The Detail

A compelling crime noir adventure with a distinctive graphic novel aesthetic. Set in a modern American city plagued by crime, the game allows players to navigate the lives of a seasoned detective and a reformed criminal, making choices that significantly influence the unfolding story.

The game's strengths lie in its engaging storyline, atmospheric graphics, and immersive soundscape, all of which contribute to a rich and captivating experience. The branching narrative ensures that decisions carry weight, offering a sense of agency and replayability.

However, it's unfortunate that the developer, Rival Games Ltd, faced financial difficulties, leading to its closure. This has left me wondering about the potential stories and innovations that could have emerged from such a talented team.

Strongly recommended.

Hey, not boring "Point and Click" game is worth something, right? Espesially with such art

Foreword

This was on my backlog list for a while as an incomplete game. I remember finishing the first two episodes only while I barely began with the third and last. Going back I found it strange that while the 3rd was the last in what is referred to as season it was also the most interesting. As it ends in a cliffhanger I was very disappointed since I already knew there will be no more episodes (seasons). So this is a word of warning that while The Detail is a great point-and-click game it remains incomplete.

Comic book

It is an interesting adventure game with comic book style presentation. This sometimes means black-and-white scenarios which certainly give the story a noir feeling. The unique presentation is mainly apparent during cutscenes - otherwise you would call it simply cartoonish.

On the go

Gameplay-wise this is a very linear game. You do not really have multiple locations to visit (at HQ you can use the elevator to visit several floors but other than that the game is pretty linear). You can interact with objects and talk to people (or look at them first) and pretty much that's it, all done sans inventory. The story has you control two detectives (one being a veteran) that are part of a special police unit. You have everything here that you need for a good story: corrupt cops, by-the-book cops, corrupt politicians, gangs, prostitution, falsified evidence etc. The branches the store page refers to are barely existent. Yes, there are achievements that are only unlockable if a certain decision was made in a previous episode but you would really need additional episodes to see the fruit of your decisions.

Issues

See foreword. This is an unfinished game with otherwise great characters and story. And while the music is great I do miss voice actors here. Also, there are 1 or 2 locations that are bugged and do not allow you to continue - this requires a complete restart of the episode.

Other than the above The Detail is a great game. Too bad it is incomplete. It reminded me of another gem with similar fate: Blues and Bullets.

pros

+ comic book-styled art looks nice
+ nice musics
+ it has replayability
+ there are steam achievements and cards

cons

- lack of voice overs really robs game's enjoyment
- american B movie style predictable, cliched, boring, police and crime story
- stereotyped, cliché and unlikeable characters
- characters slowly walking
- lack of enjoyable puzzles
- slow paced
- it's short

Overall i found this game dull and unengaging.

This game is nothing special...

The story is as chliché as it gets.
The comic art looks nice enough. but there is no voice acting and loads of cutscenes/conversations which only stall the pace of the game. Some choices make minor changes to the story, but in the end it's not that special. Also Episode 1 is very short, the rest is DLC (which I won't bother with).

Cannot recommend.

God, I wish I could qualify my yes or no. Because there's so much to like about this game. The writing's really sharp and punchy for the most part, and the first episode is plotted brilliantly. But the fact that it had to be pushed out (from what I read, funding dried up, because when I signed up for the season pass it was definitely gonna be 5 episodes) made the last episode a mess - rushed, with continuity errors, plot points I'd barely heard of before suddenly becoming super important. One of the characters suddenly started acting in a way that seemed WILDLY out of the norm with little explanation. Not okay.

This is really kind of a sad 'what might have been.' As it stands right now, though, the last episode makes this a jumbled mess. Never mind the finicky controls. As a general rule, don't buy episodic games before they're complete. You just get let down.

A game I really would have wanted to like but didn't.

+ At its best looks good
- The story feels underdeveloped
- The characters are straight from comic books (childishly shallow)
- Graphics bugs
- Controls are bad
- The player choises seem often to be there just to provide the player a chance to make decisions
- I never felt like I was doing an investigation, I was just controlling the investigator

The Detail is a three-piece set of a crime noir story. It is labeled as a point and click adventure, but truth be told it is more visual novel than anything else. Most of the game consists of conversations and player impact is reduced to branching choices where you pick from one of two or three paths within said conversations or situational quick time events. (actually it's slow time events, as you usually have around 10-15 seconds to actually pick a choice before something happens by default). There's no solving of puzzles or using items within your inventory with the environment except for very few scenes where you have to use certain hotspots to get the information you need to proceed.

