Chinatown Detective Agency

Chinatown Detective Agency is an enjoyable pixel art game made by an indie studio. The main idea of the game is for the player to use real world knowledge to solve cases, and puzzles. I needed to go on Google to find stuff, and to search for content online. It has inspiration from some of the puzzle solving as experienced in some of the older Carmen Sandiego games. The serene soundtrack is fun to listen to while play and is on point. I appreciate the fact that I was able to buy a plane ticket, in game, and have to arrive at the airport 3 hours in advance for international flights. Also to mention is that I use the metro in the city, with the subway doors opening close, with authentic sounds. While at the office, I paid monthly rent bills, and then have to expand the office when I hire someone as an employee. That was interesting. Then I find out in one moment, the main character gets dosed by a potential hire so she can escape; that made me laugh. The voice acting is satisfactory. I find it interesting that the main character’s voice actor is from Singapore but elects on an American accent that is on point. Despite that, there are moments where she reverts to Sinaporean accent due to stress. It lapses for a moment and I thought that was interestingly funny. Still, bravo to her amazing work. The cypberpunk system is quite nice. Futuristic feel with the fantastical feeling. The storyline is quite well written.. Three separate storylines diverage after the introductory three cases, where it throws the player into dealing with distinct classes of society. For example, I can do stamp delivery with Tiger Lily, go find some corporate thefts with Rupert, or find a murder mystery with Kenveer Iyer, all three of which lead down separate paths. That was honestly interesting. The game exceptionally deserves credit for those aforementioned positives. Now, are there any negatives? There are two things I wish was explored more. The save system could be a bit easier to save and load. It seems if I save with one sidekick, it can easily overwrite other saves. Which was not great. Also the second, I've occasionally encountered a bug where, the game on pc, if you click several times rapidly, the player loses control of Adira, and to regain control is to shut down the game and relaunch it. Some extra thoughts. The potential for DLC is great. I would love to see some extra missions or so. However, that is not possible since General Interactive Co's Kickstarter did not reach its fundraising goal. Oh well. The pricing is alright at $24.99 USD for the game. Feels like the game has enough content and effort for that price. A mission or two more is good enough to justify that high of a price. The pixel artstyle flies high for some people but I imagine it would capture a small chunk of people. And that’s fine. I enjoyed the game overall and think I may engage in a second playthrough, someday verdict: Score: 100% recommendation: yes Achievements: 15 hours Replay value. Partial yes for achievements.

Has a stylish cybernoir look and an interesting concept, but I did not really connect with it. The retro presentation is eye catching, and the idea of using real world research to solve cases sounds clever on paper, but in practice it felt more tedious than immersive. Some investigations slowed the pace down, and I found myself losing interest instead of feeling challenged. It just was not for me.

Lastimosamente no puedo marcar este juego como recomendado, y la verdad es que pensé que era super dinámico y te hacía meter en la piel de una detective pero nahhh, es un juego lineal, de buscar pistas en internet donde ya está todo resuelto y con spoilers, no lo vale.

Good game - nice plot, multiple endings and a lot of clues&riddles on the way.

The game has an intriguing story and beautiful aesthetic. Its fun to go searching for the answers to the clues you get throughout the investigations. Would highly recommend to anyone who enjoys a bit a sleuthing. Two issues I have with the game, one being the airport/travel mechanic. The date is set up day/month/year which was initially confusing when I went to book my first flight and couldn't board it, realizing I had booked a flight a month in advance... so I wasted money if I had only known it was not in the US format which was confusing since they use the US currency instead of the Singapore currency. Secondly, you cannot manually save until after you have completed the first three missions. or so the game tells you. I have completed the first three and chosen my full time client. I could not save until after completing the first mission after selecting a full time client. Which is a bit annoying in all honesty. It would be nice to have a manual save at any point throughout a mission as most other games do... That being said, its a lot of fun and will recommend it to all my friends to play. Just be aware of those things so you don't accidentally lose money or start into the next mission and want to stop halfway through.

Played on a recommendation from a friend. Don't really play games on PC, but indie gems like these make it worth the occasional foray. If you're like me and you grew up in the 90s on point and clicks, you'll get what this game is all about. The main unique mechanic is actually having to google answers to puzzles, which is super novel and unusual and not for everbody, but I'm here for it. There's some jank, but nothing that ever prevents progress. Interested story so far. All in all definitely worth a try.

Love the artwork and references of places in cities and countries. It was an interesting mechanic to also allow players to use the web to find answers rather than just create a fake in-game site.

Anyone willing to do the leg work.

It is a game where I would rather give a neutral recommendation rather than a yes or no. I eventually go for Yes because I liked the style and the story but I eventually got bored of the puzzles. There are couples per acts and I don't mind googling information to figure out the puzzle as intended by the game, but they are not interesting or often to make them interesting in the story, it felt a bit like why adding puzzles, I am happy to go for a story ride. I eventually looked at the solution to just continue and finish the story. I will not reply it to unlock the achievements.

After playing for 2.8 hrs so far with my non-gamer girlfriend but who loves playing puzzles. We enjoyed deciphering puzzles. It's a good touch that you can use your other devices or current device to research the clues being provided in-game to solve for the puzzles in the game at the same time (Although there are spoiler links, you just have to be careful what to search and know the keywords you are searching for) We'll definitely make this a nightly game bonding time to play since we have become invested in the story and looking forward for a more puzzle to solve. Also we'll probably play this multiple times, since we just got the prompt that there could be multiple endings? Not sure on this, but will definitely check it out. Cool game overall, looking forward to get deeper in to the game. And we loooooove the Pixel Art style! Cool and futuristic vibe!