APRIL FOOL'S SLAY

Less jumping in THE MURDER OF SONIC THE HEDGEHOG

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Sonic has been murdered—well, not really—and it’s up to Tails, I guess, to finger the suspect from a cast of his anthropomorphic mates. There’s Amy and Knuckles—you’ve probably heard of them. There’s the infamously edgy Shadow, here without his trademark arsenal of guns. And while I don’t know the others, I like them after playing this. This is an affectionate visual novel that redeems an oft-maligned band of mascots.

It’s also, of course, a joke game—an exceedingly polished one—released on April 1, for free, on Steam. Set aboard a luxury train where Amy Rose has organized a murder mystery party, you have to solve the murder of Sonic the Hedgehog— who has really been attacked and rendered unconscious—by examining clues in each train carriage, and interrogating such suspects as Knuckles and Rouge the Bat.