The Flower Collectors is a murder mystery set in 1977 Barcelona, Spain that feels like it could be inspired by the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock movie, Rear Window.  You see, you play as wheelchair-bound ex-cop Jorge, who witnesses a murder one dark and stormy night.

I started the 20-minute demo reminiscing about Jorge’s past for the purposes of some good, ol’ exposition.  After that, we retrieve our trusty binoculars and sketchpad and settle in for a relaxing afternoon spent spying on our anthropomorphic neighbors, such as the owl priest, the dog singer Lola, and an old lady that might be a turtle?  (In case you’re curious, Jorge himself is a bear.)  After I stumbled my way through this portion of the game, I was asked to match up Jorge’s sketches with their theme, a pretty simple task, after which night falls and the expected murder takes place outside Jorge’s apartment and a mysterious cat lady appears at his door….

Although the demo isn’t very long, I’ll admit that I was often confused about what I was supposed to do, whether I was randomly poking around at items in Jorge’s apartment until the obligatory reminiscing was complete or aimlessly pointing my binoculars at different people until Jorge had the correct sketches.  If the gameplay present in the demo is an accurate representation of what the rest of the game will be like, I can only imagine how confusing and frustrating the remainder of the experience will be.

After I read a few reviews from people who had played the full game, I was more certain that The Flower Collectors was probably not for me.  The gameplay sounds rather repetitive, as you apparently stay in your apartment the whole time and spend each day looking at things with your binoculars and putting clues together.  The game also seems to get too much into politics, a topic I have no interest in.

The Flower Collectors is available on Switch and PC for $19.99, a rather steep price for 4 hours of gameplay, even if the story might have several different paths.  If you’re a fan of mysteries, then I’d much sooner recommend Jenny LeClue: Detectivu, which is available on all platforms for $19.99-24.99, though I got it on sale for much less.  Aside from an abrupt ending, Jenny LeClue was a pretty fun little adventure with a good sense of humor.