Midnight Mysteries: Devil on the Mississippi is the latest Midnight Mysteries title to be released. It's a hidden object adventure title that looks at famous historical authors and uses their literature and their real lives, along with some literary license, to craft a mystery around their life and death. Devil on the Mississippi uses Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens), William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe as its inspiration. The game is a lot of fun, although not quite reaching the stellar caliber that Midnight Mysteries: Salem Witch Trials did.
The story begins with Mark Twain, who goes by Samuel Clemens almost the entire game, since this isn't about his pen name, but his real life, appearing to the player and asking for help. He's being chased by some evil presence. After serving Mr. Clemens some tea, we are whisked off to a world inhabited only by ghosts, some who were real and some who were fictional creations. The story really revolves around Clemens' claim that Shakespeare did not write his own works, and of course, there's some deals with the devil involved in the whole conspiracy. However, the entire game does not take place on the Mississippi, as the title might mislead players to believe. Instead, in addition to looking around Clemens' own life, we travel back to Shakespeare's life as well, searching for proof that Shakespeare did not write the plays he's credited with. There is a lot of truth and fact dispersed among the game, but it's so mixed up with the fictional bits, it can be hard to determine what is true and what isn't. For example, Samuel Clemens did, in fact, outlive most of his family. But one of his daughters was still alive when he succumbed, surviving him by more than fifty years.
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