Katy Andrews

Fig 1. Blood splattered title card - first of more splattering to come.

Jeff Lindsey’s inspired Showtime series DEXTER is an absolute favourite of mine.

For those not familiar with Dexter, he fills his day as a forensic analyst with Miami Police Department, focusing on blood-splatter. In his spare-time, Dexter satisfies his blood-thirsty “Dark Passenger” by performing ritualistic killings of victims who themselves are guilty of murder.

Dexter meticulously orchestrates his kills and leaves no forensic evidence – following the “Code” of his father with a strong focus on remaining un-caught.

I admire the writing, production and actor performances – all of which are subtle, deliberate and significant. Having watched Season One a number of times through, I am intimate with the finer details on which the iPhone game is based.

Narrative is fundamental to Dexter; it is a truly an art to encourage such audience sympathy and compassion while ‘rationalising’ what Dexter does as different from any other psycho killer.

It’s nice to see this intelligent writing carries through to the game – right down to the instructional journal text, revealing Dexter’s macabre internal monologue.

The game narrative also fills in gaps where the television version skips over or isn’t able to show a deeper level of detail to the player in a meaningful way – such as investigating victims homes.

Fig 2. Low-poly girlfriend Rita

Face to face interaction is THE most compelling feature of this game.  As Dexter, you gather vital information to advance the narrative – whether discussing a work-related topic with a colleague or conducting brutal victim interrogation. Conversations can be held in three ways: dark, neutral or light in order to get the answers Dexter is looking for (please see Fig 2.).

The way you conduct these conversations directly influence Dexter’s Mask and Dark Passenger balance -a constantly visible meter indicating Dexter’s psyche. When he loses control of his Dark Passenger and his Mask slips, he’s become no better than the people he hunts.

Balancing these two halves of Dexter is the cleverest mechanic in the game.

Here, as a player, you are able to think like Dexter and embody scenes featured in the television series with gameplay consequences.

I was deeply disappointed with execution of the game, though it is an interest piquing mix of puzzles and abstracted action sequences.
In this delivery of Dexter, the interface and its icons are rough and unpolished.

The journal loosely leverages the thematic I associate with the case files he receives from Camilla, at the Station.

I couldn’t help questioning why I have a picture of myself, shushing myself while holding a knife, in my own journal.

Mission objectives are sadly pre-baked. Highly regimented and fixed, players can reach a victims guilty conclusion by walking around until something happens and tapping the appropriate icon when it appears.

Of the puzzles, lock picking is fairly interestingly implemented – though it is beyond me why the inner workings of the lock are blood splattered.

The largely customisable control scheme does little to prevent clumsy clod-hopping; Dexter runs practically everywhere.

Also, considering the (lack of) stability of the iPhone platform, providing the option to save at any point during the game would have been greatly appreciated.

Some of the full motion videos are quite good. Transitioning gameplay, they leverage a near film-like quality in the story-telling.

The lighting and the animation strike me as very effective; especially the sequence when Dexter is surveying the cling-film cocooned Donovan.

This is nearly always dashed by pregnant load times between the full motion video and gameplay with no indicator of whether the game is hanging in limbo or still loading.

Though some of the voice acting is not original, it doesn’t hurt the game too much – considering the sheer amount of voice-acting on Michael C Hall’s part.

With such seemingly massive production values, this game is a very interesting addition to the Dexter universe and the iPhone platform in the terms of content and execution.

Judging by the quality of some the actor’s 3d models and the closeness of the storyline, the development process was not hindered by Showtime or other property owners – if it was, it is not apparent and I applaud the game’s producers.

I do hope there is a console / pc release to be had in the future as this offering barely whet my whistle.