For those unfamiliar with the original novel, And Then There Were None is the story of eight people (plus a butler and housekeeper) who are invited by a mysterious Mr. Owen to an isolated mansion on Shipwreck Island for a weekend getaway. Events soon take a darker turn after the first night's dinner when a gramophone record played by the butler unleashes a voice accusing all 10 people of having committed murder, even going so far as to list the names and dates of these crimes. Although all ten people protest their innocence, one of them then chokes on his liquor and dies. It seems that their unseen host has decided to exact his own brand of justice by killing them all one by one in accordance with a strange nursery rhyme called "Ten Little Sailor Boys…" (originally "Ten Little Indians") posted above the fireplace.
As more and more of the guests drop dead, those left alive realize that the unseen Mr. Owen means to make good on his threat. More than that, though, since there's no place on the tiny island for him to hide, one of them must be the killer. What follows is a suspenseful tale as the island's shrinking population struggle to find answers about why they've been targeted and which of the ten dinner guests is, in fact, a homicidal maniac.
Such excellent source material would seem to be tailor-made for an excellent classic point-and-click adventure game, which, after all, are usually dialogue and plot driven and don't need a lot of action. To their credit, Awe games seems to have given it the old college try. They adapted the novel to a game format by giving the player control of a brand new eleventh character, Patrick Naracott, the brother of the novel's ferry boat pilot. He does have some connections with one of the ten victims, which explains his presence on the island, but he's essentially an outside observer and an amateur sleuth trying to piece together this mystery before everyone on the island ends up dead.
The player's immersion into the world is helped immensely by the game's setting. The care with which Awe Games recreated the world of Christie's novel is obvious in every scene. The mansion where much of the action takes place is simply gorgeous; chock full of Art Deco designs and clever little touches that do a brilliant job of evoking the essence of the period. The exterior scenes are equally beautiful, filled with lonely beaches pounded by the surf, cloudy overcast skies, and mysterious, windswept heaths that evoke a powerful sense of isolation and the feeling of being trapped.
The beauty of the game's static scenery, though, is contrasted by the unbelievable ugliness of the game's characters. The 3D models used for Mr. Owen's unfortunate guests are crude and simplistic, with silly, sausage-like fingers, hair that looks like blocks of wood, lousy animation, poor lip-synching, and bland faces with barely any facial expression. This is especially problematic in this game, more so than it might be in an action title. And Then There Were None relies on the viewer understanding and sympathizing with these characters and the mortal terror of being stalked by a madman. The game's characters are so crude, though, that one might as well ask the viewer to be sympathetic to a group of department store mannequins.