One Plus Two Plus Two Plus One

I'm utterly addicted to Sleuth: Shades of Mystery, the first new webgame to have caught my attention in quite some time. The fact that it's all randomly generated (and therefore completely arbitrary) doesn't matter in the slightest; it still sets the right creepy mood and provides extended replay value with all the things it's possible to do in the city.

If you play long enough, too, crazy and unexpected things happen--you can encounter crime factions that carry over from case to case, you can find documents that pertain to unique scripted cases to be solved separately, you can unlock new characters to help you in your investigations, and you can be in the middle of solving a case only to have a key suspect turn up dead. And the random engine adds moments of unintentional humor; earlier one of my murder victims had a wife and two male lovers, none of whom expressed any jealousy over the others (their potential motives all had to do with stolen jewels or something). It's wild and fascinating and the only thing keeping me from spending all day and night playing it is the thirty-case daily limit. (And I paid for the upgrade; only the first six are free.)

What, you thought I was going to be talking about Garfield Minus Garfield?