Mystery Case Files: 13th Skull is the seventh installment of the Mystery Case Files franchise and had its first release on November 25, 2010, as a Collector's Edition. It follows the disappearance of Marcus Lawson after moving into a creepy mansion in Louisiana. His daughter, Magnolia, believes her father was kidnapped by the ghost of a vengeful pirate seeking to protect his lost fortune.
Overview[]
The seventh installment in the MCF games does not directly follow the Ravenhearst story arc. It revolves around the Master Detective's investigations on a missing man in Louisiana.
Plot[]
A man named Marcus Joel Lawson, who had recently moved to a large manor in Louisiana with his family, is telling a story to his daughter Magnolia about the legend of a ghost pirate named Phineas Crown before he is suddenly pulled out of the room by an ominous light. The detective goes to Louisiana in search of Marcus, believed by Magnolia to have been kidnapped.
After meeting Sara, Marcus's wife, the detective searches for clues within the manor and in town. After discovering a with identities of people who look exactly like Marcus and Sara Lawson inside a cabin owned by an unkind stranger in a nearby swamp, she learns from a town resident that Marcus and Sara are really Dennis and Alice Blanston and that they are wanted criminals who had been manipulating the detective to discover and unlock the hiding place of the treasure of Crown. It turns out Dennis was never kidnapped but disguised as the mysterious stranger in the cabin. Magnolia was also in it. After confronting them at the swamp, Dennis forces the detective at gunpoint to find all 13 skulls of Crown's crew, which will unlock the way to Crown's fortune.
In the end, after finding all the skulls, Dennis decides to shoot the detective anyway but before he can, the Blanston family drowns as they are attacked by Crown's ghost. The reason as to why the detective was spared from death is unconfirmed so far.
In the Bonus Content, the detective, after witnessing the death of the Blanston family, moves on to discover that there really is a stash of treasure hidden inside Crown's pirate ship. The detective uses the skulls of Crown's 13 crew members (whom he allegedly betrayed) to bring them temporarily to life and attack his ghost. Following Crown's death, the detective wakes up to find the Blanston's housekeepers observing her.
Gameplay[]
As the player goes through the game, the point-and-click feature still appears, and the hidden-object scenes as well. One interesting feature is that the player can "talk" to people in the game by clicking options.
Other things worth noting are that the Crime Computer is gone now, replaced with just a bar with HINT written on it, which loads relatively fast. Also, the player needs to complete objectives before other characters in the game can talk to the detective to progress in the story.
Gallery[]
