Detective en habitación cerrada

Me cuesta ser objetivo con las obras de Strollersoft, representan lo que más me gusta del género. Son juguetonas, pero de temática adulta y huyen de los tópicos del mundillo.

En este caso, partiendo de un escenario típico y tópico de escape room, se consigue aplicar un giro de tuerca fantástico, muy loco y divertido. El conjunto de acciones es limitado pero ajustado a la situación y hay mucho más de lo que pudiera parecer de primeras. Se complementa con un buen puñado de finales distintos y algo de reivindicación política con las habituales dosis de humor y autocrítica.

Puntos extra tanto por la portada como por la música.

Muy recomendable, jugadla.

Detective en habitación cerrada es un juego de Inform alucinante protagonizado por un detective que sólo puede investigarse a sí mismo. Sin embargo, necesita un delito que investigar, un cliente y un culpable; descubrir cómo conseguirlos es el objetivo del juego.

El tono de la narración es sarcástico, y la premisa se utiliza para satirizar el individualismo y la privatización, deleitándose con un juego de palabras sobre los distintos significados de “privado”. La prosa es uno de los puntos fuertes del juego (aunque la perspectiva cambia de segunda a primera persona a veces; no se si era intencional).

Una vez que entendí la mecánica básica, pude avanzar bien un rato, pero hacia el final empecé a tener problemas con entender la lógica, aunque parece que me he encontrado con algún error en el juego.

Al final logré resolver el caso; el resultado no fue precisamente un final feliz, pero en este juego me sorprendería si algo así fuera posible. En general disfruté de la experiencia.

Detective en habitación cerrada is a mind-bending Inform game featuring a detective who can only investigate himself. Nevertheless, he needs a crime to investigate, a client, and a culprit; figuring out how to produce these things is the goal of the game.

The tone of the narration is sarcastic, and the premise is used to satirize individualism and privatization, playing on different meanings of “private”. The writing is generally a strong point of the game (though the point of view slips from second person to first person at times; I wasn’t sure if that was intentional).

Once I figured out the basic mechanics, I was able to make good progress for a while, but towards the end I started to struggle with the logic, although it seems like I may have encountered a bug in the game.

In the end I did manage to solve the case; the result was not exactly a happy ending, but in this game I would be surprised if such a thing were possible. Overall I enjoyed the experience.

This was a tricky game for me! It’s a Spanish-language parser game that uses a lot of wordplay and clever phrases. I also had some trouble with the parser occasionally (which is normal for me when playing a game not in my native tongue). I’ve attached a transcript if anyone wants to see me struggling to get even the bad ending (I also decompiled the game to get some help).

You play as a private detective, but, as you are a ‘detectivo privado’, you can only examine yourself! That’s an example of wordplay that I didn’t quite get as a foreigner; I assume ‘privado’ has a dual meaning between the english word ‘private’ and a meaning of ‘self’ or ‘personal’ or something.

You are alone in a locked room with nothing but a photo of yourself, a pistol, some handcuffs, and a cushion. But, as the game tells you, you can only examine yourself, and you need a crime (in the form of a cuerpo delito), a client to contract you, and a criminal!

I eventually discovered that the key to progressing was to (Spoiler - click to show)sit on the cushion and to look at the photo (possibly needing to meditate first). Once I did that, the game became complex and I was able to interact with a lot more things.

Like I said, I received a bad ending in the end. Some things are on a timer, and it looks like I was caught up in a bad end, but I liked the clever concept of the game and enjoyed playing. It was funny and mind-bending, and I was impressed by the concept and story.