Murder by the Dozen

Murder by the Dozen
Title screen of the game
Game No.	560
Voting	4.00 points, 1 votes
Company	BrainBank
Publisher	CBS Software
Release	1983
Platform	Apple Macintosh, Apple II, C64, IBM-PC
Genre	Adventure
Gamemode	Single player up to 4 players (in turns)
Operation
Media
Language
Information	Series "Mystery Master": Felony!

Description

In the game "Murder by the Dozen" — part of the "Mystery Master" series — players take on the role of homicide detectives in the fictional city of Micropolis, solving 12 tricky criminal cases one by one. To do this, they visit crime scenes and various other locations across the city, question witnesses and suspects, and search for clues — all with the goal of being the first to identify the perpetrator and their motive, thereby solving the case.

The game begins by selecting one of the 12 murder cases.

After selecting the case to be solved, the game starts with a phone call to the police station.

A small map makes navigating the city of Micropolis easier.

Backstory

The game's backstory can be found on the back of the packaging:

Murder is a nasty business. And in MURDER BY THE DOZEN, it's the only business. As the top Homicide Detective in town, it's up to you to solve each mysterious murder and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Each case presents new challenges to your powers of deduction and detection. With information supplied by your Crime Computer, you'll travel a twisted trail of shady characters, false leads, clever deceptions and red herrings in search of the clues you'll need. And even if you do find the true murderer, will you have gathered enough evidence to convict him (or her)?

The heat's on, Mystery Master! You've just received another call from Homicide. Leonora Tibbet, wealthy socialite, has been found beaten to death with her hospital bedpan. Go it alone or let your rival sleuths get in on the action. Either way, have a bloody good time!

The beginning of the manual included with the game also provides an introduction to the game:

Something is rotten in the city of Micropolis. Folks have been turning up dead in the strangest places and under the oddest sets of circumstances. As the top Homicide Detective on the force, it’s up to you to find out who’s been committing these crimes and why. And you’d better hurry before we have to change the name of this program to Murder By The Baker’s Dozen!

The Mystery Master Crime Computer is at your complete disposal. It’ll provide you with Case Histories and help you ferret out clues, obtain autopsies and lab reports and aid in constructing a profile of each stiff... er, victim. Before attempting to crack the first case, though, be sure to familiarize yourself with the official rules and procedures to be followed throughout each investigation. After all, we don’t want to be accused of violating anybody’s rights!

Design

All information relevant to gameplay appears on the screen as white text on a black background. Graphical elements serve primarily as embellishment; even the city map, which can be displayed when moving between locations, shows far less detail than the form provided to each player at the start of the game.

Graphics

As the player investigates — interviewing people and searching for clues — the program presents all information as white text on a black background. The only time a color city map can be displayed for orientation purposes is when moving between locations within the city of Micropolis. Additionally, at the beginning and end of the game — during case selection and the presentation of the solution — the game displays a series of monochromatic icons. A detailed analysis of the graphics modes used for this can be found in the "Technical Details" section.

Sound

Sound output is limited to a brief audio sequence at the start and end of the game (see the "Theme" section), the ringing of the telephone at the police station, and simple audio feedback for keyboard inputs.

Hints

The game begins with each player receiving a form on which they can gradually record their investigative findings. A tear-off pad containing around 50 pre-printed sheets was included with the game. Next, the program is loaded and started.

Controls

The program is operated exclusively via the keyboard. Inputs are limited to selecting from a list of predefined options and confirming actions:

