First Impressions - Obsidian Moon

Video game demos are a lost art. It’s been literal decades since you could try virtually any game before you bought it. Technically, you can still do that by buying a game and then refunding it if it isn’t your cup of tea. That’s not the same as playing a segment of a title that its developers believe best encapsulates the experience, though. Doing the latter, not the former, is a great way for smaller teams to drum up interest for their games. It lets players enjoy a slice of something they may not have otherwise heard of. 

Lost Cabinet Games’s demo of Obsidian Moon does exactly that. It only takes 30 minutes to complete, and it showcases everything you need to know about the upcoming title. The most important one being that, as long as you like detective stories, it’s going to be worth buying.

The premise of Obsidian Moon is simple. You play as Sam Carter, a stereotypical 1930s detective who is down on his luck. He finds himself working homicide in totally-not Atlantic City, where strange things are afoot. The demo doesn’t focus on the strange, which according to the title’s Steam page will involve Lovecraftian horrors, Minoan and Kawirian mysteries, in addition to regular murders. Instead, it showcases Obsidian Moon’s gameplay and atmosphere. Both of these are, in a word, fantastic. The tempo of the title especially is grimy in a good way. You can almost smell Obsidian Moon’s world. It reeks of cheap booze, cigarette smoke, and stale gunpowder. The developers recommend you play the demo with the lights off in your room. And you should, because you’ll actually feel like an investigative copper with an alcohol addiction while you’re playing it that way.

It helps that Obsidian Moon’s gameplay is straightforward, at least mechanically. You solve cases while staring at a virtual desk that becomes increasingly cluttered with clues as you investigate leads. You never actually leave that desk, with your character doing all the legwork off-screen. Instead, you interrogate suspects or perform stakeouts by simply clicking on a prompt and waiting for a few seconds. It’s a little bit strange to be sure, but it works to the game’s benefit. The short segment of Obsidian Moon you can play through for free involves figuring out who murdered a man. Unlike in L.A. Noire, you don’t have to waste your time walking around environments looking for one mission-essential item. Instead, you use your own intuition to decide what leads you believe are worth following, and then let the protagonist burn shoe leather.

The catch is you can’t chase down every tip. Every action you complete costs resources. Surveilling suspects and sending items to the lab requires you to fork over your in-game cash. You only get paid when you successfully submit all your findings to the district attorney, though, and there’s only so many hours in a virtual day. If you can’t solve a case in one sitting, you have to pay your bills and restock your liquor to stay sane enough for the next one. Following every lead will leave you broke. Sometimes, you’ll have to be impulsive, or get a confession from a suspect by pointing your stub-nose revolver at them.

That’s the mark of a good detective game. Not necessarily the ability to commit police brutality, but the ability to complete them without collecting all the facts. Obsidian Moon’s demo lets you, and if the full game does, too, it’ll no doubt be a fantastic entry into the genre. It has the style of any good piece of media set in the 1930s, gameplay that’s more complicated than completing a virtual treasure hunt, and a potentially peculiar narrative. Like the best puzzle games of this type, it strains your brain without making you do busywork. If you’re remotely interested in playing as a guy who probably says “toots” a lot and smells like your grandpa, spend half an hour and enjoy Obsidian Moon’s free demo. And, assuming that like any good demo represents the full product, you’ll probably want to play it when the game releases.

Obsidian Moon is currently available as a demo during Steam’s Detective Fest. Check back on Jump Dash Roll for a full review when it launches!