Chinatown Detective Agency Review
need to know
What is it? A point-and-click adventure set in a futuristic Singapore.
Release date April 7
developer Universal Interactive
Publisher HumbleGames/WhisperGames
multiplayer game? Do not
association Official website(opens in a new tab)
As a science fiction lover and a Singaporean, playing the Chinatown Detective Agency is a rare experience. Shortly after entering this recent release of My Homeland, it became clear that the game has two different layers, aimed at two different audiences: one is a point-and-click adventure for people who grew up with Broderbund’s Carmen Sandiego series, this one They took them all over the world. The other, though not mutually exclusive, is a game made for Singaporeans.
In 2037, the country has gone through an incredible process of deregulation, trains are littered with anti-government graffiti, drones and robots are the norm, and there’s only one human librarian left in the country. You’ll play as Amira Darma, a former police officer who started out as a private investigator in a rundown Chinatown shophouse. As she takes on cases and meets with clients, Amira begins to travel the world while pulling a bigger, more dangerous mystery.
(Image credit: Humble Games)
At the most basic level, it’s so cool to explore your hometown in pixels – even if it’s a fictional description plastered with the standard liability statement that the game is a product of the developer’s imagination (the government is notoriously good lawsuit). This is something Americans, Europeans, and the global North will never understand, because New York, Paris and London (in a way, Cold War anti-images of Moscow and Beijing) are outdated. Singapore’s Western fame is relatively new in mainstream pop culture, with the final season of HBO’s “Westworld” and the American film “Crazy Rich Asians.” I can’t underestimate the importance of CDA, it features a Singaporean dub with a local English accent, with segments in Singaporean English and Malay, and it’s regular.
Overall, General Interactive Co. presents surface narratives for general audiences unfamiliar with Singaporean jokes and clichés, as well as more nuanced storytelling that draws on true hyperlocal knowledge: Singapore megachurch culture, class politics and our drinking water supply. On a broader level, of course, these problems are hardly unique to Singapore – widening economic disparities and environmental degradation are everywhere. The main plot isn’t rocket science — it’s mostly tried-and-true dystopian tropes like rogue AI, cowardly tech tycoons, and omnipresent surveillance. Many speculative stories are punctuated by trends such as mass automation, the rise of unions and corporatism.
(Image credit: Humble Games)
The main function of CDA is to google for clues yourself – there’s a UI button that lets you find tabs in your browser.
Most cases are relatively short: inspecting and returning objects, decoding messages, or finding clues that might take you to a different city. Amira uses a travel app called HORUS and an in-game clock to plan flights. There are some simple combat events that are pretty basic point-and-shoot scenarios, although you do have the option of getting injured or killed. Ultimately, Amira had to choose a major client – I chose Tiger Lily, a shady information broker who runs a “health club” in the red light district of Geylang. Her case involved a local megachurch — the Temple of Self — and the wealthy, dysfunctional family behind it. It’s a poignant look at Singapore’s megachurch culture, and one of the more engaging storylines. When I think about the role that evangelism has played in the relationship between Singapore’s conservative values and its secular image, I am both excited and pained.
Puzzles are probably the most divisive part of the game. The main feature of CDA (my favorite) is to google for clues yourself – there’s a UI button that lets you find tabs in your browser. Even as someone who loves passwords and note-taking, some of the more complicated puzzles—especially the steles—are annoying (in part due to the state of the review version I played). There’s a fine line between empowering players and satisfying, while still pushing them to sweat, and here CDA wobbles. Thankfully, the game offers help in the form of Librarian Mei Ting, so it really depends on how much you’re a masochist.
(Image credit: Humble Games)
Small inconsistencies lead to occasionally frustrating gameplay. The initial part of the game is automatically saved after each case. You should be able to save at your discretion after selecting a primary client, but this only works for a short period of time; as a result, when I failed a critical case, I had to start the whole thing all over again. HORUS squanders the opportunity to deepen in-game bankroll management, as each flight costs $550. Arbitrary week intervals between cases – I don’t know why Amira waited a week before revealing key information to clients. She pays monthly office rent and utilities and eventually hires an employee who she then doesn’t pay, which is interesting when you consider the union subplot in the game.
Finally, I faced the consequences of my actions: my toughness meant some clients wouldn’t work with me, and working with Tiger Lily would give her more power. Overall, the writing is a bit spotty – the main cast is pretty good, with a distinct dialogue style, but there are a few rough sections of the show that veer into overly dramatic territory.Most NPCs have one or two fixed lines of dialogue, occasionally including weird, slightly jarring non-inferences, but consistent with the peculiar nature of point-and-click adventures as an extension of the developer’s personality
(Image credit: Humble Games)
Even with these flaws, CDA is certainly of particular interest to gamers like me, and the task of reviewing it for the general audience is pretty daunting. Due to my lack of cultural representation in gaming – despite the rise of indie games in Southeast Asia – CDA has inadvertently targeted Singaporeans who still suffer from the remaining insults from William Gibson’s 1993 Wired article “Disneyland and the Death Penalty” Taking on an unfair talisman, it condemns this country as a barren, brain-dead hell. It reminds us how fiction deepens our relationship with our respective families and environments, and how we explore speculative pathways to different futures through fiction. Perhaps CDA has always been a fulfilling experience for me, although I could leave the general main plot and spend the whole day working on its depiction of local issues and culture. As far as point-and-click adventures go, it’s a pretty decent debut, and there’s room for improvement. Still, as a cultural artefact, it’s pretty awesome.
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