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A sister game to Shadowgate just instead of taking place in a castle, it's in 40s film noir, starring amnesiac detective Ace Harding. Lighter on the Nightmare Fuel. Also spawned a less well known, but nice in its own right sequel.
Compare to The Uninvited, also by the same developer.
Not to be confused with the 2006 film starring Denzel Washington.
This game provides examples of:
- Badass Longcoat: You. Your coat is helpfully waiting for you, right on the first screen.
- Ballistic Discount: Doesn't work. The gunshop owner has a shotgun, and he's faster than you are.
- Bottomless Sewer: The best way to get rid of pesky evidence. Just watch out for that croc.
- Bowdlerization: The syringe item was changed to "capsules" in the NES version. Presumably, this was done to keep the young whippersnappers from sticking each other up with needles, but Nintendo's censorship board wasn't as worried about kids popping the "capsules" from Dad's medicine cabinet - not that it happened anyway.
- Deadpan Snarker: The game's narrator gives you a lot of snarky shit if you try to do unusual actions, like eating non-food items, or using objects in a strange way.
- Enemy Civil War: Only way to survive in the sequel is to get the two Mafia factions too busy killing each other than to go after you. You have to instigate this.
- Femme Fatal: Sugar Shack. And Vickers.
- Flashback: Ace is plagued with them.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: Ace's weapon of choice is a punch to the face. Justified, in that he used to be a boxer, prior to the detective gig.
- Guide Dang It: Due to a rather awful last minute glitch, you'll probably need a guide to determine just what evidence to keep and what to ditch.
- Hit Flash: "BLAM" and "SOCKO"
- Invincible Minor Minion: There IS no good way to deal with the mugger in the alley. Shoot him, the police will get you. Do anything else, he'll beat you up, take your money and render the game Unwinnable. Your only options are to avoid that alley entirely, or shoot him, eat the Game Over and continue.
- Not so, money is only really needed in the form of quarters for the taxi, and free quarters someone "left behind" respawn in the slot machine, and if you are low on quarters you always get a jackpot.
- Laser Guided Amnesia: Ace's big difficulty in life.
- Nintendo Hard: Less so than Shadowgate or Uninvited. A determined player can conceivably beat this one without ever consulting an FAQ.
- Not With The Safety On You Wont: The reason you're relatively safe around the gun toting mugger. He'll catch on eventually, though...
- Offscreen Teleportation: Stogie uses this in the sequel to be SUPREMELY annoying. Run into the desert? Nope, he'll get you. Hop a train out of town? Nope, he'll get you. Basically, if he wants you, he'll magically find you.
- Peek A Boo Corpse: Hi Joey.
- Press X To Die: You could "Use" a weapon item with anything in the interface. Including the button that represents yourself.
- Private Detective: That'd be you, Ace.
- Shoot Out The Lock: A better way to put your gun to use than on people, actually.
- Strapped To An Operating Table: Siegel, oddly enough, has a chair with restraining straps on the top floor of his bar. Yes, it was put to use.
- Timed Mission: From the beginning of the game, you have a limited number of moves to discover the antidote before the amnesia drug you've been injected with turns you into a drooling vegetable. Once you manage to find the antidote, though, you're free to Take Your Time. In the sequel, you have a limited amount of time to win the game before the Mob makes good their threat to find you and kill you.
- The Dragon: Stogie, in the sequel. A really annoying one, too.
- The Mafia: Your biggest worry in the sequel.
- The Many Deaths Of You
- Trial And Error Gameplay
- Unsound Effect: "SOCKO"
- Videogame Cruelty Punishment: You start the game with a pistol loaded with 3 bullets, and are free to shoot anyone you want with it. Doing so pretty much results in an instant game over, though, either due to the arrival of the cops or the other guy being quicker on the draw.
- Videogame Cruelty Potential: At one point, you'll gain access to a doctor's office, and all manner of drugs, from heart murmur medication to nerve gas antidote. Said medications have rather lethal side effects for anyone who does not have heart murmurs or nerve gas poisoning. You can apply them to any character who will hold still long enough for you to jab the syringe into them. Yep. Best of all, this doesn't draw the attention of the cops, so you can potentially go around murdering multiple characters with no immediate consequences. It does prevent you from getting the good ending, though, as you are immediately condemned as "a dangerous lunatic armed with a loaded syringe" the moment you try to clear your name.
- Why Dont Ya Just Shoot Him: Usually, trying this will only get you arrested. Though it works nicely on both the crocodile, and that pesky hitman in your office.
- Wrongly Accused: You'll probably want to be avoiding the police.
- Xanatos Gambit: Turns out to be an elaborate plot for Sternwood to knock off his wife and get with Vickers, Vickers to knock off Siegel and get with Sternwood, both of them to end up rich, and you, the poor amnesiac who can't remember his own name, let alone enough to defend himself, to take the fall. Phew.
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