Lamplight City is an upcoming point-and-click adventure game from Grundislav Games and Application Systems Heidelberg. The basic idea is that it is a detective game where your decisions matter, as well as an adventure game where you can’t get stuck at a dead end. That was enough to catch my attention. The current preview build doesn’t really show these systems in action, but it provides an intriguing glimpse of what the full game will be like.
You play as Miles Fordham, who starts out as a detective investigating an unusual burglary with his partner Bill. It seems simple at first, but things go bad, Bill gets killed, and the burglar gets away. After a brief time skip, you learn Miles’s life has changed for the worse. He’s been kicked off the force… and Bill keeps speaking to him from beyond the grave, urging him to find the burglar.
Miles is now a private investigator, solving cases on his own and hoping to find any leads. The main game will feature five cases to investigate, but the preview build only includes one. As is typical for this sort of game, you click on objects in the environment to investigate them, question other characters, and solve puzzles. However, Lamplight City doesn’t have an inventory system. Instead, it streamlines the process with a context-sensitive cursor and automatic item use. While this does make things somewhat easier than in traditional puzzle games, there were a couple puzzles that had to be solved manually.
Lamplight City also adds an interesting layer to conversations. If you make a character angry, it could have consequences, even in later cases. While I wasn’t able to see that effect, I did reach a point where Bill warned me that my current line of questioning might be a bad idea, which gave me a chance to back off. Bill’s role in general is a perfect fit for the adventure game genre, because instead of having the protagonist talk to himself about everything the room, the ghostly voice in his head provides those observations.
While I only had access to the game’s first case, it was pretty interesting and took about two hours to complete. The steampunk setting is handled well, with small worldbuilding touches that make it feel real. The mystery unravels slowly and has multiple twists before the guilty party becomes clear. It did spell everything out at the end–although I believe the full game will have situations where you can accuse the wrong person–but then gave me a choice about how to respond. It felt like the sort of decision that could have an impact later on, although that won’t be clear until the main game is finished.
Lamplight City has humorous moments in its first case, but it also touches upon some grim subject matter. It deals heavily with themes of racism, prejudice, and a world on the brink of change due to recent technological advancements, all of which fit the setting. These themes will most likely be present through the entire game.
The only thing I didn’t quite buy was Miles’s motivation. Of course, he wants to find the person responsible for his partner’s death, but a big issue is that he needs drugs to sleep because apparently Bill talks all night long. Since Bill only comments at relevant points during gameplay, this caused a disconnect where I found it difficult to believe he couldn’t just be quiet for a few hours. That’s a small criticism, however, for a story that otherwise seems like it’s headed to interesting places.
Lamplight City has some interesting ideas on how to let the player’s choices influence its narrative, but even its first case makes it an adventure game worth keeping an eye on.
