Common Sense Media Review
By Paul Semel
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Good but grisly murder puzzles require cash or patience.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 13+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Download
Videos and Photos
Criminal Case
Privacy Rating Warning
Privacy Rating
Our expert evaluators create our privacy ratings. The ratings are designed to help you understand how apps use your data for commercial purposes.
Pass
Meets our minimum requirements for privacy and security practices.
Warning
Does not meet our recommendations for privacy and security practices.
Fail
Does not have a privacy policy and should not be used.
Privacy Rating
Our expert evaluators create our privacy ratings. The ratings are designed to help you understand how apps use your data for commercial purposes.
Pass
Meets our minimum requirements for privacy and security practices.
Warning
Does not meet our recommendations for privacy and security practices.
Fail
Does not have a privacy policy and should not be used.
What's It About?
CRIMINAL CASE has you, as a detective, solving a series of mysterious murders. After locating clues at the crime scene, you have to examine the autopsy report and the forensic evidence, as well as speak to witnesses and potential suspects, so you can eventually make an educated guess about who the killer is. The quicker you solve the puzzles, the better. Though this does play like a puzzling episode of CSI, there are twists and turns in each case, so you shouldn't accuse the first shifty-eyed person you come across.
Is It Any Good?
For all its simplicity, Criminal Case is rather engrossing and addictive. The individual puzzles, such as the ones where you have to locate objects in the world, are simple but challenging enough to hold your interest; that's good, since you'll have to do them multiple times to get enough stars so you can examine the evidence. Thankfully, the objects you have to find do change every time you redo a puzzle. However, the game requires either cash or lots of patience: Unless you're willing to wait until the autopsy has been completed (which takes 20 minutes), or you have enough energy to redo a puzzle (which takes 40 minutes), you have to spend real money to complete each mystery. Still, with dozens of murders to solve, this will keep a would-be Sherlock Holmes occupied for days.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about in-app purchases ahead of time to avoid conflict once the game is downloaded.
Discuss our criminal justice system and the realism of the game. What's realistic and unrealistic about the cases?
Talk about being observant. How good were you at finding objects? What could you do to be more observant?
App Details
- Devices : iPhone , iPod Touch , iPad , Android , Kindle Fire , Windows app
- Pricing structure : Free
- Release date : June 25, 2015
- Genre : Puzzle Games
- Publisher : Pretty Simple
- Version : 1.5.2
- Minimum software requirements : iOS 6.0 or later; Android 4.0 and up
- Last updated : August 15, 2021
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