift or windfall will keep you in the game for while longer.

Then I came across Murder in the Alps. It’s a hidden objects game with a lovely 1930s theme. Anna, our protagonist, is the journalist-detective and you must help her find the clues to piece together this very intriguing locked room mystery in which corpses keep turning up with delicious regularity. The set of suspects includes a cuckoo Indophile professor who is chasing after the elusive Vedic recipe for the elixir Soma. The artwork is spectacular, the voice acting is fantastic, the interface smooth and exciting – the atmosphere of the game is top-notch.

 

Except, they don’t want you to play.

You get 200 energy to start off with. And as Anna examines a scene looking for these hidden objects that will help her understand what the hell is going on in this forsaken, snow-boarded inn in the Swiss mountains, every item you touch on her behalf will drain you of 5 to 30 units. Depending on how frenzied you are, you could play for 10 or 20 minutes at the most.

And then, unless you are willing to pay quite handsomely for more energy, you wait. The energy replenishes itself at the rate of one unit in eight minutes. Which means a wait of upwards of 26 hours to max your quota – which, I repeat, lasts you gameplay of 20 minutes. If you are desperate, there are ads to watch that’ll give you 10 energy at a time.

It's perfect sadhana actually. You touch the screen with the utmost awareness and only when you must. And you learn to wait. This view is solipsistic and you must grant me the indulgence: considering I have a tendency to be addicted to games, that’s the sound of my Guru having the last laugh.