For an adventure, The Detail is way too simple and lacking. For a visual novel, it features excellent graphics, full voice acting, interesting characters and a well written, yet not always brilliantly executed story. The art design is spot on though and the asking price for the full experience is very moderate, therefore it can definitely be recommended.

Just don't expect it to be an adventure, it's not.

If you thought none of your choices mattered in Mass Effect 3, wait until you play The Detail. There is no gameplay BUT making choices and no matter what you do, you always end up at the same places in the same order. I honestly liked it my first time through, but the ending was incredibly unsatisfying, and as soon as I stated my second playthrough I realized nothing I did mattered. Grab it for a couple of bucks during the Steam Sale if it looks up yout alley, but do not pay full price.

Think of it as a low grade interactive comic spinoff from the TV show "The wire".

A sort of choose-your-own-adventure graphic novel. Split across 3 chapters you get to play as several different characters as their stories intertwine at different points. The presentation is pretty well done for the budget and while the game does involve a fair amount of reading, the writing overall is high enough to keep your interest. At times you will groan with some of the generic bad guy lines that are used, but it's not a deal breaker. There's no voice overs but that's probably a good thing considering the game has plenty of different ethnic characters and it most likely would have sounded corny.

All the characters are somewhat flawed to make them a bit easier to relate to and how their actions play out. While you do get to control the characters at certain points (e.g checking out a crime scene, finding clues and working out what happened) you are led down a fairly narrow path on how you can alter the underlying nature of the story. You'll only notice this issue if you replay the game several times though. For example at the very beginning you are are choosing how 2 police officers enter an apartment to investigate/catch a suspect. While there are 3 odd choices in how to tackle it, with another quick time event (pass/fail makes no difference) and a further 5-10 choices amongst it all, either way you'll end up cuffing the suspect (regardless if you choose the most reckless path and he gets the jump on you). However I will note as you proceed further through chapter 2 and 3 there are a few different scenarios and endings that can play out based on your actions. There is plenty of grey area moral choices throughout the game and while most are an illusion it still feels like you have entire control on how everything plays out.

If you play through the entire story in one go you'll enjoy the trip. There are some minor bugs (characters walking with wrong animation or missing textures) these are very few and far between and overall do not damage the experience. I didn't experience any game crashes and all the achievments popped.

Total game time (depending on how quick you read and how much you examine all the environments) would probably be in the 3-5 hr timeframe (to complete all 3 chapters). To 100% the game achievements you'll need a bit longer on top of that to basically go through every different choice and ending the game has to offer. You'll also probably get a bit annoyed with how slowly the characters walk when you want them to move from spot to spot. It can be painful when you forgot something and need to wander back to other locations.

On sale definitely worth a look if you enjoy this genre.

I like The Detail for the very reasons some don't like it: motion-comic presentation, omnipresent minor key music, and common police-procedural tropes. You get to play from the perspectives of both a jaded veteran detective, and a former criminal trying to lay low for his family. Within each of these, you can choose to either use violence, or try and talk your way into and out of situations. I'm not sure that the episodes end differently either way, but the Steam achievements vary. The police-procedural runs on a successful formula that has spawned nearly 20 years of Law&Order, CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds, etc. There's nothing really new here, but it's all put together pretty well for a noirish point/click experience. Maybe wait for a sale, because I finished both episodes 1 and 2 in a total of about 3 hours.

Pro:
+ Nice artstyle (especially the black and white art)*
+ Well written story line
+ 'Short' game
+ Get's better in episode 2 and 3
+ Click and point adventure without tedious puzzles**

Con:
- No voice acting
- slow pace at times (both control and story wise)


Verdict: A noir comic game, that starts out a bit slow but is definitely recommended if you like comics and/or the Noir genre. Feels quite similar to the wolf among us by Telltale games.


* Personally I found the character art a little bit off putting, but it either got better in the later episodes or I arranged myself with them.
** There is some running back and forth at times, but it is really rare

The Detail

About

Short review

Long review

Conclusion

I really loved the atmosphere and characterization here. The story was good and replays for achievements were interesting.

It's buggy as heck tho, especially if you try to use the auto-dialogue feature or when you're doing replays. Lots of freezes/crashes. Nothing that prevented me from completing the game, but it required patience.

