Posted on: October 1, 2021
WintermuteAI
Verified ownerGames: 850 Reviews: 3
Interesting game, needs polish
(Keep reading to the cons) "Noir" says it all - you're a jaded, cynical detective with a tragic past who is solving a missing persons case in a world where good succeeds seldom, and corruption is the rule... set to the background of bags of espresso. The game itself has a novel premise. Run a coffee production company to fund your investigation while investigating the crime. The game is played by assigning tasks and individuals to execute them, while you go and negotiate contracts and have conversations, and link the clues. Every time you negotiate a new contract, there's a new set of clues, which fill up your crime board. This game is effectively three partially linked mini-games. The production office, the negotiating the contracts (honestly, the only interesting part), and linking the clues a-la Phantom Doctrine). The negotiating table affects your profit in the production office, which enables you to purchase clues from disgruntled servants and the like. PROS: The plot is decent (so far), fairly complex, with pretty good voice acting. CONS: Where the game falls down is in the language localization. "Pfft! What does that matter?!" Well, it DOES - and not how you might expect. You see, in this game you are expected to negotiate business contracts, and the game uses real-world tactics in the negotiation. Low-ball, phony BAFTA, silly money, all of these are explained in a "Compendium" on the desk in the production office... literally 220 pages (so they say) of business school negotiation textbook... translated from Polish by somebody with an indifferent grasp of the nuances of English. It's mostly comprehensible. Sorta. I've ghost-written MBA papers before and I genuinely felt I learned something even through the language barrier. Bottom line: It's a possible 4-5 star game as soon as the Dev team finds a native English speaker to clean up the language and get the actors to re-voice the new dialogue. Probably worth $12-$15.
Is this helpful to you?
