Small Town Murders is a free-to-play Match-Three Game by Finnish video game developer Rovio Entertainment. Your main character is Nora Mistry, who is a writer who becomes a consultant for the Police Department and investigates murders.
As in most Match Three Games, you get special items for matching more than three items at once:
- Paper planes, which you get by matching four items in a square. When launched, they clear the top, bottom, left and right tiles and another tile which is the objective of the level or an obstacle.
- Rockets, which you get by matching four items in a row. When used in a match, they clear an entire horizontal or vertical line of tiles (their direction tells you whether it will clear a horizontal or vertical line).
- Bombs, which you get by matching two three-item matches in a cross-shape (T-shape or L-shape) pattern. When used, they explode in a circular area.
- Disco balls, which you get by matching five items in a row. When used, they destroy all items of the color of your choice (or a random color if tapped twice).
Other special items include hammers (which destroy a single tile), mallets (which destroy an entire row and column), and gloves (which swap two items without launching special items).
This game provides examples of:
- Alternate Timeline: In case 6, Nora wishes the case never happened. The Monkey Paw grants the wish and makes the cause of death of Tyler Barnes the same for his three brothers.
- Always Murder: While thefts, raids, kidnappings, illegal drug/animal trafficking, and other crimes are sometimes involved, the main meat of each chapter is always to solve a murder.
- Cast of Expies: Several from Criminal Case.
- Nora Mistry has a similar personality to that of Amy Young and Gwen Harper, and is a redhead like the latter.
- Mike Shanahan for David Jones.
- Sal Manzanella for Tony Marconi, who was based on Joe Pesci.
- Salty Pete for Herman Cavendish.
- Zoe Maurice for Ruby Rees (only in physical appearance).
- Winnifred Wayward for Agnes Leek (the former isn't as grumpy as the latter), who was based on the witch from Brave.
- Esme Wayward for Morgana Blackhawk.
- Luna Wayward for Belinda.
- Tyler Parks for Bobby Prince.
- Company Cross References: The Angry Birds make several cameos.
- Everyone Went to School Together: Mike and the Higgins twins, as well as Sofia Ramirez. Also Nora and Mike met each other in a camp, with coroner Bob as a counselor.
- Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: Played with. Sometimes, the conveyor belts are useful for moving items along a path to where you want them to be. Other times, they can move certain items away from each other and prevent you from making a combo.
- Infinity -1 Sword: The combos. Note that certain order levels require you to make a certain number of these combos to pass.
- Paper plane + Paper plane clears vertically, horizontally, and diagonally adjacent tiles and launches 3 paper planes.
- Paper plane + Rocket/Bomb will launch a plane that will act as a rocket or a bomb where it lands.
- Rocket + Rocket will launch rockets vertically and horizontally regardless of the directions the rockets point.
- Rocket + Bomb combo launches 3 rockets vertically and horizontally on each side.
- Bomb + Bomb creates a bigger explosion than just one bomb.
- Disco Ball + Plane/Rocket/Bomb will convert all the items of one color to planes/rockets/bombs and activate them.
- And the ultimate of all combos: Disco Ball + Disco Ball affects the entire board, clearing items and doing 1 point of damage to obstacles (it's ineffective against red ropes, however).
- Match-Three Game: It is based on Bejeweled, after all.
- Puzzle Game: Of the "Match Three" variety.
- Schizophrenic Difficulty: Some levels will be flagged as "Hard level" or "Super Hard Level".
- Stuff Blowing Up: Bombs, TNT crates, and falling explosives.