• On the start screen, you must first enter the number of the criminal case to be solved (ranging from 1 to 12) and confirm it by pressing the RETURN  key.
• The investigation begins with the telephone ringing in the homicide department — continuing until you pick up the receiver by pressing any key. Throughout the game, you will frequently need to press a key to proceed ("TAP ANY KEY TO CONTINUE"), such as after reading the case background displayed on the screen.
• After additional program components have loaded, you must specify the number of players (1 to 4) and confirm the selection with RETURN .
• You then need to enter a name for each player registered in this way: a maximum of 15 characters (as specified in the manual to allow for the full name "Sherlock Holmes"), with each entry confirmed by pressing RETURN .
• The chosen criminal case must now be solved, step by step — with players taking turns. Possible actions include questioning people present at the current location (keys 1  through 3 ), searching for clues (keys 4  through 6 ), and changing locations (key 7 ). All inputs must be finalized by pressing RETURN .
• When changing locations, you can choose to display a city map to help plan your route within Micropolis. To do this, answer "YES" to the question "WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THE MAP?" by pressing the Y  key. In any case, you can enter the chosen destination (identified by its map code — a letter from "A" to "Z" or the identifiers "AA" and "BB") and confirm it by pressing RETURN . A list matching codes to specific locations can be found, for example, on the form provided to each player at the start.
• The program tracks the investigation time for each player. Questioning people adds 3 minutes to this time for every clue obtained (regardless of whether the clue was useful or yielded no new information). Searching for clues costs 5 minutes of investigation time per clue. The time required to change locations depends on the distance traveled and varies slightly based on traffic conditions in Micropolis.
• If multiple players are participating, the next turn always goes to the player who has accumulated the shortest investigation time on their time log so far (in the event of a tie between players, the one who entered their name first goes next).
• Once a player has investigated for at least 20 minutes, the program offers them the option to declare the case solved after every turn. If the player wishes to do so, they press the F1  key. The program then prompts them to review the case history one more time to ensure they have truly gathered all the required information.
  If the player confirms this by pressing Y , they may first present their findings to the other players and then read the official solution in the manual. If this solution matches their findings, they win; otherwise, they are eliminated (since they now know the correct solution), and the remaining players continue their investigations.
  If, however, the player becomes unsure after re-reading the case description and answers with N , the game continues, and it becomes the next player's turn.

After entering their names, the players take turns.

Each survey yields a list of numbers that allow the corresponding statements to be looked up.

Successful completion of the game, with the top rating for the time taken

Case Histories

Although the initial situation of each case is described on the screen at the start of the investigation, the corresponding descriptions can also be found in the game manual for reference. The following list provides a link for each of the 12 criminal cases, leading to the corresponding description:

• Case #1: Otto Telcher, Industrialist
• Case #2: Wally Snark, Suspected Drug Dealer
• Case #3: Michael Brenner, Computer Programmer
• Case #4: Fall 4: Adrienne Bishop, High Fashion Model
• Case #5: Claude Finley, City Clerk
• Case #6: Lisa Fenton, Runaway Housewife
• Case #7: Theo Demarcus, Undercover Cop
• Case #8: Walter Kent, Gangster
• Case #9: Wendy Fletcher, Barmaid
• Case #10: Jeremy Todd, Loser
• Case #11: Leonora Tibbet, Socialite
• Case #12: Josh Giggle, Press Room Foreman

Statements and Indications

Although there was enough space on the floppy disk to include all witness statements and descriptions of the evidence, the game's developers decided to provide these texts only in printed form. The game refers players to the relevant clues in the included clue book using reference numbers ranging from 1 to 700. To allow "Murder by the Dozen" to be played without these documents, clicking on any of the numbers in the table below takes you directly to the clue corresponding to that number. Only numbers that would lead to a "No clue" entry — representing witness statements or discoveries that contribute nothing to solving the current case — have been left unlinked.

  1-100: 001 002 003 004 005 006 007 008 009 010 011 012 013 014 015 016 017 018 019 020
         021 022 023 024 025 026 027 028 029 030 031 032 033 034 035 036 037 038 039 040
         041 042 043 044 045 046 047 048 049 050 051 052 053 054 055 056 057 058 059 060
         061 062 063 064 065 066 067 068 069 070 071 072 073 074 075 076 077 078 079 080
         081 082 083 084 085 086 087 088 089 090 091 092 093 094 095 096 097 098 099 100
101-200: 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120
         121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140
         141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160
         161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180
         181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200
201-300: 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220
         221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240
         241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260
         261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280
         281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300
301-400: 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320
         321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340
         341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360
         361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380
         381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400
401-500: 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420
         421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440
         441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460
         461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480
         481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500
501-600: 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520
         521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540
         541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560
         561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580
         581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600
601-700: 601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608 609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620
         621 622 623 624 625 626 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 639 640
         641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648 649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660
         661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680
         681 682 683 684 685 686 687 688 689 690 691 692 693 694 695 696 697 698 699 700

