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Chowdahound rated Blacktrace

A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

It looks great and I played to it completion and then some. It would be improved if there were more ways to nonlethally eliminate the criminals, and there's seemingly no indication that the player is a "rogue detective" right now beyond the theme, and glass print on the door in the main menu. The roles could be switched and the player could be a thug for the mob, and the criminals could be detectives/police investigating the scene of a crime, and it would honestly fit the ruthless personality of the main character just the same. The levels feel very samey gameplay-wise especially towards the end, and I found no practical use for the dart guns or mines since it's always more efficient to just shoot a guy in the back of the head. I only placed landmines at exits but enemies don't seem to try to escape often enough for this to have ever done anything. The character controller got stuck in geometry frequently, since I figure it checks for open space when it rotates, this happened when I was fighting and made me die or take hits I otherwise wouldn't have and proved frustrating. I don't like the way the revolver reloads since it's basically the same reload that would happen in any other shooter with a revolver, but instead of pressing r once I have to spam it. I sometimes didn't know if I heard the sound indicating that all enemies had been slain so I would wander around the level before realizing it was over, wasting some time. There should also be a more clear indication when the player swaps weapons since I would sometimes look in my character's hand to see if he was holding the gun I selected, because the weapon menu just closes. Finally, I accidentally minimized the game a few times because of the configuration of slow-walk being on Alt and change weapons being on Tab.

The ragdoll physics are fun, the blood looks cool, and the weapons feel and sound quite nice. This game has lots of potential and I will be playing it again in the future. Nice work.