The Red Pearls of Borneo: design ruminations

Borneo, 1941: rich white Brits run the show for tobacco, pearls and the opium trade, while World War Two creeps up around the edges. Who is sneaking onto the Goodwill plantation and why? The Red Pearls of Borneo (Bushmonkey Games) is an interesting take on the deductionizer format. It's patterned after Type Help; your challenge is to figure out which people were where and when. But it adds a layer of search mechanics to the logic. I don't think it's entirely successful, but it's an instructive try. The new gimmick is that you have to identify people by name (first and last) before you can start placing them in scenes. But you can only use a name after you've heard it in a scene already found. This is unlike Golden Idol, where you have to collect the words but they're all lying around the scene free for the taking. In Red Pearls the names are a gating mechanic. To soften this, the game lets you track objects as well as people. You have to associate the object with its owner. Then it…