I'm not a huge fan of visual novels, but this one has a such a great way of laying out the story and timing their frames during cutscenes just makes me blow all kinds of loads. The game has a great way of setting the atmosphere, with the great soundtrack, the good character work and the choices you have to make sometimes.

Overall, the game has a very Noire feeling to it and will appeal mostly to point-and-click and cinematic game fans who focus more on the story. The visual style is, for the most part, nice looking, and it manages to make you feel emotions despite the animated nature of the characters. Really wish we could get a season pass for this!

I recommend this to any fan of detective games and point-and-clickers, and will most likely also be appreciated by fans of cinematic games.

Firstly: this is a visual novel - More "Heavy Rain" than L.A. Noire". I completed it in a very relaxed one to two hour game play session. You are essentially choosing your dialogue and, occasionally, your response actions. The screen shots above are indicative of the play area you find yourself in. It DOES have a "hold alt to highlight all things you can interact with", so pixel-hunting is non-existant. (Pressing tab leaves it on permanently).

There is minimal voice acting and sound effects, but I don't find reading the text to be a chore (and the text is used to enhance the atmosphere) so I appreciate that they have better things to do with their money than do an "OK" VA job .

To be honest, I'm not sure how many of my choices matter in the long run. Games like these live or die by their ability to tell a good story. So far, the game delivers.

Update: It continues it do well in the second episode.

I bought both episodes on sale and finished the first episode before it was an hour. Between 30 mins to 60 mins the episode is over. It's an interactive comic book at best. Since it is like a comic book, it has no voice acting. Only music. Now, the game is not horrible. But the problem is, this game is not worth its asking price. If you can't buy this on a sale (which i think it is still too pricey for the time you get to play it), don't buy it. It is a complete rip off. It won't take you 60 mins to finish an episode. So you are basically paying 10 bucks to read a 45-50 mins long visual novel.

If it was longer and more interactive, it would be an amazing game, but the way it is, it is mediocre at best.

This is basically a static comic book, where you get a few extra panels (at most) depending on what "choices" you make. I put "choices" in quotation marks, because none of them make any real difference. You get the same story regardless of what you choose. Even the conversations are the same, with only superficial changes before you're railroaded into the same dialogue. In fact, your character will usually end up saying the same things, regardless of what you suggest.

Moreover, given that it's a static graphical novel, the writing and grammar aren't actually that good, with grammatical errors such as comma splices and unnecessary apostrophes (e.g. "drive by's") throughout. Honestly, it might be worth playing through once for 0,99€, but only if you like interactive novels. I wouldn't pay anything near the retail price.

EDIT: Grammar. Unlike the developers, I fixed my errors.

As only one episode is out, this recommendation is tentative. Noir style, very atmospheric, good visual presentation, plays like interactive fiction similar to Telltale latest "adventure" games. The story is solid with a few interesting choices along the way so we'll have to see if those have any impact on future episodes. It is very short, less than 2 hours to finish but has some replayability value with most objectives having more than one possible approach.

This is a crime noir graphic novel/point and click detective story in which you play as multiple characters to solve the crime.

Like The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, the choices you make will have an effect on the story (and what achievements you earn) and for this reason definitely has replay value. There are multiple profiles to make use of too for saving those extra playthroughs.

It is quite short, took me just under two hours to complete this once but you do get more playtime out of it by replaying to try out the diferent choices of course. Replays are a must if you want to get all the achievements, as they are tied to the choices you make, so can't all be got in one playthrough.

I really enjoyed this, enough so to go straight back in after my first play to try different choices (and to try to get those achievements I didn't get first time round). The story and characters developed well enough to keep me interested and wanting more.

I also like the comic book style graphics, they are done really well - especially the black and white scenes.

This is just episode one and I am very much looking forward to episode two to see how the story unfolds. I think this has a lot of potential to be right up there with the Telltale games.

If you are a fan of the recent Telltale games, crime stories or the comic book style it's definitely worth checking out.

The Detail has an interesting, mature crime story with believable characters. The artstyle draws heavily on comic books, which looks absolutely amazing (especially the intro). There is no voice acting; it seems like a good designer choice because of the brooding, ambient noir music which sets the tone for most of the scenes. The visual clues can be turned on or off at will, which is a nice touch.

Thankfully, there are not too many quick time events; the focus is very much on the story, characters and choices and consequences.

Very much recommended for people who like games like The Walking Dead or just a good crime adventure.