Chinatown Detective Agency is a cyberpunk-style graphic adventure with a pixel art aesthetic that changes the imprint of the genre. We play it on PC and tell you everything.
In 1985 the company Broderbund Software released a video game called Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, without the slightest idea that he would become a resounding success for his proposal. In the title, we took on the role of a policeman who should catch a notorious thief before it’s too late. In order to achieve success, we had clues that indicated to which other part of the world the criminal on duty had traveled. For this, he used a lot of geographical and cultural data from each country, although, what was most remembered, was meeting one of the characters to be questioned and having him tell you the colors of the flag of the plane in which they saw him. If you know all the flags of the world, one had to go to encyclopedias, doing what is called real-time research. Chinatown Detective Agency proposes something very similar. We play it on PC and we tell you everything in detail, in this review.
Love for the classics.
In those years, without internet, There was only software called PC Globe, an encyclopedia that was updated with each new version, which would later be replaced by the better known and more complete Encarta. We could have the program open on our computer, but at that time we couldn’t switch, with today’s simplicity, between programs. In fact, you could only open one at a time. For this reason, to play carmen sandiego (as we called it back then) we had to have an encyclopedia in hand, and go looking for the necessary information to be able to move forward.
Chinatown Detective Agency gives you a simpler solution: a button that minimizes the game and opens an individual tab of your preferred browser. In this way, you will be able to search for what you need in Google and then return to the game. This small detail seemed beautiful to us, because this implies that, from the gameplay itself, it invites us to investigate things that, surely, we do not know instantly. The first quick example, to make it easier to understand, is when we have to find out the author of a quote from a book. We don’t know what the book is either, we only have the phrase in question. In Google, we write the phrase and its author appears in the first result. Ready, we return to the game and continue with the investigation.
And we mention this detail at the beginning because, Although it is clear that graphic adventures is not a genre that everyone likes, this particular mechanic can turn off the most casual players. For those of us who love the genre, it’s like going back to the roots, it’s like going back to using a notebook next to the keyboard to write down data. But not everyone is used to or willing to play this slow system. And, just as for some it is something wonderful, for others it can really become a detail that distances them from the proposal.
As we already said, we are facing a classic graphic adventure, with a pixel art that amazes on each new screen that we access. Every detail is unique, the use of lights, backgrounds, character animations. Everything about the visual aspect is a beautiful madness. It is a futuristic story, cyberpunk style. And without falling into comparisons, those who have enjoyed titles like VirtuaVerse, Technobabylon or even the oldest Gemini Ruethey are in luck. Chinatown Detective Agency has all that, a complex story, and a black police vibe that gives it a distinctive touch.
A bit of futuristic context.
In the game, we play Amira Darma, a former police officer who has retired from the game and opened her own agency as a private investigator. At first, without any client, an acquaintance from years as a law enforcement officer begins to bring us different cases. In this way we are going to begin to carry out cross investigations, cases where many times we are going to doubt the goodness behind our clients or even the correctness of our actions. The development of the different characters, all of them very opposed to each other and otherwise picturesque, give the game an emotional breadth very well done. And, like any good graphic adventure, the narrative itself allows us to generate depth in each of them, something that helps us a lot when it comes to getting fully into each of the cases.
To move around and be able to reach the different places that the tracks or the people involved indicate to us, we have a map with different points. By clicking on them, a small animation of a subway trip will transport us. Upon arrival, we will see the city from afar or from above, sometimes with more than one point to access. A detail that reminded us a lot of the carmen sandiegois that we are given historical, geographical or cultural data of each new place we visit. Although the game takes place in Singapore, we will be able to travel to different places in the world and see buildings, squares or recognized monuments, but in their futuristic version. Even the game handles the concept of day and night, letting us appreciate the same place in sunlight or neon light, so to speak.
Let’s keep it simple, let the story tell itself.