Completion

Once a player has been investigating for at least 20 minutes, the program offers the option to declare the case solved before each new turn. The player is then prompted to meticulously compare their findings with the provided solution. If both versions match on all key points, the player's investigative work is evaluated based on the time taken, and an assessment is displayed on the screen. In this regard, solving the case quickly — but not *too* quickly — pays off:

1. LUCKY GUESSER — You took so little time solving this case, you’ll be lucky if your fellow players don’t decide to lynch you for cheating.
2. INSPIRED AMATEUR — You solved this case in the shortest possible time. However, you were not as thorough as you might have been. This is slip-shod detective work.
3. WORLD CLASS DETECTIVE — You solved this case in the shortest possible time while still doing a thorough job of detecting. Congratulations on a job well done, Mystery Master!
4. FIRST RATE DETECTIVE — You solved this case in very good time. You were thorough and methodical; a credit to the force!
5. PROFESSIONAL DETECTIVE — You solved this case in good time. You might have been a shade too thorough, but all in all, it was a good, conscientious job.
6. AVERAGE DETECTIVE — You took an average amount of time to solve this case. You weren't inspired to any short cuts in solving it despite some suggestive clues, but you still got there in decent time.
7. ROOKIE DETECTIVE — You took longer than an experienced sleuth should have taken to solve this case. You obviously lingered too long at some of the locations. Next time, try to more carefully focus in on who you need to talk to and what you need to see.
8. AMATEUR DETECTIVE — You certainly took your sweet time arriving at your solution! You dallied along the way, speaking to too many people and seeing too many locations.
9. BEFUDDLED DETECTIVE — You took much too long to solve this case. You obviously didn’t have a good grasp of who you really wanted to talk to or what exactly you were looking for.
10. BUMBLING DETECTIVE — You did a pretty poor job of solving this case. You followed false leads, spoke to too many unimportant people and failed to pay attention to where the clues were trying to direct you.
11. ROTTEN DETECTIVE — What took you so long? What were you trying to do, put in overtime? Next time, try taking better notes. Then try reading and thinking about them from time to time.
12. INNOCENT BYSTANDER — Inspector Clouseau’s got nothing on you, pal! At least you solved the case. But you must have been playing alone to have run up so much time and still have gotten a chance to solve it.

The timeframe within which a good detective should present the solution varies from case to case. Cases 5 (Claude Finley, city clerk), 11 (Leonora Tibbet, socialite), and 4 (Adrienne Bishop, high fashion model) are rated as the easiest to solve, while Case 2 (Wally Snark, suspected drug dealer) is considered by far the most difficult.

Tips

The instruction manual contains a number of tips designed to make getting started with the game and solving the cases easier:

1. The Micropolis Police Department Works Two Shifts.
These shifts are the Day Shift and the Night Shift. When a crime is reported during the Day Shift, you'll be assigned to the case immediately. You'll have to go to the scene of the crime and develop your own information. When a crime is committed during the Night Shift, a preliminary investigation is conducted by the detectives working that shift. When you report to work the next morning, their findings will be available to you. In such a case, both the autopsy and lab reports will probably be ready for you as well.

2. Play The Cases In Order.
The first case is just as complicated as later ones and just as difficult to solve. However, certain elements are included in later cases that are not found in earlier ones, such as time delays for access to certain information. Familiarizing yourself with the procedures to be followed on the early cases will give you an edge in coping with some of the subtleties of the later cases. For example: if you go to the scene of the crime and the lab boys tell you that they'll have a report on your desk at the Police Station ‘within an hour,” the chances are good that you won’t be able to get that information until about 45 minutes or more have passed on your game clock. Also, some of the later cases involve finding key pieces of evidence for analysis in the lab. For example: if you choose to look through the master bedroom and find a shoe under the bed, information about that shoe will be contained in the lab report you pick up later. If you neglect to search the master bedroom, you will not have found the shoe and your lab report will contain no information about it.

3. Use All The Resources Of The Police Station.
While at the Police Station, you will be able to run a computer search through records. This can come in handy when you need information on known or suspected criminals. It is generally not as useful when it comes to supplying information on ordinary citizens. The same holds true when interviewing your fellow police officers and Turk, your pet stool pigeon.

4. Plan Your Trail Carefully.
There are 28 locations in Micropolis, each letter-coded. When deciding where to go next, check the map in the Crime Computer or on your Worksheet to see how close the locations you wish to visit are to your present location. If several locations seem to you to be equally important in terms of what you might find at each one, go to the nearest one and save time.

