Cruise for a Corpse is a fun murder mystery that is long on presentation but short on gameplay.
The plot is heavily inspired by Agatha Christie's Murder on The Nile: the game takes us France, 1927, where aboard the luxury liner 'Karaboudjan III' the ship's owner, Niklos Karaboudjan, is found dead by his butler. Following the best murder-mystery tradition that a policeman or detective is always by chance on board, Inspector Raoul Dusentier is amongst the passengers. But before he can scrutinize the crime scene, some unknown figure knocks him out from behind and the corpse is removed.
At 8 am the following morning Raoul wakes up groggily in Niklos' cabin, and it is up to you to control his actions as he examines everything and everybody on the ship in the hope of solving the mystery. Cruise For A Corpse has a standard graphic-adventure interface that was improved from James Bond: The Stealth Affair and allows for more precise interaction with objects: clicking on objects brings up a menu of possible actions associated with the object, usually "examine" and "take." There is a very handy map which can be used to "warp" to any location instantly-- a great boon to anyone who had to use reams of mapping paper to finish the game (another great boon is that there is no pointless maze in this game). You can ask other characters about about their alibies, what you have heard from other passengers, and what you discover on board. Whenever you have made a useful discovery, the game clock progresses by ten minutes (similar to Sierra's Colonel's Bequest). The game ends at 6 pm, which means that you must make sixty 'discoveries' in order to solve the mystery.Delphine's "cinematique" animation system is much improved from previous games, with very impressive results. Characters move realistically, and the action unfolds in innovative camera angles (walking on the ship's deck, for instance) that rival feature films. Gameplay, however, is flawed: there are too many objects to examine and interact with - sometimes appearing only after a certain time -as well as doors that are locked or unlocked at different times, etc. Worse yet, the game suffers from a severe pixel-hunting problem, as some objects you need to take are very small and difficult to distinguish from background graphics. This means that you will likely have to scour the same areas doing the same things over and over, hunting for those precious pixels to advance the plot. For all its frustrations, Cruise for A Corpse is still an enjoyable mystery, mostly due to its great atmosphere and interesting plot. If it weren't for extreme pixel-hunting, some bugs, and absurd writing (it was translated from French), it would be a truly great game.
Review By HOTUD
English 
French 
Comments and reviews
A very good adventure game. Quite a gem if you consider the time it was released. If you consider a true experience with the game, you should try Amiga version that contains more sound effects and music is way better (however for all the enhancements more Fast Ram is required).
This is actually an awful game.
The illogical puzzles and tedious pixel-hunting are par for the course in this genre, so nothing to blame there.
Problem is, the game consists in you going around the ship over and over again in order to find what has changed in the last ten minutes. Items that weren't there will pop up at some room with no clue. Drawers and pots you have already searched to no avail will suddently have something useful inside at a certain time, and again no clue about it. Passangers will become available at certain times for the shake of it. Then you need to repeat the same conversations all over again to get the extra line of information then speak with everyone again with the new line (which works for a few times, but not dozens and dozens of times doing the same all over again).
but the fact that each time the clock advances you have to walk all over all the place again to check if something has changed, search things you have already checked (and there is a LOT of pointless things to examine), and sometimes you have to travel through one particular place to another to trigger events - when you have been given a map to teleport from place to place, thus have no reason to be actually walking though... makes this game very tedious to complete.
The worst part is when event triggers by you moving from one place to another by walking... when the game gives you a map to teleport from place to place, so walking around the ship is totally counter-intuitive.
The plot is somewhat interesting, but at the end it's all red herrings, and the final plot twist is just an ass-pull that has nothing to do with the backstory you have been unveiling.
So, in the end, this game is only worth of being played by just following a walkthrough to enjoy the story, if you like mystery tales that end with an ass-pulled surprise ending.
I've played this game first on Amiga 500 then Windows XP after many years. It's a perfect game like North & South.
By the way you can see the murderer in the third photo :) This is final scene of the game
any plans for a new version /sequel i.e for Nintendo switch in 2021?
movie/?
The amiga versions seem to give too good reviews.But,personally having played over 100 dos games,i feel the controls are glitchy.And,it seems to be overrated for dos version(to me atleast!)
Too much info fitting in small area can make things extremely frustrating to search things ,which takes away the pleasure value.The map navigation also shoulr have been better ,say using enter once you select a location.You have to take your cursor back to exit button after selecting a particular location to go there.
All in all, the name is excellent but you will never the ' corpse ' you see in the begining .Play to find out why !
For those of you who don't know, this game runs on SCUMMVM.
I had a bad taste in my mouth for french adventure games after playing the crap pile that is 'fascination'. I thought this would be a poorly thought out mystery game with a bad UI, but I was COMPLETELY WRONG. The graphics and animation are fantastic for this time and the UI is sparse and out of the way (it's basically all white text suspended in mid air), which is great for Point - and - clicks. The writing is also very sophisticated, but not so much that the game sounds corny.
I suggest every adventure gaming fan to play this game.
Du grand Delphine !
Croisirère pour un Cadavre est définitivement un chef d'oeuvre !
Thanx
Wanted this game for years - thanks for putting it up!
No comment nor review for this game at the moment.