Get your notepads out and ready to bust some bad guys
I stumbled upon Confidential Killings during Steam Next Fest last year, recommended to me because of my playtimes in The Rootrees are Dead and the Golden Idol games, among others. Set in the late 1970s, the game’s 2D art sets the scene with its film noir style that had me wanting to jump into another mystery by the time I solved the final case.
The game begins with a car crash; easy enough, right? But it’s never that easy; it wouldn’t have been much of a game if it were. The crash was just the tip of the iceberg, leading you into a tangled web of drugs, Hollywood hotshots, dirty cops, corrupt politicians, and a Scientology-esque cult to sort out.
The cases are told in static scenes, where you’ll scour them for clues, looking for words to add to help you in reconstructing what went on and who killed whom in a particular case, and to identify victims, suspects, and bystanders. (Think of the Golden Idol games.) As the cases went on, things would get more complicated, with more clues to wade through, and even more puzzles to solve. You’d have to figure out who said what on a tape recording, the order of events in which a crime happened, etc.
Collecting clues themselves was an interesting part of Confidential Killings; in each scene and room, there was usually something interesting to find and read. At the same time, I had to laugh because there were a few areas where I was like, “oh, that’s a red herring haha.”
There’s also an in-game notepad where you can take notes like in The Roottrees are Dead, but I got out a notebook and a pen because I’m old school. (Also, I was going back and forth between my desktop and Steam Deck, and taking notes on the Deck was not the best experience.) I highly, HIGHLY recommend taking notes in some way as you get information from a suspect or bystander. There’s no easy way to get back to that information unless you go back to the area/room with the person or item in it.
There’s quite a bit of reading as well, which, depending on your personal preferences, could be a pro or a con, but for me, it was very much a pro. What you’d find while searching for clues and keywords really helped to expand the world of the game, and gave me hope for perhaps some more cases or even a sequel in the future.
I finished the game in around five hours, which, for me, hit that sweet spot of time. It was like a good mystery novel that I never wanted to put down. It tickled my brain in a good way. Puzzling together clues was tricky at times, but not overbearing. (There were sound and visual cues to help you know when you identified a person correctly or not, and the game would tell you if your reconstructed story was one or two words out of place or not.)
Steam Deck: I played a decent portion of Confidential Killings on my Steam Deck, and it ran well, even without verification from Steam. If you play it on Deck, I do recommend having a notebook next to you or typing notes in your phone, as the in-game note tool is clunky to use. I may have ran into a bug by playing it on my Steam Deck, as some of my achievements didn’t register. (This wasn’t a big deal for me, but again, may be for some.)
Confidential Killings is available now on Steam.