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About This Game

In 1928, jazz, bootleg booze, and gunfire rule Ashford. Before the drumbeat even stops at the Blue Moon Speakeasy, the owner lies dead in a pool of blood. A lounge singer with smeared lipstick stands over the body, gun in hand, while a booze-soaked detective just wants to close the case as quickly as possible. Dragged into this web of lust, deceit, and death are Zack Brennan, a broke private investigator, and Emma O’Malley, an investigative journalist.

GAZE IN SHADOWS is a story-driven, 2D point-and-click narrative mystery game. Search bloody crime scenes and shadowy back alleys; interrogate torch singers, gamblers, mobsters, bankers, and corrupt cops; collect physical evidence and testimonies, map out timelines and relationships, and use hard evidence to tear apart their lies face-to-face. Five distinct cases—each with its own victims, suspects, and shocking twists—gradually weave into a 16-year citywide conspiracy.

From smoky speakeasies to bank archives, from courthouse corridors to lavish high-society galas, a dirty deal hides behind every respectable door. Zack and Emma aren't just hunting for the person who pulled the trigger—they must bring every crime hidden by police badges, erased from financial ledgers, and legalized by corrupt courts straight to the witness stand.

A single murder case can be closed... but who will put an entire city’s lies on trial?

Search detailed locations through intuitive point-and-click interaction. Examine objects, inspect documents, speak with witnesses, and uncover evidence hidden in the ordinary details of each scene.

A misplaced item, an altered record, or a seemingly harmless personal possession may reveal more than a direct confession.

Collect testimony, physical evidence, letters, financial records, and newspaper reports. Compare statements, identify inconsistencies, and establish connections between people, places, and events.

The investigation is not limited to discovering who committed a crime. You must also understand why it happened, who benefited from it, and what kind of system allowed it to happen at all.

Not every witness is lying, and not every lie is intended to conceal murder.

Some characters are afraid. Some are protecting someone. Others have spent so long surviving within Ashford’s rules that they no longer recognise their own complicity.

Progress depends on careful observation, an understanding of motive, and the ability to distinguish deliberate deception from fear, shame, loyalty, and desperation.

Zack Brennan

A thirty-five-year-old private detective and veteran of the First World War, Zack has seen too much to believe that institutions are naturally just.

His father spent his life fighting for workers’ rights and died when Zack needed him most. Zack returned from the war to open a detective agency that has remained perpetually close to bankruptcy.

He still believes in rules, but he knows who usually gets to write them. He takes cases from people who cannot afford him, makes decisions that are rarely practical, and occasionally becomes a hero almost by accident.

Emma O’Malley

At twenty-five, Emma is the youngest investigative reporter at the Ashford Herald.

Orphaned at the age of nine and raised with the support of a mysterious charitable fund, she fought her way through university and into a profession that rarely welcomes women like her.

Emma believes that truth has power: expose wrongdoing, publish the facts, and the world will be forced to change. Ashford is about to test that belief more severely than she has ever imagined.

A Partnership Forged Under Pressure

Zack and Emma begin as strangers drawn into the same investigation—one exhausted by years of compromise, the other still convinced that the written word can defeat the darkness.

Across five cases, they repeatedly save one another, sometimes from immediate danger and sometimes from the quieter pull of despair.

Their relationship is not simply a romance. It is the story of two damaged people discovering that, after saving someone else, they may still need that person to save them in return.

• Classic 2D point-and-click investigation, designed around exploration, observation, dialogue, and evidence gathering.

• Story-driven deduction in which clues reveal not only the culprit, but the wider social and political forces behind each crime.

• A layered historical mystery set in a fictional American city shaped by Prohibition, organised crime, financial exploitation, and institutional corruption.

• Character-focused storytelling centred on the changing beliefs, failures, and emotional growth of its two protagonists.

• Standalone cases within a larger conspiracy, allowing each chapter to deliver its own mystery while advancing the central narrative.

• Morally complex suspects and witnesses whose actions are shaped by fear, debt, ambition, loyalty, and survival.

• A stylised noir presentation combining expressive 2D artwork, dramatic lighting, period-inspired environments, and a tense, atmospheric soundscape.

• A mature story without easy victories, exploring justice, complicity, resilience, and the human cost of confronting systems larger than any one person.

Genre: Narrative Mystery, Point-and-Click Adventure, Historical Thriller
Gameplay: 2D exploration, dialogue, evidence collection, and story-based deduction
Mode: Single-player story campaign

Structure: Five interconnected investigation chapters
Core Objective: Solve five murders and uncover a conspiracy spanning sixteen years

“This city is an opportunity for some and a trap for others. The difference is who opens the door for you.”

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

The creative direction of GAZE IN SHADOWS was developed and controlled entirely by our team, including its 1928 setting, story, characters, case design, gameplay, and film noir-inspired visual style.
Generative AI was used only as a supporting tool for early art exploration, asset refinement, and limited programming assistance. All AI-assisted content was manually reviewed, extensively revised, and finalized by our developers. AI was not involved in any core creative decisions.