Black Circle Demo

Sometimes, you don’t need dragons or alternate universes to get a good story, because even day-to-day occurrences can be made to look interesting. Point-and-click adventure games are probably the best option in such cases, because it is rather difficult to make routine look exciting in an RTS. Thus, with a bit of imagination and a few shocking coincidences, boring subjects can become sensational with ease.

Black Circle is a classic point-and-click adventure game in which you get to freely explore a calm urban environment and try to unravel a pertinent mystery. Your main goal is to find the necessary clues to provide an answer to the elusive riddle in front of you, but free exploration is encouraged as well. Hence, it’s all up to you and your specific method of dealing with such situations.

The story begins with Carol, the main character and your alter ego throughout the game, cleaning her apartment when she receives a call from her neighbor Oscar. As it turns out, Oscar found a dead body while strolling through the woods, but although he called the police to report it, someone made sure that the body disappeared by the time anyone could do something. Given the fact that Carol is a private investigator, it’s only natural that you pursue this mystery.

Gameplay-wise, everything is about as classic as it can get for the genre. Thus, you can move around the environment by clicking on the screen, as well as closely examine objects by zooming in when the game allows it. Sometimes, certain items can be picked up as well, which means that they can be used to solve a puzzle later on. However, unlike adventure games, you are free to travel between a few locations right from the beginning.

As far as the technical presentation is concerned, the graphics are actually photos of real places taken by the developer, with a few filters and effects added to improve the overall atmosphere. The picture quality is more than decent and you can somehow get really attached to some of the locations, even if everything is static and you cannot interact with most of the objects you observe.

Even if the story is kind of slow and not as exciting as what you might be used to, Black Circle is definitely a nice way to spend a few hours. You also get to admire a beautiful city and lose yourself in a different atmosphere for a short while, which makes it worth the purchase.