Aaah, sleuthing is the trickiest genre in videogames. The hardest to pull off. But one of the most interesting.

No review on adventuregamers. Nor elsewehere. Metacritic is empty. So, is this a disaster or is it brilliant ?

Found one french review actually, not an immensely encouraging one...

So... they abandoned "The Mansion" in early access (which is still on GOG and currently on sale) and now wants us to buy this game. NO WAY! BUYERS BEWARE!!

Oh wow.

Yeah, thanks for the heads up. More like "expert criminals", looks like.

more fmv is always great, didn't expect this here, nor at a relatively low price, though it doesn't have english dub. and looking at the comments I'm not gonna bother for a long while anyway.

So I come here to criticize the fact that crime puzzle game and FMV is a terrible mix. But then I found out it's made by people who made The Mansion. I guess this is a one two punch of DO NOT BUY. Thank you for the warning Andreas

wishlisted

As a fan of the Tex Murphy series (also crime and FMV) I might have actually purchased it... but given the publisher and the way they treat their customers I simply cannot.

Just realized it's Polish game with Polish actors and audio. That's actually quite impressive as tendency among smaller Polish devs in recent years is to not even bother with subtitles.

Still I would need some reviews. I assume it's a mix of Her Story with casual puzzle or hidden object game but trailers don't tell much and presented video fragments are not terribly intriguing.

Okay. The gist of https://jv.jeuxonline.info/actualite/61713/test-criminal-expert-experts-claques-sol is :

You get a room with 6 or 7 icons allowing you to use the phone, the files, the map, the interrogation room, the evidences, the computer (internet + solitaire). You have to solve the case in three real time hours (three in-game days).

Apparently, options and investigation paths arrive out of nowhere. For instance the reviewer was sent to interrogate a character without understanding why. Turned out it was another character's father, and the reviewer claims it's the game's fault for presenting informations and events out of chronological order (but maybe the reviewer wasn't paying enough attention, I don't know). The game is said to be a bit illogical or too cryptic when it comes to items you're supposed to select in point and click adventurey sections.

There are quite a few unpredictable "game over" states that can force you to restart the game. The reviewer doesn't see the correlation between your actions and the branching pathsof the narrative.

And the reviewer didn't play to the end, due to the frustrating fail stated encountered and the tediousness of videos they had to skip again at each new attempt. But apparently the mystery itself is intriguing.

So... that's it. As I said, not very encouraging. But it's just one review, and I know nothing of the authour, who could just as well be a very bad player with zero attention span. I don't have much trust in it, and I was hoping for other reviews to confirm or correct this discription.

Also it's a nintendo switch review. Maybe the PC version is a bit different. But it's the closest thing I've found.

They sell it unfinished on Steam, too. They're happy to make money on partial work, it seems. Which to me is especially eggregious since Early Access or In Dev implies that the game will be finished one day. Still better than Black Geyser that left Early Access, and then continued to be incomplete and still being built for ages after its "release"

What does completed even mean any more? I don't buy In Dev games, and only bought that game because it was out of In Dev.

But this one... "In Dev, Indefinitely" Fuck that noise too. I was look forward to it when it was finished.

For what it is worth: what they created so far with "The Mansion" was enjoyable but it simply is not the full game and/or the full story and selling it as if this would be the case with obviously no intentions to finish it at all throws not just a bad light on them but also on GOG who lets them continue to sell their unfinished work here without any warning of it being abandoned ... instead they also allow additional games from them here ... hello? Curation? Where are you? Aren't you supposed to protect us from such borderline criminal activities?

A detective version of Her Story. Not too sure about this one.

Still no review but here's one playthrough on youtube. Not many spoilers, as the player doesn't manage to solve it (he reaches a fail state after one hour or so, and is confused as to why).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYEtXUdlUNQ