“Joe Kowalski Chronicles – Murder in a flat” is short prologue into series, expect around 45 min of gameplay and we all hope a good fun. It’s a neo-noir detective crime mystery. First part will be focused on early Joe’s days as a police detective.
In next chapters Joe will go from homicide detective to disgraced detective, his war days and finally to private detective. Each chapter will be connected with previous one, but there will be a finished story at the end of each chapter.
In prologue chapter “Murder in a flat”, Joe Kowalski a police detective just finished his last bottle in dump across the street. He went home to hit the sack when he was pulled out from a bed by phone call.
It was boss yelling at him to go check out dead body and a crime scene which happened just around the corner from building where he lives. Joe as any good detective lights another cigarette, sips up first booze he could find in hands reach and goes straight over there…dead body’s not going anywhere…
Main protagonist in the story, detective in police force.
Dead body in the middle of the room. Joe needs to learn as much as he can about her in order to solve her murder.
Chief Brown, must have been in a force for 30 years now. Usually spends his time on phone yelling at people.
Sargent James is a rare honest cop in a city of cops on the take. One time even wrote a ticket to captain Brown.
Young cop on his way up, bright future ahead. He’s known to lot of people in the police force.
No one knows actually how old granny is, some say she lived here before building was built. Lives in apartment on the same floor where the murder happened.
Larry is the guy that supposedly owns the building apartments and collects rent. Most people consider him a greaseball.
Small mysterious girl – no one knows who she is or her history. Her current whereabouts are unknown.
Game uses standard point and click gameplay, action menu for interactions, and basic inventory. As in any point and click adventure you are also able to pick up stuff, find and combine clues, move stuff around, talk to people, combine items, solve puzzles, etc.
Joe’s main goal is to find a killer so he questions everyone. If someone lies too much, Joe gets pissed off quite fast and then some new options appear on action menu. He will use any means necessary to find the killer.
Joe can pull out his gun when a simple talk can’t solve problems (something like in Blade Runner from ’97). On occasions Joe may be able to actually shoot at something or someone, but keep in mind this is not an action game and Joe is definitely not Max Payne.
Rare are quick action scenes which are there mostly to make some kind of choice. We are experimenting and mixing genres but also don’t want to annoy players too much since this is still just a point and click adventure.