Overview
Text adventures, now more colloquially known as Interactive Fiction (IF), have been around since the first computers took up entire rooms on campuses. Colossal Cave being the first in 1976, and Infocom making a huge splash with them in the 80’s…
Review for A Case of Distrust
Text adventures, now more colloquially known as Interactive Fiction (IF), have been around since the first computers took up entire rooms on campuses. Colossal Cave being the first in 1976, and Infocom making a huge splash with them in the 80’s. As seminal as they were, they died a rather unceremonious death with the invention of VGA monitors and 256 color graphics – despite the cult following that still exists today[ifcomp.org]
A Case of Distrust owes much to those early titles, along with the noir stories of the 20’s. Taking these facts into consideration, you wonder just who the target market is for this title. Millennials have a hard enough time paying attention to a 128 character-limit tweet, you want them to read an entire game?
Taking a minimalist approach to visuals, A Case of Distrust captures that early era flavor, and peppers it with a suitable score to create a captivating experience. The vernacular has some outdated terminology that may elude younger players, but it’s couched in enough common English to be discerned.
You play Phyllis Malone, an ex-police woman turned private detective – something that is heavily contrarian to the era of the game. Hired by a less-than-savory character to find out who is threatening him, Phyllis must solve the case using an updated interface based on the parser of those early text adventures.
Instead of typing, you simply click information from your notes whenever an opportunity to ask about them occurs. In a nod to L.A Noire, you must gather enough evidence and references to move the story forward. You can’t ask someone about an item you haven’t examined, or a person you haven’t spoken to.
This is where the game loses its charm, falling victim to the very same issues that killed the text adventure. Missing the thread of the plot, or choosing your interactions in a different manner then was intended will land you in a hole with no idea where to go next. You resort to using every item on every actionable object before you discover what combination you need to advance.
Attempts have been made over the years to rectify this problem, and reinvigorate the genre, but none have been successful. A Case of Distrust tries to give you a hint system in the form of a character you can consult, but he requires the same broken interactions to utilize. There are only a few ‘gotcha’ moments in the game, but it brings your enjoyment to a screeching halt.
The description of the game promises ‘themes of poverty, racism, and emancipation but these serious topics barely take a back seat for most of the game: Complaining about money isn’t addressing poverty. The very heated racial climate of the era is touched on so lightly until the ending, it’s almost insulting. Finally, the emancipation element comes in a way that feels more like an excuse for the plot than an accurate representation. Both of the latter points are cut down to a concise paragraph or two of conversation, as if to sweep them under the rug as quickly as possible. These are important topics, and ones that were put into the game’s description. If you don’t have anything real to say about them, it’s just pandering.
The fact that Phyllis is a female police woman and detective in the 20’s is a rarity of almost mythic proportions. Making the character a woman gave me hopes that a good story would be forthcoming surrounding her trials, with a righteous conclusion. Unfortunately, she is written so male that I found myself disconnected from her.
As a game that is so story driven, it’s sinister that many of your choices feel insignificant. You make arbitrary decisions of minutia that offer only differences in excerpts, they change nothing in the story. Perhaps this is a way to promote multiple playthroughs, but I was never curious enough to care as the choices felt so random and meaningless.
If a system existed that regurgitated your story back to you at the end, to read as a hard-boiled novella, you would have something here.
Another problem is the travel system. While you cab it from place to place, you are given the opportunity to talk to the driver. Wisdom and experience tells you to do so, as you may receive useful information, or perhaps be awarded some opportunity.
Nope.
Nothing ever comes of these little chinwags, they are strictly there for color. You get some interesting asides based on events that took place in the period, but how many players will know that or care? If you do decide to be all Chatty Cathy for ambiance, take note that I never heard the same story twice but your mileage may vary.
Even if you forgo the conversation, you are still presented with the same introduction to each location. With so much traveling required in the game, it gets repetitive fast, despite the short three-hour play time. Had the developer simply went through the animation after a location had been visited, skipping the need to click a button to advance, this could have been alleviated somewhat.
Like every detective story, the ending has a twist. The largest problem in discovering it is how you ask the questions. Giving the correct information, but from the wrong person, grants no response. It’s an unfair requirement, and drags the game out for much longer than needed. Hint: You need to accuse someone to advance the ending, there are no ‘hey you solved the case’ popups.
The presentation of A Case of Distrust is fantastic, unfortunately the actual game does not live up to its promise. At the full $15 price tag, I can’t recommend it to anyone who is not a die hard IF fan or appreciates masochistic adventure games. What starts out as a great experience, becomes tedium by the end.
Text adventures were always hard, and those who played them expected that. However they fell off the face of gaming for a reason, and A Case of Distrust is an unfortunate reminder of that.
Originally posted in March 2018 on Backlog Critic.