Campaign Ends: April 28
Platform: Windows and macOS.
Singapore, 2032; the glimmering, neon-lit city remains one of the few bastions of order in a world on the edge of collapse. Step into the shoes of Amira Darma, a private investigator with an office situated in Chinatown. Build up your business, track down criminals, and uncover a world-spanning conspiracy in Chinatown Detective Agency, a cyberpunk point-and-click adventure and love letter to the classic Carmen Sandiego games.
The game opens as you welcome the first of many clients; your old mentor, in this case. As your business grows, you’ll need to be careful whose proposals to accept, as assisting certain morally-suspect individuals may result in the city descending further into chaos. Cases will have you travelling all over the world, including Toronto; as a Canadian living nearby, I am certainly looking forward to seeing what 2032 holds in store! Meanwhile, you’ll need to do some real-world research in order to solve many of the puzzles in the game, including brushing up on geography, history, and codebreaking skills. Thankfully, the majority of the main quests can be completed without any outside help, though sidequests will be a bit more challenging.
Time and resource management play an important role in your investigations. You’ll need to replenish your endurance by taking breaks from work and making sure to eat; a low endurance score will increase the time it takes you to complete more important tasks, wasting precious hours of your day. The food choices themselves are sure to please lovers of Asian cuisine, and feature a wide selection of dishes unique to Singapore. Make sure you don’t eat away all your money though! Finally, you’ll need to maintain the detective agency itself by paying the bills (yuck) and hiring various staff, including helpful research assistants.
Overall, Chinatown Detective Agency definitely has me intrigued. Graphics-wise, I’m loving the dazzling, neon-infused cityscapes and the beautiful hand painted character portraits. Meanwhile, the various management systems and research-heavy sidequests promise to add more depth to the core point-and-click gameplay. I highly recommend keeping an eye on this game if you’re in the mood for a unique and even educational cyberpunk adventure.
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