For fans of Showtime's Emmy-award winning Dexter TV show, there's no need for an introduction to this mystery adventure game. But if you're not as familiar with the show, once you get your hands on the game, you just might become a fan.

Dexter for the iPhone is more than what it appears, pushing the technical capabilities of the iPhone with an impressive amount of content details and textures for the device, beyond many of the iPhone game available now.  Developed by Icarus, and published by Marc Ecko Games, the game follows the plot of Season 1. Timothy Schlattmann, one of the main creative writers for some of the Dexter TV show episodes, oversaw the game, to not only ensure story and lore accuracy, but to also create additional content. The game follows the first season of Dexter, and allows players to further explore the character of Dexter, a serial killer of serial killers, and his meticulous planning.

The game stars the talent of Michael C. Hall, the lead actor in the TV show who plays the protagonist, Dexter Morgan. He's an LAPD blood splatter analyst by day, and doubles as a serial killer by night to execute justice on other serial killers. The gameplay is largely mini-game based , with activities such as digging, blood splatter analysis, crytography soduku, and other styles of mini-games comprising a large chunk of the gameplay.


Dexter starts off with a cut scene of our titular vigilante hero in the car searching for evidence left behind by the mysterious serial killer he's hunting down. While he's driving, he gives a quick introduction to the Code of Harry, a series of rules and codes of how to avoid being caught as a serial killer. The Code is named after the man who passed the rules onto Dexter, his father, where rule number one is, don't get caught.

Icarus took great care to provide the player with options throughout the game that cater to both the novice and the experienced gamer. Controls, for example, offer both a joystick style movement, as well as use of the accelerometer tilt movement. Players can use the up and down buttons situated on the bottom left and right corners of the screen for moving forward and backwards, while tilting the iPhone for camera control. Or choose to change up the controls to a toggle control where all movement and camera is on-screen touch control only. Additionally, players can choose between playing in first or third person perspectives, where first person view is effective when wanting to see a little more detail when exploring.

We met up with Chris Mifsud, the lead game designer at Icarus at E3 who tells us more about the story and gameplay. In maintaining the lore and authenticity, Mifsud tells us the game takes scenes directly from the show, and viewers will instantly recognize many of these areas. One of the areas we saw was the season opener pink apartment complex where the first of a series of "ice truck" murders was discovered. A training mission is also available that introduces movement, controls, action, and stealth. The missions is actually a mini prequel leading to the start of the first episode.

An important aspect of Dexter's personality is the emptiness he feels inside that requires him to wear an outward emotional mask, when confronting people. Sometimes it's light hearted, comedic and charming, and other times, it is dark and malevolent. Like Dexter, the game utilizes a "masking" system for dialogue and interaction. Dexter has a mask gauge that maintains the serial killer balance as he progresses through his missions, and has a light and dark scale. One situation where the mask is affected is through dialogue with various characters. If Dexter talks aggressively to a person, his mask gets darker to reveal his true intentions, so in certain cases, he might want to speak nicer to trick people into believing something else. There are three options in every conversation: light, grey, and dark, which present new intricacies in character dialogue and navigating conversation. Quite impressive for an iPhone game, as we've seen this type of branching dialogue recently in console RPGs like Mass Effect or Fallout 3.

Dexter must also set up a killroom for each of his serial murders. Here he must layout his table and his victim's deceased victims. In each area, for each victim, he searches out a different location for a kill room. The room must be secure, quiet, and is generally relative in location and meaning to the killer. Within the room, he has the opportunity to repair or fix his mask, and cover up traces of what he has done. There are lots of details to be aware of as he lays out evidence of his victim's kills for the LAPD to discover. Breaches in the plastic draped along the walls of the killroom will affect his mask, and lower its strength. Therefore he must check around to repair any tears or holes.

Mifsu comments that Icarus has really pushed the graphics capabilities as much as possible to see what it can take. "We took the MMO engine form the Icarus studio for Fallen Earth, and used that in the game," said Mifsu. And the engine definitely shows with the incredible amount of content and texture details seen as we played the game. Episode 1 is 6-10 hours, with four episodes in the works, totalling 16-20 hours gameplay, so we're expecting some paid DLC from this.

Dexter the Game for the iPhone seems to be a great one to look forward to with all its intrigue, details, depth, and richness, particularly running at a smooth 30 FPS on the iPhone.