Discworld Noir

Moby ID: 1411
Windows Specs

Description official descriptions

Ankh-Morpork is a city surrounded by darkness, where the cold river Ankh flows, where it always rains, and where dwarves and trolls co-exist with secret societies, religious fanatics, stupid police captains, and bar pianists. It is also where a bitterly sarcastic sharp-eyed private investigator named Lewton tries to earn a living solving bizarre cases. A mysterious woman named Carlotta hires him to find her lost lover. Wandering through the dark city and gathering evidence, Lewton has to solve the case, confront a sinister conspiracy, and once again become torn between love and despair.

Discworld Noir differs from other Discworld adventure games not only thanks to its more serious tone and much darker "film noir" atmosphere, but also because of its gameplay. Instead of inventory-based puzzles there are clues, which Lewton writes down in his notebook and which should be then used whenever there is a connection between the clue and the situation in question. Most of the gameplay is thus dedicated to detective work in conversations; but the usage of the right clues at the right place is still comparable to inventory-based puzzle-solving of other adventures. Graphically, Discword Noir features three-dimensional character models and pre-rendered backgrounds.

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Credits (Windows version)

104 People (90 developers, 14 thanks) · View all

Designed By
Produced By
Executive Producer
Script By
Voice Of Lewton
Other Characters Voiced By
Animation Director And Senior Animator
Technical Art Director
Background Design And Concept Art
Art Director
Character Design
Character Models
Background Artists
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 81% (based on 40 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 91 ratings with 7 reviews)

Very good, if derivative and cliched, adventure.

The Good
You know what? I don't even like adventure games that much. I know I've reviewed quite a few, but it's because I love the storylines and the characters. If I haven't cracked a puzzle after twenty minutes, my knuckles are white and I'm looking for a walkthrough. The second time through these games is always the best, when I vaguely remember all the solutions. If I hadn't had a walkthrough to this game I'd have bitten a chunk out of the table by now.

Discworld Noir is an homage to all those Raymond Chandler novels, all those labryinthine plots, all those "Lishen buhster! Ya lookin fa trouble?!" accents. This is both a curse and blessing, but more on that later. I do like that world though; I went into the game feeling good and I came out feeling good...ish.

Discworld Noir's biggest asset is it's script - that is, it's dialogue. There is a lot of talking in this game but it's often brilliant. Sharp, dry humour is the order of the day, with that kind of post-adolescent nuance that 'Monty Python' had that makes the Discworld books so attractive to a certain kind of teenager. Characters in the game are brilliantly realised, often appearing deceptively complex. Personal favourites include Death, whose humour is dry as a bone (ha ha!!! I'm so funny!), and Carlotta's butler, whose passive aggressive demeanour I find endlessly amusing. The voice acting is also good considering the credits imply that only four people are responsible for all the characters. Despite the sometimes irritating deliberate slowness of the delivery and the occasional hearing of the same voice for different people, this is quite a feat. Although I swear at some points in the game, Lewton's voice is replaced by another actor's.

The graphics are good, if dark. The character models are also quite impressive, though hardly original. In fact, the most original thing about Discworld Noir is the way the usual object-orientated method of puzzle solving is dropped in favour of a clues-based system. Every time your character hears something interesting in a conversation, he writes it down, and you can then ask anyone you want about it. Genuine satisfaction arises when you successfully figure something out by asking the right people about the right things. Also, half way through the game, something...happens to your character, providing another new puzzle-solving system, and one which I found very enjoyable and perhaps underused.

The Bad
I know I've already described this game as cliched and if you see this game as a parody then you may wonder how this can be so. The thing is, film noir is so unbelievably well known and ingrained into so much of what we see that even when something comes along that takes the piss, it seems unoriginal. Discworld Noir, like SO many films and television programmes, takes off 'Casablanca's' two most famous scenes. It also references Lauren Bacall telling Humphrey Bogart how to whistle in 'To Have And Have Not'. Your character, Lewton, is a complex character for a computer game, but he's existed for over half a century in film, books and television. An unshaven pathological drinker in a fedora and raincoat, one of the only guys in the town with a soul but has been left bitterly hurt by women...yadda..yadda...you KNOW the guy already. You KNOW that the woman who's leaning on his desk at the beginning is a femme fatale who is secretly no good. It appears that games don't have enough clout to create an original story style, but are instead happy to take off the styles of famous books and movies. Take "Mafia"; whilst a very fine game, the story is basically a cross between Godfather and Goodfellas, but about 1/100th as good or believable. Whilst film noir is recreated much better in Discworld Noir than the world of Italian gangsters is in Mafia, it's just been done before. I don't really consider the game a parody as it seems to take it's subject matter too seriously; it's more of an homage except it doesn't change anything. "Blade Runner" is an homage to film noir and look how original that world is (was, for it's time). This is more like a direct rip-off and the developers don't seem to care. Still, why should they? Lots of people will buy this game BECAUSE it resembles all that Raymond Chandler stuff.

Other, more actual game-related problems include...

Whilst the character models are nice and pretty, being pre-rendered, they move like puppets underwater. You can see their polished polygon arms moving in their specific routines and it is surprisingly effective to begin with due to the skill of the animators, but if you concentrate on it, it starts looking very unnatural at times. Lewton, however, is modelled in real-time and moves much more fluidly but this serves to highlight the difference between him and everyone else.

Further on the point of unoriginality, the music in this game is good but totally bland. It really got to me after a while. I love jazz, it constitutes over half of what I listen to, but Discworld Noir's soundtrack I didn't like. It's got all those soft, mysterious sounding saxophones and that subdued piano but it's got no tune and no soul. It's generic. Like a lot of the game.

The plot is always interesting but for some reason doesn't grab you. Maybe because it flies off the handle after a while and becomes convoluted, but maybe because you don't empathise with any of it. I never really understood Lewton's motives to keep investigating other than, as he says, "because too many people told me not to".

Finally, the notepad with all your clues on it becomes a real hassle when you have to turn 12 pages to find the one you want. This is primarily why I said I was glad to have a walkthrough because it can get seriously frustrating otherwise. And also, (and this one is a real crime), the game is unable to find your saved files from the second CD. So when you've got half-way through the game, from then on you'll have to eject the second CD, put in the first, load the game, load the saved file, eject the first CD, and put in the second. Unbelievable!



The Bottom Line
One of the best non-Lucasarts adventures there is. When I completed this the first time, I considered it second only to Grim Fandango. I'm always on a high after I finish something though and the flaws are more obvious this time round. The world of Discworld Noir is so familiar that it has to work damn hard to surprise you. It does a few times though, if you stick with it and overlook the twists that you were expecting since the moment the package arrived in your house.

Windows · by Shazbut (163) · 2004

An interesting Trilogy

The Good
Discworld Noir has great scenes and puzzles, and can leave you thinking for quite a long time, even off the computer. The characters are very funny (my favourite was MoonCalf) and very detailed. It is a very easy game to use, and it's quite interesting how you can change from Human to Wearwolf. The keyboard shortcuts also come in very handy.

The Bad
Although the characters had great personalities, and the settings were really gloomy and cool, the animations tended to be a little too edgy and "clay figure" like. Some of the puzzles were VERY hard, and some objects are very hard to find, scanning of the screen is a must.

The Bottom Line
You are a detective, who has to investigate a series of bizarre murders happening around the glum city of Anhk-Morpork. What you don't realise is that all these murders are linked somehow, and you become one of the hunted. You meet an array of characters from trolls, wearwolves, talking dogs and dwarfs, each with it's own personality and humour.

Windows · by Hilary Richardson (12) · 2003

Innovatively Uninteresting

The Good
Okay, now if I say this game is boring, then that should qualify under 'against' section. Well, it's not that boring, it's just uninteresting. And innovate at that the best it could be. It just keeps making the game more and more interesting to you, changing the plots, adding nice twists and turns, adding interesting characters, suspenseful atmosphere, but but somehow, with all that effort, it just doesn't hook me right. But otherwise, I can't say I didn't have fun at all while playing it.

Right, so, the game has been set in the world a bit different than what we are used to see when it comes to noir things. It somewhat resembles a dark creepy eerie town where you will soon learn that nothing is impossible, and nothing happens as you expect. The city's called Ankh-Morpork (I guess Ankh because it can be considered a port to some point), and for a long time there is no rasistic things going on, and I'm not refering to different color, but rather to different races. So, humans, trolls, vampires, zombies, demons, werewolves, dwarves and other... something, they all live in symbiosis more or less. Of course, with creatures like those involved, they had to make a compromise in the law book, so they had to qualify murder as non-crime. Well, not always, it depended who and where was murdered.

You, with a background story that broke your heart, are the first guy ever to try to settle in the PI waters. Counting on restless and countless murders to get some case, you opened your door to everybody with a deep pocket. It's not that there is no law at all, there are, and they're called the Watch, but they just don't prove useful when it comes to solving plots, unravelling mysteries and saving the planet, or maybe they're just not paid enough. Lewton, PI, on the other hand, has nothing else to do, so he takes any case that will help him pay the rent (oh, how cliché).

Now, good thing about this game is that is has nothing to do with any of the two "Discworld" titles that were made before it. I know, I know, I didn't notice this game for far too long just because I thought it's all from the same chalice, but it's not. First two are more childish and much alike "Simon the Sorcerer", only not as good. This one is more serious, with typical PI phrases, eerie places and a bowl of suspense.

Music in this game is rather excellent, only there is not much of it in the entire game. Either I became deaf, or this game has no more than couple of songs in the entire playing period. Well, among those little bunch, it even has a vocal one, hehehe, and for those who have manuals, there are even words and notes for it. Graphic could also be considered well done, especially since it all looks as if it's using 256 colors. Well, maybe it does, I dunno, but places, rain&storm effects, and lighting effects are rather well done for something that looks as it lacks colors. Unfortunately, I can't say much about the characters, I mean, if they wanted them to look like that, then they were good, but I always tend to have normal looking human figures. As for the werewolves, dogs, trolls, demons and gargoyles, they were excellent made.

The Bad
Sound is... well, almost terrible. And I'm refering technically only. It has noises, and that's not acceptable for such a new game. I mean, even older games like "Indy IV" or "GK I" that used *.voc files for speech were like entirely clear in the game. Anyway, if you don't make it too loud, you may be able to skip the annoyance, at least you have both speech and subtitles in the game, which, by the way, I love to see in the game. As for the characters' speech, I don't consder it much good, either. I mean, it's somehow hollow, and it somehow clearly shows as if the conversastion was made that each of the characters was talking for itself, and they just mixed speech, not even trying to spot the right balance of conversation between the two (or three).

Controls should also be better handled. I mean, it not hard to master at all, but it takes an awfully lot of time using them as they invented it. I hope they didn't try just to prolongue the game by adding that. Sure, it's commendable to play full-screen without any menues, buttons or anything around or outside the frame, but commands just seem a bit too slow. And no, my computer wasn't slow for playing this plain adventure, with 384MB of RAM and 1GHz CPU, and solid 52x LG CD-ROM this should've all worked a bit better. Well, the game is from 1999, so if we take-out the time it was in development, they probably started making it two years earlier. But hey, I'm not complaining... that much, I could play with such interface, I'm just saying I've seen much better with some other adventures. This sure beats the crap outta that sticky "Myst" interface which was sad fact to be called an interface in the first place.

On the technical side, there are two things that are rather annoying. First one is that you always need to start the game with CD #1, not matter you stopped somewhere on second CD, and that switching CDs usually exits you back into windowses by minimizing the game window, so you have to click on it again. I really don't see the point of making that, and if they programmed such a fine game, I don't think they had lack of knowledge to fix that, either. And secondly, the game doesn't have usual subdirectory in 'Programs' pop-up window where you can click uninstall icon. No siree. You need to input CD #1 again, and click uninstall form there, and then wait and wait until it reads whatever its reading from a CD first. Well, we can't have 'em all, huh? Yeah right ;)

The Bottom Line
Detective game at its best, with half included things at its worst. Good enough to make you finish it nonetheless. Can't say it's addictive, but maybe I've just played too much adventures to be impressed anymore, hehehe. But it sure beats those "Discworld" games with which it only has title in common. And no matter what I said above for and against, I still think this is a pretty fine game, and glad to paid for it 35 bucks, even though so recently... ouch! :)

Windows · by MAT (240759) · 2012

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
'no US release' ? Rola (8486) Mar 29, 2015
Awesome stuff Unicorn Lynx (181780) Feb 23, 2009

Trivia

References

  • In the middle of the game, you meet a red-haired archaeologist girl, who carries a lot of ammunition, wears shorts and is called Laredo Cronk...
  • Some of the detective things in this game are taken from Murder, My Sweet (1944), a P.I. Noir movie with Dick Powell playing Philip Marlowe (later a remake with Robert Mitchum was made, the title was renamed to Farewell, My Lovely, though). Lewton says "If I'd always knew what I said, I'd be a genius." which is exact phrase from the fore-mentioned movie. Also, there is a detective Nulty in both game and the movie, with same attitude of main character towards him.

References: Casablanca

There are plenty of references to famous noir films in Discworld Noir. Many of them allude to the classic Casablanca. For example, the game's romantic ending mirrors the ending of the film to the point of directly quoting the dialogue. Just as the heroes of the movie agree that they will "always have Paris", Lewton assures Ilsa that they will "always have Pseudopolis Hotel".

The demon pianist Samael is named after Sam, the pianist from Casablanca. There is the following dialogue in the game:

Lewton: Play it again, Sam.

Samael: You know what? No one's ever going to believe you said that.

As fans of the movie would know, the line "Play it again, Sam" was never actually said in Casablanca, but has become erroneously associated with it.

Ilsa Varberg is named after Ilsa Lund, the heroine of Casablanca. Lund and Varberg are both cities in Sweden.

Release

The game was only released in Europe because the US branch of GT Interactive had financial problems and collapsed, dashing hopes of a US release.

Awards

  • Power Play
    • Issue 02/2000 – Best Adventure in 1999

Information also contributed by Macintrash, MAT and Unicorn Lynx

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Zhentarim7.

PlayStation added by Macintrash.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Patrick Bregger.

Game added May 4, 2000. Last modified March 6, 2024.