5. Interview Only Those People You Have To Interview.
Anyone at the scene of the crime may be a good witness. You'll never know what a neighbor or passing stranger may have seen until you ask them. However, when you're going to a specific location to speak to a specific individual, don’t waste your valuable time talking to everyone there or examining all the physical evidence. Just do what you came to do and leave. Usually, your inherent powers of deduction will tell you which of the available choices are worth selecting. On the other hand, make sure you've gleaned all of the pertinent facts available to you at a specific location before you go dashing off. Leaving too soon may result in having to make a return trip later, which is a tremendous waste of time.

6. You Can’t Win If You Don’t Take Notes.
Taking notes is an essential part of any criminal investigation. Use your Worksheets! Write down the important case facts and what you need to find out. Keep track of where you’ve been and where you still need to go. Next to the names of the places you still want to visit, write down what you hope to find there. This helps you avoid time-consuming, useless interviews. Always note the source of every bit of information you uncover. It’s often necessary to consider how you learned a fact when trying to evaluate its importance. Take notes on the people you interview: what they say, how they say it, how it conforms to or contrasts with what others have said and if anything they’ve said seems odd or offbeat. Ask yourself, too, if anyone’s statements might serve to protect their own self interest.

7. Develop Your Investigation Skills.
There is more to successful detective work than meets the eye. A good, interactive mystery takes an individual’s deductive reasoning skills and puts them to the test. What are these skills?

A. Problem Solving
Approach a problem by determining what you must find out, plan a strategy to find it out quickly and conduct your investigation along the lines you had planned.

B. Logic
Try to get the whole picture before you attempt to solve any case. Decide which clues can be disregarded and which relate directly to the solution. Use your gray matter!

Along with intuition and common sense, here’s what else you should work on to develop your deductive reasoning abilities to their full potential:

• Identify the issues: who, what, where, when, why and how.
• Determine what must be discovered.
• Find the facts.
• Organize your information: observe, listen and take good notes.
• Assemble your information logically.
• Present your information in a sensible, understandable manner.

Develop and improve upon these skills and you'll become a proficient Mystery Master both in and out of this game!

Solution

Detailed solutions for each individual criminal case can be found in a separate booklet included with the game. To prevent players from accidentally reading these texts — for instance, while trying to look up a clue — they are printed in light gray and obscured by an overlapping red pattern. They can only be deciphered using a red filter, which is also included with the game:

The solutions cannot be deciphered with the naked eye

The solution can only be read — with some effort — by using the included red filter

However, several modern optical character recognition (OCR) programs failed to process the low-contrast text beneath the red filter, leaving the author of this article to transcribe the solutions by hand.

• Case #1. OTTO TELCHER.
• Case #2. WALLY SNARK.
• Case #3. MICHAEL BRENNER.
• Case #4. ADRIENNE BISHOP.
• Case #5. CLAUDE FINLEY.
• Case #6. LISA FENTON.
• Case #7. THEO DEMARCUS.
• Case #8. WALTER KENT.
• Case #9. WENDY FLETCHER.
• Case #10. JEREMY TODD.
• Case #11. LEONORA TIBBET.
• Case #12. JOSHUA GIGGLE.

For players who have failed to solve a case, it may be more interesting to learn which clues would have led to the correct solution. Using the list below, one can therefore retrieve a complete list of all clues for any given case, broken down by their location within Micropolis and the action required to access them:

• Case #1. OTTO TELCHER.
• Case #2. WALLY SNARK.
• Case #3. MICHAEL BRENNER.
• Case #4. ADRIENNE BISHOP.
• Case #5. CLAUDE FINLEY.
• Case #6. LISA FENTON.
• Case #7. THEO DEMARCUS.
• Case #8. WALTER KENT.
• Case #9. WENDY FLETCHER.
• Case #10. JEREMY TODD.
• Case #11. LEONORA TIBBET.
• Case #12. JOSHUA GIGGLE.

These lists can be generated automatically given knowledge of the file formats used by the individual program components (see the "Cheats" section).

Cheats

There are currently no known cheats for "Murder by the Dozen" on the Internet. However, since the game comes with a complete list of solutions, any cheat would logically relate only to locating relevant information about the sequence of events, rather than the narrative description of the crime itself.

