If you have ever thought "I would rather die than hop on one more Zoom call" then Who Pressed Mute On Uncle Marcus? is calling your bluff. In this FMV game, ‘pressed mute’ is a little more serious than just some technical issues. In fact, the titular Uncle Marcus has been poisoned and, with what little time he has left, he's asking you, his favorite niece Abby, to help him figure out who did it during a virtual family game night.
Luckily, Uncle Marcus has narrowed down the list of suspects to the six members of his family he was meeting with during the window in which he must have been poisoned. Abby is the only member of the family who was absent, and the only one he trusts. As such, he wants you to investigate your family members to find out who did it. It could be your domineering and sanctimonious mother Felicity, your drunk and catty aunt June, your kindly grandmother Nan, your holier-than-thou globetrotting volunteer cousin Toby, his death-obsessed teenage brother Bradley, or your shallow influencer sister Lottie. If you can pinpoint the killer and find out what kind of poison they used, Uncle Marcus may have a fighting chance.
To do this, you need to uncover what each of your family members was up to on the night Marcus was poisoned. Conveniently, each round of the quiz begins with family members pairing off to answer another player's questions together, so you have an excuse for one-one-one time with each of the suspects. During these chats, it's unlikely that they'll reveal much about themselves, but they will absolutely dish about any strange behavior they witnessed from other relatives. As evidence is revealed, it's added to a menu screen that you can check at any time. Collect enough on one family member and you can accuse them of the poisoning at the end of the game.
FMV games live or die on the strength of their actors' performances, and Who Pressed Mute On Uncle Marcus? is anchored by Andy Buckley, who The Office fans will recognize from his recurring role as Michael Scott's boss David Wallace. Buckley has a condensed arc to play here, quickly establishing an easy rapport with Abigail Hardinham's Abby, before having to play the violent physical effects as the poison takes hold. Buckley fully commits as does Hardinham. I bought that he was dying, and I also believed that she was doing her best to prevent the untimely demise of her favorite uncle.
The family members outside of this core duo fall more into the realm of archetype. There are twists and subversions to discover as you follow each characters' story to its conclusion, but still, we're working with tropes more than three-dimensional characters. For what the game is doing, though, that's perfectly fine. We don't have much time with any of the characters and Who Pressed Mute On Uncle Marcus? needs to quickly get us to understand the broad strokes of each character, and their relationship to their family members. Through a combination of sharp writing, costuming shorthand, and deft performances, we do.
Who Pressed Mute On Uncle Marcus? is quite short and intended for multiple playthroughs. After you roll credits once, you may only have enough evidence to accuse one family member. Maybe you won’t even have that. So, you retain clues from playthrough to playthrough. However, figuring out which family members to pursue (and remembering which ones you've already questioned at a given stage in the evening) is challenging and the game doesn't give you much help. I've rolled credits five times at this point, and am planning to play more. But the game could be much more helpful in tracking the leads that you've already pursued. I've started keeping notes on my phone so I don't play the same paths again. Even then, the outcomes of each conversation seem a bit arbitrary, so it can be tough to figure out which answer you should pick; when to press your partner and when to be deferential.
Still, Who Pressed Mute On Uncle Marcus? is an enjoyable and sometimes funny yarn, with a strong script, solid performances, and an intriguing central mystery. It doesn't push the FMV genre forward in any meaningful ways like Sam Barlow's Her Story and Telling Lies did, and it could use a better log to keep track of which lines of questioning you've already pursued. But, it's an enjoyable genre exercise that takes a dull experience we're all familiar with after two years of a pandemic, and somehow makes it fun again.
Score: 4/5. A review copy was provided by Wales Interactive for the purpose of this review.