Another great success on the part of the creators is conceptual minimalism. The graphic adventures, generally, tend to have a lot of history and background told by few characters. It’s like they have the logical need to explain everything that happens with words. Chinatown Detective Agency use common sense, regardless of who weighs you. A lot of the construction we do is thanks to the visual details that, in a very precise way, are located at the right time and in the right place. For example: it is not necessary to tell us that in such a year the robots began to perform daily tasks thus supplanting human labor and who knows what else. Here, simply, they put in the background, or in a secondary action, a robot sweeping the street. And one assumes, then, that robots perform everyday tasks. As simple as that.
The characters, all of them, the locations and the conversations we have shape the story. There is no interlocutor explaining everything at all times. Conversely, the story and all its context are developing little by little, with the different elements that we have in front of our eyes. It’s like weaving point by point, slowly, using tools like logic, like connecting dots, tying up ends, relating dates, characters. It is a great puzzle, complex since its creation, not so much because of the difficulty of the game but because of the intrinsic nature of its search.
The feeling of evolution, of growth, of progress.
Because, as we mentioned at the beginning, the story is about a private investigator who has just opened her agency. And as the cases go by, and we get more money, there is a need to expand our business, and for them we are going to have to hire different characters with special abilities that can be of use to us. Money, a rare factor in this genre, is quite important in Chinatown Detective Agency., not only to exchange it for services, but to buy back, for example, the software we use to hack locks. It is a simple puzzle, one of those to guess where the repeated figure is, but we have limited attempts, and if we use all of them, the program crashes and we have to pay to use it again.
How was it (yes, again) with him? carmen sandiego, it became impossible for us not to learn new things. The game is tied to investigation as the main mechanic, and historical events are often part of solving certain puzzles. we will use a lot Google, and eventually, we are going to learn a lot of interesting facts, that unless you are an expert in certain subjects, you might never have investigated. NPCs often play an important role. Some give you interesting clues, and some just ramble, but still, it’s always fun to see what they have to say. And in this case, It is worth noting the voice acting of all the characters that we can hear. It shows that there is a lot of work behind.
Our neurons are in danger. Watch out!
The game, depending on how you take it, can be very frustrating at times. It really makes you feel like being a detective, and many times we will find ourselves trying to decipher text, morse code, or intricate mathematical problems, where we will really have to use the power of the internet and a paper and a pencil. It feels like doing homework in high school, about that subject that you liked but that cost you so much. There is a real challenge, and it has a lot to do with using practical intelligence to solve problems. It is a complicated game. Maybe not complicated in style Dark Soulswhich tests our ability, but complicated on an intellectual level, to put it in some way.
Nothing a “fix” can’t fix.
There are some problems with the game, which may not be decisive, but they are felt when you feel that the time invested is wasted. Why? The game does not have an option to save the game. This is done automatically every time we complete an episode. Yes, it makes it difficult, but, at the same time, the game is tipped at times… Small detail. As we explained before, the hours go by in the game and there are several objectives that we have to reach at a certain time. Sometimes, if we arrive much earlier or much later, the game allows you to continue, but when you do a puzzle, something goes wrong and all options are blocked. We can’t interact with anything. The only thing left for us to do is log out and back in, but by not being able to save, we’re going to lose all progress for that episode. If we had made a low percentage there is no problem, but if we were about to finish it, it can be very annoying.
Another point against it that we found was the usability of the on-screen menu. The truth is that at the design level everything looks beautiful, the layout of the buttons, the phone, everything is very well thought out. Unfortunately, navigating through certain screens becomes somewhat clunky, unintuitive. Even, sometimes, certain options the phone seems that they want to play against our patience. And not much more. As we clarified before, they are not things that will directly affect the gaming experience, at least in our perception.
Chinatown Detective Agency it is very complete. It is a twist to the genre of graphic adventures, proposing new mechanics (we can even shoot using a sight to guide our shots) and a construction of the story worthy of the best works of modern science fiction. It is a game that is positioned very high within the genre, and one of those that is impossible not to recommend if you are really attracted to these proposals.
RELEASE DATE | April 7, 2022 |
DEVELOPER | General Interactive Co. |
DISTRIBUTOR | Humble Games, Whisper Games |
PLATAFORMS | Nintendo Switch, Project Scarlett, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS |