New game: "Abscission" playthrough

New game!

I've started playing Abscission, created by Jacob Lowry of Beyond Booleans, and I'm 1 hour into it! I must admit though, since I'm not a native-English speaker, I had to look up the meaning of the title and it's a word used when an organism sheds its parts, like when a tree loses its leaves, or when an animal sheds a claw.

It's a dark point-and-click detective game with a supernatural edge to it, though I haven't yet uncovered what the deal is exactly. There's been a murder in the town of Ashfield, and detective Luna calls in the help of detective Will Stanhope, whom I'm playing as. Several years ago they worked together on another murder case, but ever since Stanhope has been working in Vice, having turned his back on Homicide. Luna has called him back now because she thinks there are some similarities to that old case.

Cool graphic novel style cutscenes.

From the start, the film noir style drips off this game. The game isn't voiced but there's an excellent soundtrack and good sound effects as well. But it's that first person narrator, Stanhope himself, who performs as the typical dark and brooding P.I. commenting on his own life.

The four approaches during conversations

Abscission is a typical point-and-click: investigate the scenes, pick up interesting objects, talk to other characters to follow up on leads... It's the conversations that get a bit tricky: while talking to people, you can choose four different approaches, and if you pick the wrong one, you probably miss out on an easy solution for a certain puzzle, though I'm not far enough into the game to really tell what kind of consequences this has. Only that I failed to get a piece of information from one source, but of course I don't know what, but I did receive a spare key to an apartment room from someone else, so I don't know how I would've gotten in there otherwise...

I don't think that's all just paint...

So far I haven't encountered any real puzzles other than gathering the necessary information to get new locations on the city map. Currently I'm following up on the ex-boyfriend lead, but I doubt it'll be that simple. There are details to the murder that complicate matters, the coroner is a bit confused by the evidence he finds, so we're definitely dealing with something new here.

Something's rotten in the town of Ashfield...

Now it's time to search the ex-boyfriend's apartment. Who knows what I'll find?!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2392160/Abscission/