What it was
Chicago, 1942. A man wakes in a toilet stall at Joe's Bar with no idea who he is. Upstairs there is a dead body, a strap-down chair, some vials and a syringe, and there's a needle mark on his arm. Someone is setting him up for the murder. He is Ace Harding, a retired boxer turned private eye, and you have to find that out the same way he does.
You play by pointing and clicking at the scene, searching rooms and taking taxi rides across the city. Some puzzles want detective work; some want a punch. First you need an antidote to the drug clouding your memory. Once it works, flashbacks start to fill in what Ace did, and it involves a kidnapping.
Where it sits in history
ICOM Simulations made it for the Macintosh in October 1985, the first of its MacVenture games, the family that also includes Shadowgate and Uninvited. Macworld praised how its point-and-click interface freed players from guessing a text parser's vocabulary, and it won the Software Publishers Association's best entertainment product award.
Kemco brought it to the Famicom in Japan in November 1988, and the NES version reached North America in 1990. The port softened the original's clock. On the Mac, wait too long for the antidote and Ace's mind is gone for good; on the NES you have as long as you like, though walking into your own office before the cure still ends the game. Digital Press gave the NES version six out of ten, liking the puzzles more than the graphics and music.
How it plays today
The mood holds up. A drugged detective, a framed murder, a city full of people who know Ace better than he does. It is a short game once you know the answers, and a slow one when you don't; some solutions take a guess you'd only make by trying everything.
Losing the time limit makes the NES version kinder than the original. It is the least punishing of the three NES MacVentures, with no supernatural traps waiting behind doors, and the best place to start.
Compared with
- Shadowgate: The MacVenture fantasy sibling, with far more ways to die.
- Uninvited: The haunted-house MacVenture, same interface, more dread.
- Maniac Mansion: Another computer adventure brought to the NES, funnier and more open.
Why it matters
James Paul Gee described the identity a player takes on as a blend of their real self and the character, shaped by what the player wants that character to be. Most games hand you a hero with a past. Déjà Vu hands you a man with none, and so for the first hour you and Ace know exactly the same amount about him.
That makes the search personal. Each clue and flashback is a fact about someone you are already being, and you decide what kind of man to be before you find out what kind he was.
Read: Who you are when you play →
- Gee, J. P. (2003). What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy.
What you're levelling up
You have been training these without noticing. Here is how to do it on purpose, and where it pays off away from the couch. All the skills games teach →
Problem solving
In the game. You wake in a toilet stall at Joe's Bar with no memory, a dead body upstairs and a needle mark. Some puzzles want detective work, some want a punch.
Do it on purpose. Keep a notepad. Before trying anything random, write down what you know and what you haven't tried.
Off the couch. When a project or a relationship goes sideways, whoever sits down and works out what actually happened fixes it. Whoever guesses makes it worse.
Curiosity
In the game. Searching rooms, taking taxi rides across the city. A city full of people who know Ace better than he does.
Do it on purpose. Click on everything in a room before you leave it. Note what you'd have missed.
Off the couch. Ask your date about the thing they're into, then ask the next question. Curious is interesting, and interesting gets a second date.
Memory and routing
In the game. Once the antidote works, flashbacks fill in what Ace did. Tracking clues across scenes is the whole game.
Do it on purpose. Play a session, then the next day write down every clue from memory before you continue.
Off the couch. Remembering what a client or mate told you last week makes them feel heard. That's rare and people notice.
Verdict · 6/10
A film noir in a cartridge, short and moody. Play it with a notepad.
