Hauma – A Detective Noir Story is, as you may have guessed, a narrative-driven detective game. Here you play as Judith, an ex detective who is looking to figure out what’s afoot in the higher society of her homecity. This narrative adventure game is done in a fantastic comic book style, giving a lot of character to the game itself.
In Hauma, you are looking to uncover the root of a spike of corruption within the city, which is – as it turns out – a hard thing to actually achieve. You are an individual, with little more than an old family heirloom in the form of a journal to organize all of your thoughts and discoveries. After a near death experience because of what you have uncovered, you now need to solve this case, as quickly as possible.
The game starts with you waking up after a wild night of drinking, with no real memory of what happened. Piecing together the last 24 hours acts as a tutorial, showing you how to combine bits of memories and things you see around your home so that you can jog your own memory. This also serves as a good way to get to know your main character and understand her thinking and mind.
Hauma is a unique narrative adventure, through putting in all of the memories together on a timeline, you can create a sync story which really brings a puzzle element into the game that feels more in tune with the concept of figuring out a mystery. The way that these story elements can be combined feels rewarding too.
I got the chance to play a bit of the demo of Hauma at Gamescom earlier this year, where I was captivated by the story, despite their booth being in a very busy area of the venue.
Hauma is currently out now, and you can play the free demo on Steam.
