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In Brief
From the writer & narrative designer of Penumbra, FTL and Driver: San Francisco comes Ir/rational Investigator - a noir adventure game with a unique, text-based argument system that lets players use deductive logic to solve cases and influence the story.

Originally posted by Rick Lombardo:

"I'd had a call for a new case. Insurance scam. Widow. The works. I set off, dangerously oblivious of the crapstorm that was coming my way."

Ir/rational Investigator follows Rick Lombardo, a private detective in a town short on cops and overflowing with scum. It's a town where anyone can get themselves a license to solve crime, or failing that: a gun, a reputation and a bad attitude.

This is a commercial follow up to Ir/rational Redux, which garnered over half a million plays web-wide, and a coveted 4/5 user score on a major flash game portal that Greenlight has recently decided I'm not allowed to name. All the same, if you want to know what Ir/rational is, you can play it right now! Just substitute the domain name below for that of a flash portal with initials NG, or google 'Irrational Redux'.

http://www.changethisaddress.com/portal/view/598731

The game is due for release episodically, for iPhone and PC, some time in 2013.

Originally posted by Rick Lombardo:

"There were two things that I was afraid of in this town, and both of them were my ex-wife.

The Story
Ir/rational Investigator takes place in a town called Conjecture. Conjecture is much like your town or mine, with one important difference. Your town probably has a private healthcare system; Conjecture has a private police force. When someone steals your car in Conjecture you don't dial 911 - you hire a private detective and take the eternal gamble: will he doggedly pursue your case and bring the culprit to justice? Or will he be another wannabe PI who talks the talk, and then gets drunk in a back alley on your retainer while muttering explicit things about his ex-wife?

Players take on the role of Rick Lombardo - and insurance investigator who's abandoned his old life to pursue his dream of being a big-name PI. Unfortunately he's a man born 60 years too late - a hard-boiled freelance cop who talks the talk so thoroughly that he's most frequently misunderstood.

Conjecture, it seems to Rick, has no shortage of fast-talking criminals and femme fatales - it's an over-the-top noir fantasy world - which is why he's unable to comprehend how most of his cases involve lost animals and cheating husbands. Rick needs a murder case - little does he know that his first will be far more besides.

Originally posted by Rick Lombardo:

"She was trying to fob me off with any old excuse that came to mind. It was lazy, and my expression told her so."

The Gameplay
To put it lazily, Ir/rational Investigator is Professor Layton with propositional logic and more detectives. Players navigate the world map, new locations and characters appearing as the game progresses. A character might provide some information, offer Rick a new case, or present an argument (puzzle) for the player to complete.

Puzzles work in much the same way as in Ir/rational Redux, albeit with an entirely overhauled interface and a radically improved difficulty curve. Based on propositional logic, players construct arguments by selecting premises from a list. You might have to prove that the waitress couldn't have been working on Friday night as she claims; or identify the contradictions in another detective's case.


Current Progress
We hope to use Greenlight to document our progress and - more importantly - to get community feedback on various features of the game. We're a small team, and your input will be invaluable.

We currently have a 15 minute vertical slice, which was submitted as a playable demo to IGF 2013. Sadly we didn't make the final cut, but I'm now hard at work writing the puzzles and dialogue scenes that will make up the bulk of episode 1. Development is afoot.

Do let us know what you think!