Inspector Schmidt - A Bavarian Tale

[h1] Detektiv spielen im Weißwurst-Mantel [/h1] Die Geschichte beginnt damit, dass wir angewiesen werden in irgendeinem bayrischen Kaff Nachforschungen anzustellen (was denn erforscht werden muss, wird dabei nicht erwähnt). Somit laufen wir durch einen Wald, bis wir auf einen kleinen Jungen treffen. Hier der erste Schock: er redet tatsächlich bayrisch. Er will von uns, dass wir ihm 10 „Schwammerl“ bringen (obwohl er selbst feststellt, dass wir nicht von hier sind, erklärt er uns nicht mal, was das sein soll). Haben wir für diese extrem banale Quest hinter uns, geht es auch schon weiter zu zwei Wachmännern auf der Brücke. Das Problem: sie wollen uns nicht in die Stadt lassen. Die beiden reden miteinander, als würden wir nicht existieren, zwingen uns dann zu einem gähnend langweiligen Würfelspiel (unnötiges Minispiel ✓) und lassen uns am Ende nicht durch. Was tun fragt man sich? Man läuft die kompletten Wege nochmal ab, sucht eine Lücke im Zaun oder ähnliches, um die Männer zu umgehen. Pustekuchen. Wir müssen noch mal mit dem Jungen reden. Dieser hat einen Masterplan: wir sollen ein Ablenkungsmanöver schaffen, um uns an den Wachen vorbeizuschleichen. Dafür brauchen wir den Flyer eines gesuchten Räubers. Diesen hat der Junge hier in der Nähe gesehen, er weiss nur nicht mehr wo, irgendwo bei dem Fass. Hier beginnt die Suche nach dem Flyer und jetzt festhalten: der Flyer war AUF dem Fass… ganze 5 Schritte entfernt. Haben wir den Flyer, kommt unser nächster Auftrag: wir sollen 4 Äste bringen (was ein Nervenkitzel). Dafür sollen wir auf dem Mühlengelände rumschleichen (denn die Äste im Wald sind nicht gut genug). Nur was passiert, wenn der Mühlenbesitzer uns sieht? Ganz einfach: er geht ohne ein Wort auf uns los und begrüßt uns mit einer Schlägerei, während im Hintergrund eine belebte Oktoberfest-Posaunen-Musik die Ohren belästigt. Das nenne ich mal deutsche Freundlichkeit. Da der Mühlenmann mich totgeschlagen hat, habe ich dieses Meisterwerk aufgegeben. [h1] Fazit [/h1] Ich habe mich tatsächlich gefreut, mal ein deutsches Spiel zu spielen, welches in Deutschland spielt und nichts mit dem 2. Weltkrieg zu tun hat. Allerdings spürt man die deutsche Qualität, à la „Made in Germany“, in voller Perfektion: Das Spiel sieht aus wie ein PS2 Spiel aus 2023 und spielt sich genauso kantig und unpoliert. Die Dialoge sind unglaubwürdig, banal und zudem wird man als Spieler komplett übergangen und mit durchgekauten Sammelquests gequält. Das dieses Spiel vom Staat gefördert wurde, wundert mich leider kein Stück. [b] Eine Frage habe ich noch an die Entwickler: [/b] Warum gibt es in den Einstellungen eine Begrenzung auf 120 FPS? Es läuft doch sowieso nur inkonsistent mit maximal 50 FPS, selbst auf Niedrig.

Couldn't really play with my mouse because I had to click far below what I was aiming for in order for it to work. So I tried controller. I couldn't use the controller to change the settings, or select anything from the menu. I uninstalled. Reinstalled. Restarted my computer. Nada. I give up.

The game is not too bad overall, it's enjoyable, but if you want to complete the achievements it's nearly impossible, it's so bugged that I had to play it multiple times and I get stuck for different reasons each time because of different glitches. On top of that all the achievements are only in german, why? just why

Game places a ridiculous drunk skill test where you have to cross logs and a plank bridge while the character randomly swerves off the path and you have to start over in a timed event. Big time waster and not germaine to the plot. It feels more like a juvenile prank and ruins the game.

This falls into that difficult category of, "I really liked it but it's hard to recommend." One of the tough things I've found about these kinds of detective games is that suggesting an LP really removes a lot of the choice elements that make them compelling. I do think going along for the ride with this one would still be worthwhile because the mystery was just great, but a lot of its tone is definitely tied up in the different ways you can choose to pursue the plot and you do lose that with an LP. Let's get the bad out of the way: the technical aspects of this game are terrible. It's so poorly optimized that my computer was insanely overheated the entire time I was playing in a way it hasn't been with any other game. For a game that looks and plays like Morrowind but came out in 2023, that's mind-boggling. Further, there's just a real excess of gameplay elements. I don't know that much about the engine that was used, but I wonder if some of the gameplay pieces here were premade and included because they could be, as I can't come up with any other reason for the surfeit of systems in place here. The entire item-collecting and barter mechanic was pointless; the vast, vast majority of items were unuseable and I ended the game with an inventory with well over a hundred bits of junk. The barter system was similarly pointless; at no point did I need to purchase anything, so I don't know why there were shops or money. The stamina mechanic was insane; it just meant you have to stop investigating every 30 second to use a consumable that was nearly infinite anyway, and there was one mana-looking bar that I don't even know what it did. The fistfighting was pointless, especially because there was also a stealth mechanic that you were supposed to be using to avoid fights anyway. There was just so much gameplay bloat. A game where you talked to people with occasional stealth sections where you found clues and eavesdropped would have made for a better game. Literally nothing else was necessary. The one functional system, the skill checks, was also bafflingly put together. For one, I cannot understand why you had to pass each skill check 4 consecutive times. I genuinely don't understand why anyone would design a game this way. Additionally, there were way too many stats -- why were agility and dexterity separate? Literally what was the difference? Why were Charisma and Insight split into five different stats??? It meant assigning skill points was a crapshoot because there was never any way to know which of the 47 Charisma checks was going to be the one you needed. It should have been Strength, Agi, Charisma, Insight and that's it! Whyyyyyyyyyyy There are some gameplay things I liked. I loved that you could bypass skill checks if you had the right information -- that was excellent and I'm honestly baffled no one else has come up with that system. I also thought the rock-paper-scissors tone system was clever, if unrefined -- the idea that a good detective would change their approach based on the suspect's personality is a really neat thing to implement, though it did make Schmidt seem a bit mercenary -- not necessarily a bad thing, though. And A+ for the fast-travel system (though the map was far, far bigger than it needed to be and didn't have a map marker for your current location... I repeatedly got lost in the woods). But the real selling points here are the setting and plot. The game takes place in 19th-century Bavaria, and the setting is just so unique and perfect for this kind of story, and the team knew exactly what to do with it. One of the reasons I love country-house mysteries is that they're fundamentally a critique of manners -- the heart of the country-house killing is that something horrible has happened somewhere idyllic, and the investigation involves getting into the ways that people's appearances don't line up with their actions; people aren't the same in the town square as they are behind closed doors. The dirty secret of the country house is that there are dirty secrets, but we live in a society that can't deal with that, and so the detective has to take things over from the police because they know human nature in a way institutions, which are invested in the appearances, fundamentally can't. The decision to have Schmidt be a kind of census-taker (really, an anthropologist in modern terms, I think) whose job is about parsing the realities of people's lives for an institution that will always reduce them is a really great iteration of this. The ending sequence where you hear your superior whitewash the whole thing was great. This game really knows what this subgenre is for, the questions it's best at asking. I actually don't want to say too much because for all the problems with the gameplay, I really, really enjoyed the story of this game, found the people to be compelling and complex, and I genuinely think it's worth tolerating the weird and bad gameplay choices for the experience of investigating this town and its people. This is the only country-house-style mystery I've run into so far and it's so great to see it done well and taken seriously, to see it aptly and consciously use this 19th-century setting to bring up problems we still have, to think about the roles institutions play in our lives and they myriad ways they can fail us. This is a subgenre that's rarely taken seriously and this is such a unique take on it that I found it to be a complete treat. There's a sequel game with a free standalone demo (the only good kind of demo imo) and I'm definitely going to play both. I would even if I knew the gameplay experience was exactly the same. I just enjoyed the mystery itself that much.

Eigentlich ganz nettes Rollenspiel, auch wenns technisch mindestens 10 jahre alt ist. Paar lustige Quests, unter anderem mit einem SauPreussen 😂 Aber leider danach aufgegeben, wem diese Betrunkenenquest eingefallen ist weis nur Gott selbst.

Das Setting des Games in einem kleinem bayrischen Ort ist echt erfrischend und die Sprache ist echt bärig. Alles in Allem zu empfehlen und ein klarer Geheimtip. Leider gibt es etliche kleinere Bugs in dem Game die es mir unmöglich machen das Spiel uneingeschränkt zu empfehlen. So wollte ich nach dem ersten Durchspielen nochmals starten da ich einiges übersehen habe aber da passiert es das ganz am Anfang der Junge mit dem ich reden soll nicht da ist - ein Deadlook ganz zu Beginn des Games. Auch ist es sehr leicht möglich was zu übersehen oder Dialoge nicht zu erhalten wenn man Gespräche in der falschen Reihenfolge führt. Das Scripting ist einfach nicht perfekt. Auch sind die Hardwareanforderungen sehr hoch - ich schaffe es gerade mal 30fps zusammen zu bekommen - aber wenigstens läuft es gut mit 30fps. Schade das ich das game nicht nochmals starten kann um weitere Enden freizuspielen. Der Deadlook ganz am Anfang macht das für mich unmöglich.

While the game is fun and I was into the story, I've twice now gotten hard crashes of my entire machine while playing the game, not to count the number of game crashes I've had. There's a lot of potential here but it's too buggy to fully enjoy right now

This game is hilariously funny and the team captured the bavarian culture & humour really well! The game feels like a quirky but intriguing mix of Heavy Rain, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Majora's Mask & the Bavarian "Eberhofer" book/movie series. I really love that decisions have a real impact on the players ability to guide conversations & the outcome of the game. To spice it up they also added D&D style skill checks with dices which can be counteracted with items & crafting, which adds a nice layer of depth to the game mechanics. The voiceovers are very well done, sympathetic and funny, especially in bavarian german! The music is fun as well with some real bangers too but it can get a bit repetitive (it's like the "500 miles" song in the roadtrip episode of "How I Met Your Mother", one moment you love it, then hate it and then love it again :D) While the game does have perf issues & a couple recurring bugs, they didn't distract too much from the experience and it's an impressive achievement that the team has managed to pull this off for their very first video game. Overall, this is definitely a hidden gem and I would recommend picking it up, especially if you're familiar with the bavarian culture!

Ein tolles kleines Spiel, mit sehr viel Atmosphäre und liebevoll ausgearbeiteten Charakteren. Das Gameplay ist einfach gehalten, ermöglicht es aber seinen Charakter an die eigene Spielweise so anzupassen, dass man merkt das der Inspektor besser wird in dem was er tut. Die Geschichte hat mich wirklich gefangen genommen und auch wenn man die Auflösung erahnen kann, wenn man geübt ist im kombinieren von Hinweisen, so kann ich mich doch vorstellen, dass es für den ein oder anderen überraschend kommt. Preis-Leistung hat bei mir auf jeden Fall gestimmt.