Chinatown Detective Agency

Chinatown Detective Agency is an expanded point-and-click adventure game. The game was developed by the independent studio General Interactive, and the source of inspiration for its creators were not only Carmen Sandiego games, which were very popular in the eighties and nineties of the 20th century, but also the Blade Runner movie, the TV series Black Mirror and The Da Vinci Code novel.

Plot

Chinatown Detective Agency is taking us on a trip to the cyberpunk version of Singapore. In 2032 the humanity stood on the brink of moral and economic collapse, and although Singapore was so far the last bastion of order, gradually global chaos begins to penetrate into it. The main character of the game is Amira Darma - once a rising star of Interpol, and now a beginner private detective, who in the pursuit of solving criminal puzzles has to take care of the development of her company... ...and herself. With time, Amira gets involved in a big intrigue, threatening the whole Lion City. So not only Amira's fate, but also Singapore's future depends on our decisions.

Mechanics

In Chinatown Detective Agency, we observe the action from the side. The game is pushed forward by investigations that lead Amira to various locations. Among them we can find not only numerous districts of Singapore, between which we travel by subway, but also distant cities such as London, Osaka, Kuala Lumpur, Toronto, Rio de Janeiro, Dubai or even Seattle, where we travel by plane. Interestingly, although the main storyline can be completed based solely on information obtained from the evidence gathered or "pulled" from the numerous interlocutors, completing many side investigations requires us to search the Internet or, for example, in an encyclopedia.

But this is not the end of the heroine's duties. Amira must remember that he does all this mainly for money. She needs cash both to pay her bills and to develop her detective agency (as she progresses, she can hire staff whose needs begin to grow over time) and for such mundane things as the purchase of food to regenerate her impaired forces or plane tickets. In addition, the game is made more difficult by the time that passes, and due to the fact that Amira has to rest, we are not always able to complete everything we have planned for ourselves. If we fail, the energy and concentration of the protagonist will start to drop, making it much more difficult or even impossible for her to continue working.

Technical aspects

The graphic design of Chinatown Detective Agency was made in pixel art technique. Its cyberpunk style is created not only by neon lights illuminating the darkness of Singapore or Osaka, but also by various flavours like drones flying around the Galata Tower in Istanbul. It is accompanied by an atmospheric soundtrack composed by Ricardo Juchem.