Killer Frequency — a puzzle-filled murder mystery, and you’re the radio host turned 911 operator
Killer Frequency is a horror-comedy puzzle game from Team17 Digital where you play as Forrest Nash, starting another night at his new radio host job in the small town of Gallows Creek. Things quickly turn dire as circumstances suddenly thrust you into the role of the town’s only 911 operator while a killer is on the loose. Can you save everyone?
I personally, could not. I saved most people, but several did slip through the cracks whether from human error, or poor design on the game’s part. The puzzles are mostly fair and challenging, and I could admit most character’s deaths were my own mistakes.
However, the game does make the mistake of having timed responses that hover in a designated dialogue box; sometimes you’re looking at important information in front of you, and you have no way of knowing that a timed prompt as appeared. The game doesn’t have any indication that a timed prompt has appeared, which I think could be considered a poor gameplay choice, even if intentional. Everything else about the puzzles are well-crafted and fair, while this is simply frustrating; luckily, once it happens once, you immediately become more attentive to not allow it to happen again. Of course, that doesn’t undo the death of that character.
Other than that design flaw, I found this game fun, challenging, as well as having a story that keeps you guessing. The art design is gorgeous, thick black borders around each object almost giving it a comic book feel, everything around you simply feeling “cool.” The graphics are clearly not very demanding, but I personally did have an issue when having my character walk around; I experienced a lot of stuttering. For reference, I have 3070 RTX and 32GB RAM and had the game set to the highest graphics and unlimited frame rate. Everything else ran smoothly except for this one issue. I have a feeling this may have just been a fairly isolated incident for myself, though.
Even so, it did not hinder the experience, and I was enjoying myself for a little over 4 hours, my love for puzzles fully satiated, and a murder mystery unraveling right before me.
The game is tagged as “horror” on steam, but if it actually were, there’s a slim chance I would have played it. The game has a couple small jump scares, but otherwise allows you to solve puzzles, connect the mystery, and explore the station without anxiety.
The comedy part of the “horror-comedy” that the game boasts is much more present. Small gags throughout, silly ads on cassette for you to play, and some funny dialogue among characters. The dialogue isn’t award-winning writing or anything, but still at a level that keeps you engaged and attached to a lot of the characters. Peggy Weaver is your producer behind the glass that’s assisting you throughout as well as maintaining conversation and someone you quickly get attached to. Faceless callers become people you want to protect just from a conversation. The dialogue does its job in padding out the story and characters and making the game a worthwhile endeavor.
I really enjoyed this game and even immediately started a replay to attempt to save all of the characters now that I know what mistakes I made — you usually immediately realize your mistake which makes it that much more painful. The small details of not being trapped behind your radio booth the whole time, the radio booth having a lot of interactables — the paper balls and basketball hoop across the room were my favorite — and clues being strewn throughout the station take the game to another level.
The game is well-crafted, puzzle and murder mystery fun, and I can’t recommend it enough. It gets 5 out of 5 stars from me.
Can be found on PC and all consoles.
