Dive into an 1830s “England” to solve mysteries in the latest point and click adventure from Grunislav Games and Application Systems Heidelberg. Lamplight City casts you as Miles Fordham, a former police detective that has taken his sleuthing skills private. With the help from a friend who remains on the force, Fordham is secretly contracted to solve tough cases involving such heinous crimes as murder and kidnapping.
Lamplight City has the look and feel of a traditional point and click adventure game, but it actually has several key differences, too. First, players don’t maintain an inventory. While you do find some objects during the course of your adventuring, you won’t have to actually “Use Item” on whatever object in the world. Instead, the items you gather are mostly used a clues and evidence in your case. Or, if you do have to use a item from your inventory, the game will automatically use it at the right time, and at no other time. I think this helps keep the focus of the game to character interviews and theory-forming instead of puzzle solving, but it does lighten the gameplay some. Figuring out “who dun it” is the puzzle in itself, and it’s definitely worth noting that you can accuse the wrong person, and the game will continue.
I liked how there were always multiple suspects in each of the five mysteries that Lamplight City offers. Similarly, there are leads that seem spot-on, only to be later found, assuming you continue investigating, to be completely innocuous. Each mystery takes roughly two hours to complete, give or take based upon your speed of reading and clue-hunting, etc. This is assuming of course that you see the mystery through to its “truthful” completion. You can pin the crime on the first suspect that you uncover, but to do so is to wrongfully incriminate and also rob yourself of a great deal more intrigue and adventuring. Yet, the game will go on if you play like this, which is pretty cool. While figuring out the true criminal means extra back-tracking between the various locations to uncover more clues, its worthwhile to get the best and most complete answer.
Without trying to spoil much, Miles Fordham has a helper in a colleague named Bill. When you enter a new room and you’re examining objects, it’s often Bill that comments on it, with Miles sometimes responding and sometimes not. I found this dynamic interesting, although Bill’s character is often pestering. As it turns out, the greatest mystery in the game is the one that is presented first, and carries on through to the end. The mysteries in between help build towards the finale, and it’s all together nicely done. I liked that characters I talked to in the first mystery also appeared later in the third mystery, for example.
Playing Lamplight City is something anyone can pick up in short order. An entirely mouse-driven game, with no need for right-clicking, players simply point-and-click (as the genre name would suggest) to inspect objects, including NPCs. Conversations between Miles and the NPCs is where most of your information comes from, and your casebook is updated as you unlock more leads and details. Exploring the game world by visiting new locations in the city of New Bretagne as they become revealed during the course of the story is where more clues and pieces to the puzzle are found. When stuck, consulting your casebook, your police friend Upton, or Miles’ wife Adie typically get you out of a rut in no time.
While fairly light on gameplay and difficulty, Miles’ own story, and those of the mysteries themselves, offer enough intrigue to keep things interesting. Any fan of a good old school mystery, written by the likes of Agatha Christie or Kerry Greenwood, will find themselves at home. In terms of presentation, technical quality isn’t much to write home about, but that’s not too uncommon for the genre. The artwork, however, is a plus. Full voice-recording on over fifty characters and a solid soundtrack do a lot to build the atmosphere.
In sum, Lamplight City is a bit of a departure from a typical point and click adventure, but it more than holds its own. While a little bit light in terms of gameplay and difficulty, it’s well compensated for with good characters, stories, multiple endings per mystery, and a fine presentation. Any fan of the genre or a good mystery should give this a serious look.
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