HomeReviewsHauma - A Detective Noir Story
Hauma - A Detective Noir Story review: Indiana Jones meets visual novel meets ridiculous cop showJust when you thought things couldn’t escalate any further
Just when you thought things couldn’t escalate any further
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Assemble Entertainment
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Assemble Entertainment
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Assemble Entertainment
Hauma is obviously going for an Indiana Jones vibe. Your key source is your grandfather’s journal, which is full of notes and diagrams on what he researched. Whenever you find anything new, your best bet is to try mashing it into the notebook in your (slightly disorganised) mind palace, which usually transforms an item in your brain inventory from ‘weird painting of bird’ to ‘symbol of immortality’. You can also mash different thoughts together for a similar effect, although sometimes it feels like the game is operating on its own slightly unfathomable logic about which connection is the correct one at that moment of the story - very much like a Frogwares Sherlock Holmes game, in fact.
But you’ve got your quasi-religious MacGuffin, you’ve got your clues and secret entrances hidden in plain sight - often in an old and municipally significant structure - and, you know, Nazis. I don’t object to Nazis being in your story on principle; Indiana Jones built a career around it. But the word ‘Nazis’ appears in every flavour summary of Raiders Of The Lost Ark I’ve ever seen, while Hauma’s Steam page references “the city’s past”, which is quite coy. In the context of the supernatural-ish mystery, of course, you are literally punching Nazis (the advantage of being a former boxing champion), so no worries there, and in the end, Hauma functions as a surprisingly decent historical and cultural tour of Bavaria’s capital.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Assemble Entertainment
Each scene is a 2D location with static 2D characters, going for that stylised noir comic book look. There are a lot of great colour contrasts (yellow and turquoise, bright pinks and oranges) and generally each scene is really fun just to look at. There aren’t loads, in fairness, because it’s a really short game, but the art is probably the most accomplished thing about Hauma, and leaves a strong impression. Hauma is fully voiced, too, so the minimal-to-non-existent animation doesn’t stop the game feeling alive. Interestingly, though, there’s no obvious visual change for flashbacks that happen early on, involving a magical scorpion-skin cigarette, and I was slightly confused on the order some things happened.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Assemble Entertainment
But like The Rookie, it kind of doesn’t matter if you lose the thread a couple of times, because Lord, some scenes escalate out of all proportion either way. Judith’s most reliable sidekick is her brother, a stoner crossed with an encyclopaedia, and he of course gets kidapped, Judith’s grandad’s journal is taken, there are more explosions. In some respects, this is par for the mystery course. But it’s things like Judith musing that she needs to show the mysterious bad guy that she’s serious, and the correct response being just to get out a pen-knife and threaten him in a room full of people, that really made me giggle. Like, sure, that’s one way to do it, Judith. Hauma is a bit frustrating in its main puzzle process (i.e. smashing thoughts together seemingly at random), but boy howdy, like a Roman watching Russell Crowe behead an opponent in the arena, you will be entertained.
