Pitch Black a Detective's Demise - Thoughts After My First Play.

Introduction.

It's a long time since I've been really excited about an audiogames project. This year, I was introduced to Sounds of Eden, an audio experience by Purple Jam, and that led me to explore what else they had in their pipeline. I found I had long missed their kickstarter campaign for Pitch Black, a dusklight Story, but I was able to support them in the ways I could by picking up what they had available. I was very interested to see that a new game, Pitch Black a Detective's Demise, was on the table. It has just been released, and, having played it on iPhone and PC, I wanted to give my thoughts here.

A couple of things before I start. I am not what I'd call a pro gamer. To be honest, gaming with headphones gives me migraines, so I can only do it for short periods, which means anything I play, I have to be ardent about, or it's not worth bothering. the second thing is, I'm absolutely pro Purple Jam, I think they're a dedicated team, I love their work and the way they communicate, both with their customers and their social interactors on Twitter and, presumably, Facebook. Having said that, the thoughts below are my honest opinion, which no one has asked for, and I'm just putting it here in my own blogspace. Ok, buckle up for safety, here we go.

Things you Might Like To Know.

1. This game is as rich or as poor as you want to make it. You're on a street that you have to explore. If you, like me, follow your objectives and don't get sidetracked, and you're a good gamer, you might get through it pretty fast. I'm a clutz, so it took me about an hour and a bit. It was an interesting and absorbing hour and a bit, and I'm pretty sure I'll be going back to see if there's anyone I didn't speak to. To be fair, there were people I did try to speak to, but they were too busy doing things I won't tell you about for fear of spoiling it to want to talk to me.
2. You need to know that you can't save the game, and if you once get out, it's going to take you a tedious good five or six minutes before you can start moving again, so get a drink and a bowl of chips, put the phone on do not disturb and snuggle in for the duration is my advice.
3. When you're being attacked, it doesn't sound like anything you'd associate with shooting. It doesn't even sound like the tutorial. It took me ages to figure out what the strange, pulsing sound meant, I think my brain's slow, but it was nothing I was expecting.
4. You don't get killed in this game. If you're hit, you'll hear some sounds which sound like a heart monitor, then the word "Re-initializing." This is great, as before I learned what the weird noises were, I was re-initialized about eight times! Duh me!
5. On the iPhone, the game plays in portrait, which really amazed me. I don't think I've ever known a game of this kind play in portrait before, and I'd turned the phone landscape automatically.

Thhings I liked.

1. The sound. Purple Jam's audio is second to none. Their voice actors are superb, their ambiences are multi-layered and rich. Also the sound is binaural, which means you can hear sound all around you, which makes things challenging, especially when you're trying to find things. But it's exciting too, because with the volume turned up, you really feel you're there. You cannot fault the sound.
2. The navigation controlls. The navigation controlls were blissfully easy to use. On the iPhone particularly I was dreading the ubiquitous accelerometer driven or motion driven controls which I find impossible to use, but no. An onscreen virtual joystick which can be used even by my arthritic fingers, what a relief. On The PC, arrow keys, and the escape key to activate the pause menu.
3. The perripheral Enhancer. What a neat thing this is! I don't know why, but my brain couldn't grasp it on the explanatory videos, but in game I easily mastered it, and it felt wonderful dodging bullets instead of firing them. Which leads me to ...
4. No fighting. I'll fight if I have to, but I'd really rather not, I'm so sick of every game being a combat game. No fighting here, such a refreshing change.
5. The way the menu's voiced. That was a really nice touch, in fact I should have said menus, because both the main menu and the pause menu are like this. I won't spoil it, wait and see, if you don't already know.
6. the talking compass. Absolutely essential for people like me, but you can turn it off if you'd rather. Another really nice touch.

Things i Wasn't So Keen On.

1. the use of the spacebar instead of enter to select things in the menu. This isn't usual and put me so much out of my zone. With so much else to learn in my first game, I could have done without having to learn that too, but I guess I'll get used to it in time.
2. No way to skip things. This really is a big minus I'm going to have to give here. Presumably, Purple Jam want us to play and replay this game. It isn't clever then, to make us sit through a headphone test, an opening blurb, a frankly far too long piece of introductory music, plus a tutorial, with no way to skip any of it. So far, I've had to do it five times, and that was four times too many. I usually like intro scenes and game openings. This one really does go on too long.
3. No way to save. Even in a relatively short game, life happens. The phone rings, the pizza arives, somebody needs you. In a linear game I don't want to have to start over from the beginning whenever I play. I suppose on the iPhone you could make it run in the background and it might put you back where you were when you bring it back up again, I didn't try that, I'm a neat freak and quit things when I finish with them.
4. I'm going to lump these things into one, because these are elements in the game that cause me problems because I'm me, Miss game clutz, they might be fine for everyone else. Moving in 3D I find really super hard. I can't map things in my head that way. When I press left arrow I expect him to move left sideways. I don't know if I'll ever get the hang of it. Then, when I'm trying to find someone, it's really hard because they only make a sound intermittently. You'll hear a laugh, or a leg clink, and turn to where you think you might have heard it, maybe, but it's gone, and you wait and you wait and you wait, but it doesn't come back for absolutely ages! In every other game I've played, if you're looking for something the sound is constant, or almost so. How can I find someone who's only laughing or asking for my fingernails about once every ninety seconds, or something? Lastly, on the PC the audiozoom wasn't working properly. It slowed everything down, so that you couldn't hear what anything was, this made it unworkable.

Conclusion.

I've been really excited for this game. I'm glad I experienced it, both on the iPhone and on the PC. It's definitely worth its very reasonable price of £3.99. I wasn't expecting huge amounts of bells and whistles for this kind of money, and I was quite surprised at how much space there was to move about in. I think some of my kinks might get better as I get the hang of the game, and some I'll learn to live with. I'll certainly be keeping the game and I look forward to seeing what else I can find when I explore this seedy street again, and I'll be interested to see what everyone else thinks of A Detective's Demise.