To compile a complete list of all pertinent clues for one of the criminal cases, one need only analyze the files containing the case, location, and clue data. This process relies on the file formats documented in the "Internal Data Structures" section. The corresponding lists can then be generated using the following program: File:MurderDozen Cheat.zip. The program requires the files "INDEX FILE" (saved as "INDEX.cbm") and "CLUESET" (stored as "CLUESET.cbm") as input.

Internal Data Structures

Descriptions of the 12 criminal cases are simply contained in 12 individual text files — "CASE1" through "CASE12" — on the diskette. Meanwhile, the names of the 28 locations where investigations can take place are stored as a constant list in lines 10000–10130 of the main program, "PROGRAM", and are transferred to the string array LD$ when the program starts.

In contrast, the actions available at specific locations during the game (such as "Talk to Rita Telcher, wife" or "Search the kitchen") and the resulting clues the player receives (such as "I can't imagine who'd want to kill him" or "No clue") are stored in three relational files — files containing fixed-length records that can be accessed directly. The following sections outline the structure of these files and their interrelationships.

File "INDEX FILE"

This file serves as the central data structure for controlling the game. It contains a 197-byte data structure for each of the 12 murder cases, making it 12 × 197 = 2,364 bytes in total.

The first byte of each data structure holds the number of the location where the investigation begins — a value between 1 and 28. The remaining 196 bytes are divided into 28 substructures of 7 bytes each, corresponding to the locations in the city of Micropolis. The first byte of each substructure represents the index of the clue table assigned to that location for the specific case; the subsequent 6 bytes represent the indices of the actions available to the investigator at that location for that case. The first bytes of the file "INDEX FILE" refer, for example, to the first case, "OTTO TELCHER". They have the following values:

Position	Offset	content	Value range	Function	Interpretation
0	—	[44]	1..28	The investigation into Case $01 begins at Location $03.	Location $03 = "The Telcher House"
1..7	—	[45]	—	Clues and actions for Case $01 at Location $01	Location $01 = "The Cordwinder House"
	+0	$60	$01..$60	Reference to clue set at location $01 for all 6 actions	"No clue.", ... "No clue.", ... ...
	+1	$01	$01..$FF	Reference to the first possible action at location $01	"Talk to Vernon Cordwinder, father"
	+2	$02	$01..$FF	Reference to the second possible action at location $01	"Talk to Rosie, the cook"
	+3	$03	$01..$FF	Reference to the third possible action at location $01	"Talk to Samuel, the son"
	+4	$05	$01..$FF	Reference to the fourth possible action at location $01	"Look at the basement"
	+5	$06	$01..$FF	Reference to the fifth possible action at location $01	"Check the garage"
	+6	$07	$01..$FF	Reference to the sixth possible action at location $01	"Search to Kitchen"
8..14	—	[53]	—	Clues and actions for Case $01 at Location $02	Location $02 = "The Fenton House"
	+0	$60	$01..$60	Reference to clue set at location $02 for all 6 actions	"No clue.", ... "No clue.", ... ...
	+1	$09	$01..$FF	Reference to the first possible action at location$02	"Interview Dr. Sheldon Fenton, husband"
	+2	$0A	$01..$FF	Reference to the second possible action at location $02	"Talk to Sharon Fenton, daughter"
	+3	$0B	$01..$FF	Reference to the third possible action at location $02	"Talk to Carl Fenton, son"
	+4	$0D	$01..$FF	Reference to the fourth possible action at location $02	"Examine the pool area"
	+5	$0E	$01..$FF	Reference to the fifth possible action at location $02	"Search the bushes"
	+6	$0F	$01..$FF	Reference to the sixth possible action at location $02	"Examine the bathroom off the master bedroom"
15..21	—	[61]	—	Clues and actions for Case $01 at Location $03	Location $03 = "The Telcher House"
	+0	$01	$01..$60	Reference to clue set at location $03 for all 6 actions	"I'm not too unhappy. He left me well off and I couldn't stand him anyway.", ... "I hated my father.", ... ...
	+1	$11	$01..$FF	Reference to the first possible action at location $03	"Talk to Rita Telcher, wife"
	+2	$12	$01..$FF	Reference to the second possible action at location $03	"Talk to Norbert Telcher, son"
	+3	$13	$01..$FF	Reference to the third possible action at location $03	"Interview Anita, the housekeeper"
	+4	$15	$01..$FF	Reference to the fourth possible action at location $03	"Search the kitchen"
	+5	$16	$01..$FF	Reference to the fifth possible action at location $03	"Inspect the garage"
	+6	$17	$01..$FF	Reference to the sixth possible action at location $03	"Go over the study"
22..29	—	...	—	...	...

File "CLUESET"

This file contains a total of 101 structures, each 98 bytes long; it is therefore 9,898 bytes in size. Each of these structures can be referenced from the central "INDEX FILE" using its index (ranging from 1 to 101)—specifically via the first byte of each 7-byte block. It contains 49 16-bit integers in "little endian" format (least significant byte first): sequentially, up to 8 possible pointers each for actions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, followed by two unused space characters.

Position (Index)	Offset	Content	Function	Contents	References to ...
0 (1)	+0	[71]	Reference numbers for Action 1 ("Talk to Rita Telcher, wife")	508, 212, 6, 47	"I'm not too unhappy. He left me well off and I couldn't stand him anyway.", "I can't imagine who'd want to kill him.", "No clue.", "No clue."
	+16	$9C 00 $8D 01 $70 01 $00 00 $00 00 $00 00 $00 00 $00 00	Reference numbers for Action 2 ("Talk to Norbert Telcher, son")	156, 397, 368	"I hated my father.", "No clue.", "No clue."
	+32	$53 02 $69 00 $00 00 $00 00 $00 00 $00 00 $00 00 $00 00	Reference numbers for Action 3 ("Interview Anita, the housekeeper")	595, 105	"No clue.", "No clue."
	+48	$4B 00 $00 00 $00 00 $00 00 $00 00 $00 00 $00 00 $00 00	Reference numbers for Action 4 ("Search the kitchen")	75	"No clue."
	+64	$90 01 $00 00 $00 00 $00 00 $00 00 $00 00 $00 00 $00 00	Reference numbers for Action 5 ("Inspect the garage")	400	"The tire pattern is different from that found at the scene."
	+80	$01 00 $41 00 $93 02 $0D 01 $00 00 $00 00 $00 00 $00 00	Reference numbers for Action 6 ("Go over the study")	1, 65, 659, 269	"You find a bank book showing regular withdrawals of $5,000 over the past eight years.", "There are three appointment book notes: 1-See Sloan (T) about new will; 2-pay Dr. Reznick (P) (crossed out); 3- meet JO'N at 11.", "A note from plant security states that Malcolm Roebuck, a chemist at the plant, broke into the safe in Telcher's office.", "A News Herald (0) is opened to the personal ads. One reads, "$5,000 at 11, in the Parking Lot-JO'N."
	+96	$20 20	Unused	—	—
98 (2)	...	...	...

File "SEEANDDODAT"

This file contains a total of 259 strings, each up to 50 bytes long and padded with null bytes. It is therefore 12,950 bytes in size, although only the first 255 entries are actually used. These describe the actions available at the various locations within the city of Micropolis. They are referenced from the central "INDEX FILE" (via the second through seventh bytes of each 7-byte block).

Position (Index)	Content
0 (1)	"Talk to Vernon Cordwinder, father"
50 (2)	"Talk to Rosie, the cook"
100 (3)	"Talk to Samuel, the son"
150 (4)	"Question Penny Marlowe"
200 (5)	...

Votes

Voting of the C64-Wiki users (10=the best vote):
4.00 points at 1 vote. You need to be logged in to cast a vote.
Lemon 64	7,64	October 2, 2026 - 11 votes
Computer & Video Games	3/10	Issue 44 (June 1985)
Your Commodore	4/5	Issue 8 (May 1985)
Computer Gamer	3/5	Issue 2 (May 1985)
Electronic Fun with Computers & Games	2.5/4	Vol. 2 No. 5 (March 1985)
Micro 7	Présentation 4/6, Originalité 5/6, Graphisme 3/6, Durée de vie 3/6, Qualité/Prix: 4/6	N° 19 (Septembre 1984)

Critics

Stephan64: "Detective-themed computer games aren't my preferred genre, so the main reason I created this article for the C64-Wiki was to preserve Murder by the Dozen for posterity. After all, the program was given a grade of '2' in "Rombachs C64-Spieleführer" (Rombach's C64 Game Guide), yet it’s impossible to play using only the disk images available online — you really need the original printed documentation. Upon closer inspection, however, the game proved to be well-conceived and cleverly programmed; hence, I’m giving it 4 points."

