
Music, sound effects, and visuals all work together to provide a compelling and tight experience. It's a perfect homage.ĭetectiveland is a well-written call-back to the interactive fiction of yesteryear: the terse room descriptions and unguided exploration of a classic Scott Adams work mixed with the contemporary themes and concepts present in modern interactive fiction. I actually hadn't played any Scott Adams games before this one now I have played three, and this game is a straight send-up of those games, down to the split window and empty room descriptions. This, according to the other, allowed him to spend more time on conversations and scripted events. The game is written Scott Adams style, so many of the locations have very spare writing. The game has graphics of speakers, and has really good humorous writing. You play a detective resolving problems in a square grid town. It is split into 4 cases, 3 of which can be solved simultaneously. This is one of the biggest IFComp winners ever, with a minimal walkthrough taking 250 or more moves. One object at a time can be 'held', and this affects the menus of other nouns. You have a parser-like interface, but instead of typing in commands, you have a menu of visible things and people and an inventory you click on an object or person, and a menu of verbs comes up. The interface is a refinement of the one used in Draculaland.

In addition, the presentation is delightful, with the typewriter font and the background music and the little snapshots showing the characters you converse with."ĭetectiveland is a great game in a unique interface created by Robin Johnson. We're here more to laugh with the tropes than to laugh at them. "It recognises its tropes and it adopts a rather humorous attitude towards them without actually mocking them.
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"This is a polished, professional quality work. Femme fatales, dangerous gangsters, corrupt politicians, it's all here." The core story is fun too, with no cliche of the genre left un-mined. "This is a visual and aural presentation that pops: pretty graphics, some era-appropriate tunes, a clattering typewriter font, Detectiveland has been polished to the hilt. "The overall setting of Detectiveland is a noir detective thriller in plain black and white, but presentation is very much tongue-in-cheek."

It revels in being a little hokey, throwing in gags about 1920s gender roles, mafia stereotypes, speakeasies, and even a reclusive horror writer who is clearly a massive racist."įollowing Freeware - November 2016 releases "What I love about Detectiveland is its commitment to videogameness. "Using one of the best interfaces I've come across in IF, you'll take on cases, explore the city, and maybe stop to assemble a tasty pizza."

The presentation captures some of the appeal of a parser, but with the accessibility of a choice-based game." "Overall: silly, noir-themed goodness that never takes itself terribly seriously.
