Developed by: Rival Games
Published by: Rival Games
Available for: PC
Early in The Detail, one of the main characters expresses frustrations about a lack of funding. The police precinct he works for has seen their budget slashed again and again, and he questions how he can possibly do his job without enough money for what’s required. Unknowingly, this character proves oddly prescient about the game he’s starring in – a title that strives hard to model itself after the juggernauts of the adventure genre, but lacks the polish and even basic features to fully realize its dream.
The Detail is an adventure game modeled after well-known examples like Telltale’s Walking Dead and Dontnod’s Life is Strange. Instead of zombies or time travel, however, the plot is built around a police procedural of sorts, bringing to mind The Shield or The Wire in its characters and writing style. You play as a variety of characters, from a jaded old detective to an ex-con dragged back into a life of crime, all working to investigate the suspicious murder of a notorious crime boss. While the game’s writing is frequently clever, portraying the characters as likable and human, the developer’s lack of budget becomes immediately and painfully apparent. There’s no voice acting, which wouldn’t be a problem, except there’s barely any music either – which, itself, seems inconsistent about when it wants to play. This left many play sessions, especially in later episodes, in an odd sort of uncomfortable silence that frequently took me out of the game.
Much of the gameplay is made up of interactive conversations to progress an investigation.
Despite these problems, The Detail might have gotten by on its writing alone as a worthwhile experience, if not for crippling technical issues. In addition to the aforementioned random silences due to the music cutting out, I had my progress completely locked off at one point due to a bug that stopped me from being able to click objects in the environment, and searching the internet revealed it to be a common issue. Once I was able to find a workaround, things seemed back on track until I realized that The Detail was misremembering my narrative choices for crucial plot points. Despite being completely honest with one character’s wife about his illicit activities, the end-of-episode summary and following episode’s cutscenes acted as if I had lied to her. In a narrative-driven experience like this, where the story is the entire appeal, this is an absolutely gamebreaking issue that singlehandedly ruins the entire point of playing.
Making games is difficult, especially for ambitious indie developers on a low budget. I sympathize with the challenge that making The Detail must have been, but when it comes to charging money for a product, just trying isn’t enough. While there’s a rough gem underneath all of the issues thanks to the clever writing, the game is simply broken on a fundamental level. If the myriad glitches are ironed out, it might be worth playing in the future, but right now, this police procedural is a cold case.
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