Jessica Fletcher is an elderly novelist who writes crime mystery books and solves cases in her spare time, using her powers of observation to investigate and uncover the truth.
As Jessica, the player has to search several locations for all the items listed at the left side of the screen. The entries are incomplete, but their missing letters can be found scattered through the scenery as typewriter keys and collected to fill the gaps. A few of the entries are instructions instead of objects names, describing an action that has to be performed. Some of the scene objects can be dragged and dropped to complete a required action. Some entries are marked blue to indicate that the item can only be retrieved after completing an extra step.
Mini-games appear from time to time on a separate screen, with logic puzzles where the player has to chronologically organize a series of clue notes, find the correct owners of several buoys by analyzing statements and examining the color strips, pick up a singular figure in a grid filled with similar pictures and complete other similar challenges. They can be skipped, incurring a thirty minutes penalty. The hint button is Jessica's typewriter sitting below the list, that shows the position of one of the required items when activated. Extra hints can be found on the scenes as ink ribbons for the machine.
