Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove

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Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove
Developer: Big Fish Games Studios Publisher: Big Fish Games Platform: Windows Released in US: November 25, 2009 (Collector’s Edition), December 11, 2009 (Standard Edition) This game has unused graphics. This game has unused sounds. This game has unused text.

Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove is the sixth in the series. This time around, the Master Detective makes an emergency stop at the deserted village of Dire Grove during a (rather severe) snowstorm, discovers that four students are missing there, and decides to search for them.

This game is remarkable for being the very first Hidden-Object game to have a Collector's Edition, a now commonplace trait for games like this, along its complete refusal to run on anything past Windows 10.

Unused Text

In Callout.xml, the file that contains all of the Master Detective's lines, includes some test messages regarding the game's various attitudes the Detective's responses can be set to.

<Test>This is just a test string</Test>
 <TieredTest>
 <Normal>This is a normal tiered response</Normal>
 <Normal>This is another normal tiered response</Normal>
 <Normal>Yet another normal tiered response</Normal>
 <Motivational>This is a motivational tiered response</Motivational>
 <Snarky>What kind of click would you call that?</Snarky>
</TieredTest>

There's also test responses for trying to use an incorrect item on an object.

<TestWrongItem>
 <Normal>A custom TestTool wrong item response</Normal>
 <Normal>A second TestTool wrong item response</Normal>
</TestWrongItem>

Unused Sounds

Hint.mp3

This sound was played when using a hint in previous MCF games, such as Return to Ravenhearst. Since Dire Grove uses a new sound for this, it's most likely just leftover from that game.

Unused Graphics

A temporary room graphic, most likely as a warning to developers if a location was broken during development.