"Isn't it time someone actually MADE a DETECTIVE game?"
YES.
This game was a breath of fresh air, I had half-given up on finding a game that would at least try to make the player put his sleuthing to work in a mystery game, and I feel like the dev did so perfectly in a very short, and if you enjoy detective stories, fun game.
My guess at the killer after the "read more",
I was probably overthinking it when I wrote this wall of text, but it was fun.
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Yeah, it's a cliché but I think the killer is the butler.
His testimony is the weakest of all, if you were to clean a room to "the best of your abilities" then how would there still be vomit on the floor, a broken bottle and the dirty rag you used to clean it still there as well! The broken chair was also on the floor, but could have been broken after he cleaned it.
The only person that the game hints that could be vomitting is Ferguson (drunkard), but he could not have vomitted there after the cleaning because he was kicked out and with alibi to support this.
The butler also claimed that he was not in the room with Mr. Reece while he cleaned, but that seems suspicious given that no one mentioned Mr. Reece coming in or out of the room, so he probably WAS there.
The butler was also probably the last person to come to his room before Ms. Reece screamed, announcing his death.
Knowing that he was recent hire also makes him even more suspicious.
Regarding the other possible suspects, it could definitely not have been his sister.
She was talking with Damian in the likely time of the murder and there are three people confirming this happened (butler, sister and Damien himself). She would also need to overpower her brother physically, but seeing she is quite short compared to the others, that seems unlikely. Her motive, financial stress, is also weak.
It could not have been the drunkard, if he killed Reece at the time he was in his room, the butler would've seen his body and announced it before the sister. He also was kicked out after that. He has no motive at all.
It likely wasn't Damien, although he had the strongest apparent motive for the murder. But he also shared Isabella's solid alibi.
It could have been Elliot Roth, the mysterious caller that no one refers to, but there is no mention of his motive or clues pointing to him, he almost appears to seem like a hitman, not hired by Damien (since Elliot says he seemed "a little nervous" and he wouldn't incriminate his own employer), so he could be hired by Isabella. The fact that she chose a suspiciously convenient time to check on Reece to announce his murder and seem more innocent makes this more likely, but this hitman hypothesis still seems far-fetched.
How did it happen? I imagine it went like this: at the start of the party, the butler was greeting guests and when Ferguson, known drunk, came in the butler gave him a wine bottle with unusually high alcohol content and suggested he went to Reece's room, where he would make a mess, then the butler enters the room inconspicuously, kicks out the drunk and kills Reece by strangling him after having a scuffle with him that breaks the chair, drops the sword and makes Reece pick up that knife. During that, the drunk distracts the guests. The Butler could have used his hands, the rag or really any other strangling tool and disposed of it, making it look like he was cleaning. Then he went back to the party to make it appear as if he wasn't involved.
What is his motive? It's not very clear to me but it surely has to do with his country. It might have been because he saw the precious Vorhztakhan knife Reece had before the party and that sparkled some reason for the Butler to kill him, the fact that he forgot to clean the room and could mean this wasn't a premeditaded murder, at least not mastermindedly schemed from years of planning.
Killing at a party where his sister, Damien and the drunk appeared did well to throw a red herring, so he was likely scheming before the party.
I have no idea if I got it right, and if the dev feels like it, can I get a word on who the killer is?
Game design wise, I liked it. I think you could've included a solution at the end explaining how it happened but I imagine you wanted to stray from that.
Great game, cheers!