Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Sep 12, 2023

  A short detective VN with lots of choices and a lot of smoking. Do you feel like exploring a mystery? The US's best private detective of Swedish origin, Ingmar Gustafson, dealing with a missing sister case. Does this sound intriguing or too cliche? I sure had low expectations, but was still hoping to be surprised. Unfortunately, this 2-3h read, was rather bland. The writing itself wasn't terrible, but the focus and pacing of frequent dialogues were pretty uninspired. No sudden reveals, unexpected twists, or engaging action scenes; all felt predicatable, monotone, and lacking complexity. Two endings of this very linear VN provide very little in terms of variety. The final scenes are just a tiny cherry on top and add almost nothing to explore  the characters. While it wasn't a terrible read, nothing really stood out that I could point to. Just a generic level of craftsmanship. In terms of options, you have all of the standard settings present in most VNs. At least that element is ok (surprisingly many indie VNs lack such basics). The anime character art is about as average as the story it portrays. Ok amount of detail and colour, but very few poses/variations. The protagonist has no sprite or face. The very limited number of CGs matches the low budget, which is not a real complaint, just a fact I want to mention. H-scenes are pretty short and generic, but at least there is no censorship. No gallery in options is a small negative. Overall, the design feels very low-budget. Could be better, but for the first title, it is good enough. The jazzy music accompanying the story is relatively decent. They are apt scene-wise, but there is little to no variety. If memory doesn't betray me, there are only 3 or 4 tracks, which, even considering the length and price, still feels too lazy. Monotony can occur despite the shortness of this title. No bugs encountered. To conclude, considering that this is the first title from the Little Black Book Games, I would say it is at least a good effort. Nothing really stands out or grips a reader, but for the price asked, it is decent enough. If you enjoy detective stories and want an easy, short story, it might be worth giving it a try: 5.6/10
• gamedeal user

  Jun 8, 2019

  New England Detective is a short (about 2 hours) visual novel, where you step into the shoes of a private detective with a Swedish background working a missing persons case. Along the way, you can flirt with a number of women and end up in one of two available romances that I could find. The story is rather mundane and is a bit heavy on the minutiae, which does not make for very exciting reading. Further, while I appreciate that the writer has done research on various subjects, conversations become very unnatural when the characters lay out a lot of exposition or sound like walking encyclopedias. It's consistent, at least, in its rather dour tone and lack of humor. It's worth noting that the detecting plays out by itself, you have no input in solving the plot - basically all you do is decide how much you flirt with the women. While the character design is attractive, it's focused solely on the female characters, and there are only 4-5 CGs, with a few variations, in the whole thing (which probably accounts for the low price point). Nearly all of these are the brief sex scene "rewards" for finishing the romances. Strangely, it looks as though several of the advertised screenshots don't come from this game, suggesting either a rewrite or screens from the next game planned for this to turn into a series. It ends with a blatant "To be continued", and as such it feels like this game is a prologue, an introduction to the characters and setting for future games that will hopefully be longer and less dull. Finally, a minor quibble, the game engine appears to be TyranoBuilder, which I've never liked. There are annoyances such as the inability to save at choices (the save button is only available on the regular text box, which fades out doing choices). In conclusion, I'm intrigued enough to want to see where this could go, but it's really hard for me to recommend this as a stand alone visual novel. While the writing is professional enough, in clear English and thankfully free of typos, the plot is just unexciting. This, coupled with the low amount of CGs, means that I don't find enough here for a thumbs up.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 9, 2019

  New England Detective – Breakfast in Boston is a detective mystery Visual Novel dating sim where you play as Ingmar Gustafson, a Swedish American private investigator. I believe this is the start of a series of visual novels where Mr. Gustafson will be the protagonist solving cases. Story I really liked the story a lot. It reminded me of the better seasons of American TV detective series like Monk or Law and Order. Though this one has a slightly lighter and more comedic feel than Law and Order, a bit more like Monk or Columbo I suppose. I like the main character, even though he’s a super genius he feels relatable. The other characters are also well written and likeable, though a lot of them are very much side characters, but the main ones you do hang out with to solve the mystery are pretty cool. The mystery is intriguing and keeps you reading more and the dating aspect of the game, where you romance characters, is subtle but very nicely done. The world building is well done and all-in-all the writer has a very natural sense of prose that makes for easy reading. I liked how well researched the game is and how thorough and detailed the detectives go about analyzing the case. Definitely a must for any good detective game. The characters do go very deep into things and can be almost excessively detailed in their analysis. I like mystery novels a lot so I don’t mind but I know some other people might find this sort of thing a little grating. Art Absolutely love the art. The CGs are stylish (both the story ones and the romance ones are very nice and satisfying!!) and the character sprite art is charming too. More varied expressions would be a plus (the bodies should move too, not just the face). The backgrounds are gorgeous and remind me of the time I went to Boston on vacation. Sound and Music I happen to like jazz a lot so I thoroughly enjoyed the soundtrack for this game. If you don’t like jazz you might not like the game’s music at all as its ALL jazz (except for some of the romantic scenes where there is romantic piano music instead). So yeah, if you’re a jazz fan then definitely pick up the soundtrack as well. If you don’t like jazz, maybe play the game on mute haha. On the subject of sound effects, this game doesn’t use any at all. Not even for the buttons. They definitely had a few key scenes where sound effects would have been a plus UI Clean and clear, which is the most important thing about UI. No button sounds and the buttons can look a little basic compared to other similarly priced games. Sometimes the buttons cover the face and body, which can look a little unprofessional. Conclusion A fun little visual novel. Not a terribly long VN (just a couple hours for the average reader, I’m an academic so I read VERY fast) but never a boring moment throughout the whole thing. Definitely a nice little read for when you want something tasteful yet a little saucy too for the evening. Recommended
• gamedeal user

  Jul 2, 2019

  I know they're called visual novels, but dang I was surprised by how much text I had to skip through to get to the choices. None of the choices seemed particularly important, so when I got to the end I was like "That's it?"
• gamedeal user

  Nov 27, 2019

  Great Story!
• gamedeal user

  Jul 4, 2020

  Small and cute visual novel. Ok story.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 3, 2020

  It is a short ( about 1.5h ) and well written VN but nothing very special happens. There are no big twist, no real paths, only two different endings that don't change anything else beside the last scene, a good amount of choices but only a line or two of different dialogue and you go back on the same exact path. Choices only affect which ending you get and when trying to get both ending, it's unclear how many of them actually matter. Probably would have worked better as a kinetic novel and only one choice at the end, none of the choices really felt like they brought interesting information, mostly fluff. The art is nice but not a lot of different backgrounds nor characters and some of them are barely used beside the two main heroines, it felt like a tease. The music was ok and no voice acting. It feels like a lot of content was cut or changed, screenshots in the store don't even happens in the game, there is no Countess, Ballistic Tests or Morning Runs but there are mentions of subs, handcuffs and cocktails. If you ran out of better VNs to play on Steam it's not horrible but otherwise I would pick something else. At least it is pretty cheap but I would still wait for a sale. They recently added a free 18+ DLC to add one small scene per ending with one or two CG each at most. It is a nice gesture considering this does not look like it was a big success.