In Chinatown Detective Agency, You Can Do Your Homework and Play It Too

Singapore, 2037. The skies and the streets are monitored by police drones, and once-public utilities have now been sold off to private corporations. Economic disparities are front and center. Underneath all the grime, ex-Interpol officer turned private investigator Amira Darma runs an agency based out of Singapore’s Chinatown, looking into what others can’t or won’t.

Chinatown Detective Agency, an adventure game born out of a 2020 Kickstarter campaign, is developed by General Interactive Co., a company itself located in Singapore.

As Amira, you’ll take on cases for clients. The gimmick, if you will, is that cases will inevitably revolve around puzzles or historical or cultural research. The first case, in which you’re tasked with solving a cipher, starts off easy enough. Instead of your character “solving” it, you’re presented with the string of numbers, the corresponding key, and a text box to type in the solution.

Things slowly ramp up as you progress. One case involves a postage stamp from the Ottoman Empire and the task of determining what city it was sent from. I was soon researching the extent of the empire’s rule in the 19th century and investigating place names (hint: the city more commonly went by a French name at this time).

In no time I was solving Polybius squares and researching red wines from Burgundy. I found myself using my cellphone to take pictures of emails and other text I thought might contain clues that would come in handy later (and oftentimes, they did). Some situations present you with a time limit, like guessing a computer password before someone returns, so having a second computer monitor or being quick-fingered with your phone browser is a plus. Funny enough, you can tell that people playing this game have been googling the same things, as game guides pop up when searching something otherwise mundane, so avert your eyes! If you’re really stumped, Amira meets a librarian—a human encyclopedia—who will either give you a hint or the solution outright for a varying fee.

General Interactive Co.

Chinatown Detective Agency is a point-and-click adventure—you’ll explore two-dimensional building interiors and an “overworld” of whatever city you’re in. Singapore is fully fleshed out, featuring a subway system to bring you to different city districts and destinations therein. Other cities in the world, however, have only a single screen, presenting only relevant buildings you need for your adventure. I guess I can forgive them; there’s a plethora of cities to fly to and I visited only a handful in my adventures. The retro pixel graphics are in great juxtaposition with the world’s cyberpunkish setting.

Jet-setting around the world to solve mysteries and research clues about history and culture gives a distinct Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? vibe. You might even be tricked into learning a thing or two (!) while playing a video game. It all makes for a great mental challenge, but that being said, it may not be the best game for unwinding after a long day at school or work.

Early on, you’ll be faced with a choice to work full time for one of your three clients. I chose to work for a client who was investigating the looting of what remained of Singapore’s public utilities by private corporations. The other two story lines sounded quite interesting as well, giving it excellent replayability. The game’s pop-up tutorials mentioned the potential to hire other people into your agency or move your business into a bigger office, neither of which I got to experience. It’s interesting that you may not get to experience all of the features in a single playthrough.

Knowledge and research aside, I found the mechanics of the game to be on the easy side. Amira gets paid for each case solved, and at the end of each month she has to pay rent and utilities for her office. Firstly, at the speed I went along, I only had to pay two months’ rent. Secondly, I did pretty well in the cases and had enough money that I never felt the expenses put a dent in my pocketbook. Maybe if I’d had the chance to expand my business, as mentioned, money management would have been a bigger factor in the game.

General Interactive Co.

This may be a small nitpick, but there is an oddity with the voice acting in this game, specifically regarding which lines are voiced. Not every line in the game is voiced, and I understand that full voice acting can be an expensive endeavor for a lower-budget game. However, within a seemingly fully voice-acted conversation, one line will be text only, and the response will jump back to voiced. I don’t know if the script was rewritten after lines were recorded, if it was a cost-cutting measure, or if it was something else, but it’s certainly noticeable.

Chinatown Detective Agency is a throwback to an earlier era of gaming, and I appreciate that there are small game developers out here still carrying the torch. Setting aside the small problems, as whole, the game is something refreshing. I know not everyone will want to do homework on their time off or their weekends, but I would encourage you to give it a try, because you just might find homework enjoyable.

Chinatown Detective Agency is available on PC, MacOS, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One.