Confidential Killings - A Detective Game Review

In Confidential Killings - A Detective Game, crime scenes take you behind Hollywood’s dazzling curtain, trading applause and autographs for backstabbing and violence. It’s up to you to follow the trail, gather clues, piece together relationships, discover secrets, and, ultimately, match names to these heinous murders.

I’m all for a good mystery, and I love it when games let me play the part of an intrepid investigator. For my fellow fans of challenging puzzlers and those who enjoy metaphorically stringing yarn between suspects and victims, titles like Return of the Obra Dinn and The Case of the Golden Idol are well-loved as genre innovators. So, it was definitely intriguing to hear that BRANE and Lorenzo Boni drew gameplay inspiration from those experiences.

Across several cases, you’ll meet a varied cast of characters, including actors, assistants, hospitality staff, producers, and more. These are not one-and-done meets, as you’ll follow many characters (those who survive) from case to case. Alive or dead, the cast is distinct from one another and interesting in their own ways; their grievances and secrets kept me hooked, even though it didn’t take much to unearth them. Not only do characters recur as you progress, but there’s also a mysterious drug that makes repeat appearances, which further fleshes out the vibe that you’re investigating the dark, shameful shadows of Hollywood, a ripe setting for a murder mystery title.

Gameplay-wise, you’ll point-and-click your way through scenes, reading documents, scripts, notes, and more, gathering any underlined names, nouns, or verbs by clicking on them. From there, the words are stored in your notebook, where you’ll reconstruct the “who, what, and why” of the murder by adding the right word to a blank space. You’ll also attach names to character portraits, which you’ll have to do for every case, even if the individual is a recurring face.

There’s also a section where you can leave your own notes, but while I appreciate that it’s there, I didn’t need it throughout my time in Confidential Killings. The solutions were quite simple and rarely required any deduction. Clues weren’t gripping stepping stones to unveiling the scene’s mystery, as you could piece together what happened by the end of your first pass through the evidence. The game serves you its answers far too willingly. Filling out the summary at the end reminded me of “critical reading” tests in school versus challenging puzzle-solving. Though it wasn’t too annoying, it was also tedious to re-fill names of cast members that you’ve seen plenty of times before.

Confidential Killings did introduce some cool interaction when exploring, though. I enjoyed entering a dark room where there was seemingly nothing to click on until I turned on the lights. That small feature injected a lot of life into the mostly static scenes. That said, there was never a moment when I felt like something was a cool find. The items and notes become underwhelming as you progress through cases, and I kept wishing for an intriguing discovery.

Searching for the last few clues in a case did get frustrating if I had to exit and reload. The game allows you to highlight searchable areas, which appear with a question mark, turning them into eyeballs to indicate you’ve clicked on them. However, if you exit the game and come back, all those symbols will revert to the default, making you lose your place. You do retain any words you’ve clicked on, which is great, but that doesn’t help you find the one last clue you’re missing as you’re forced to comb through evidence again.

Visually, Confidential Killings nails the noir, Hollywood vibes. The environments feel stripped of their glitz and glamour; it’s a dark atmosphere that still holds remnants of the bold, wealthy, and artistic activities that preceded the murders. Ultimately, the high-contrast art with its gloomy colour palette is stunning to look at.

Confidential Killings - A Detective Game didn’t make me feel like an expert sleuth, but what’s here is a good introduction to the genre, especially if something like The Case of the Golden Idol feels obtuse or intimidating. It is quite short, though, which makes it a better buy if you can grab it on sale.