Miscellaneous

Cover

Cover (front of the original packaging)

Back of the original packaging

Video Recording

Short video of the program version for the Apple II

Disc

Floppy disk for the PC version of the game

Accesories

In addition to the instruction manual, the game included two other booklets containing the clues—a total of 700 consecutively numbered witness statements and pieces of evidence related to the individual criminal cases—as well as the solutions. Without this supplementary material — specifically the list of clues — "Murder by the Dozen" cannot be played. Consequently, the manufacturer did not implement any copy protection; even the versions of the game available online today (which are simple copies rather than "cracks") are, on their own, completely unusable.

User manual

List of clues (witness statements and evidence)

Solutions

Furthermore, the game included a tear-off pad of approximately 50 sheets, measuring 204 × 137 mm (slightly smaller than DIN A5). Each sheet featured a map of the city of Micropolis and provided space for taking notes:

Tear-off pad for note-taking during gameplay

Anyone wishing to play the game today can find a printable template (a PDF file containing two forms per DIN A4 sheet) here: File:MurderByTheDozen Formular.pdf.

Theme

The musical accompaniment consists of a single, short sequence of notes, shown below in standard musical notation. For creative reuse, the sheet music for this melody is also available as a PDF document (File:MurderByTheDozen Theme PDF.pdf) and in ABC music notation (File:MurderByTheDozen Theme.abc.txt).

Opening and closing melody, reconstructed by logging all write accesses to the SID.

Easter Egg

The names "ROBERT PEARSON" and "KATHERINE LEWIS" appear in the final entries of the "CLUESET" file, which are not used in the game.

Technical Details

Graphics

For screen display, the program utilizes an unusual variety of video modes. When using high-resolution graphics, the bitmap resides in memory at address $E000, while the corresponding color information is stored in video RAM starting at $C000. In contrast, the text screen—featuring white text on a black background—uses screen memory at address $0400 and a character set starting at $2000.

• The loading screen, which displays the title and copyright notices framed by a magnifying glass over a fingerprint and a pistol, is implemented as a multicolor graphic.
• The selection screen, featuring 12 colorful icons representing the individual criminal cases, uses the monocolor text mode. The icons are invariably monocolor sprites; thanks to raster interrupts, seven of them appear twice on the screen—at raster lines 20 and 159 respectively (sprite multiplexing). Most icons are rendered using a single sprite stretched in both the X and Y directions. Exceptions include the pistol for Case 3 (a sprite stretched only in the X direction) and the illustration for Case 7 (comprising a total of four single-sized sprites).
• This same screen mode is also used to present the case details; the ringing telephone is composed of four monocolored, single-sized sprites.
• Immediately preceding the case backstory, the screen briefly displays five white icons within a white frame against a black background; this element is a full-screen bitmap graphic.
• While the city map is displayed, the program again utilizes raster interrupts: raster lines 4–26 show monocolor text, while the remainder of the screen — from raster line 28 to 199 — displays monocolor graphics.
• Once a player believes they know the solution, a series of white symbols on a black background appears. This section of the screen (raster lines 4–64) is rendered as monocolor graphics, while the rest of the screen (raster lines 55–199) displays monocolor text. Switching between the two modes is handled by an interrupt routine triggered at raster lines 15 and 115.

Highscore

A high score list makes no sense in this game.

Links

• C64Games.de - Game No. 7015 (recommended Download)
• Gamebase64.com - Game No. 5122
• CSDb (all entries; but: side sectors of the relative files not always taken into account)
• Lemon64 - Game No. 3767
• ready64 - Game No. 4778
• Murder by the Dozen at MobyGames

• Universal Videogame List
• PC version of the game

Magazines

• Computer and Video Games test report (p. 100)
• Your Commodore test report (p. 54)
• Computer Gamer test report (pp. 60)
• Computer Gaming World brief introduction (p. 9)
• OMNI Complete Catalog of Computer Software test report (p. 385)
• Electronic Fun with Computers & Games test report (p. 56)
• Micro 7 test report (p. 117)