The Portopia Serial Murder Case

1983 · Adventure · PC-6001 / Multiple

Overview

The Portopia Serial Murder Case (1983) is Yuji Horii's detective adventure for Enix, a game Hideo Kojima named among his biggest influences, whose menu interface Horii reused in Dragon Quest.

Deep Dive

A bank president, Kouzou Yamakawa, is found dead in a locked room, apparently by his own hand, and the police send a detective known as "Boss" to investigate with his assistant Yasu. Play is nonlinear, with branching dialogue and red herrings, and the ending depends on whom the player accuses. The Japanese press called it "a game without game over".

Developer Story

Horii developed, designed and wrote it in BASIC, and Enix released it on the NEC PC-6001 in June 1983 before versions for the PC-8801, FM-7, MSX, Sharp X1 and Famicom. The Famicom version added a magnifying glass for finding clues and a 3D maze.

Did You Know?

The 1985 Famicom version, the console's first adventure game, swapped the typed parser for a menu of fourteen commands and sold 700,000 copies.
Nintendo's Famicom Detective Club series was inspired by it.