Captain Lighthouse's Museum Mystery

Captain Lighthouse is a Nova Scotian superhero who fights pollution and tells Nova Scotian kids about the virtues of reading local newspapers. He is a multimedia figure for our times, appearing variously in his own comic book, in the form of a huge inflatable doll, and in this adventure game, Captain Lighthouse's Museum Mystery. The interview I read with the captain on his website painted a portrait of a well-meaning but verbose and kind of dull guy, which, excepting the verbosity, is also how I would describe this game.

Playing the good captain, you are called to the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic in Lunenberg, where some villain has stolen the plans for the Bluenose, a historic fishing schooner. Handily, all five suspects are standing around in the next room. Your job is to identify the guilty party – not by such exciting means as using ESP or asking questions about the crime itself, but by submitting the suspects to a comprehension test. And in truth, the party being subjected to the comprehension test is yourself, because you have to read the fact sheet about the Bluefin before you can grill the bad guys to find out which one of them knows the least about this jewel of history. For surely that ignoramus is the committer of the crime!

The bad guys have cute names like Kaiser von Thefz, and the game's atmosphere, buoyed by the presence of photoshopped portraits of characters and a few simple pieces of music, is generally one of endearment. But in the end, you're a superhero who displays no evidence of having superpowers, does not get to use any superpowers, and instead administers a comprehension test. I confess I wanted more from the character who earned local rag SouthshoreNow the Best In-house Promotion Award from the Canadian Community Newspapers Association.

(Also, the villain's identity does not change from one game to the next.)