Blacksad: Under The Skin

John Blacksad, a New York black cat P.I. in early years after the World War II. Counting minutes, waiting for the next gig, and then she comes in. A purr-fect feline dame with a sad expression on her face, accompanied by a heavy category bodyguard gorilla, Jake Ostiombe. Now Jake was an old friend, but the feline beauty, Sonia, is a client. Her father, Joe Dunn, an owner of a boxing gym has been found dead. He was found hanging one morning in the middle of his boxing ring by none other than the maid, Mary Purnell. The police is suspecting a suicide, but Blacksad isn't so convinced after only a few looks around the murder scene. So what seemed like a slam-dunk easy case that only needed confirmation turns into elaborate ruse of conspiracies involving drugs, blackmails, money, and hired guns. Once again, Blacksad is going to have earn his paycheck the hard way, but that's what he signed up when he decided to become a private investigator.

The game plays entirely in third-person perspective and action-camera follows the character but changes angles to give it more cinematic feel meaning the player is often not able to look where one wants and is left to explore only what the camera shows. Camera can slightly be moved offset from its fixed position which is in most cases used to find hidden album stickers which can be accessed via main menu. There are four different Hall of Fame sports albums, each spanning two pages, one per sport, namely American Football, Baseball, Boxing, and Hockey. There are 100 stickers in total depicting various sports celebrities, and some images are comprised of 2 or 4 stickers while others are depicted by a single one. In many cases missing to pick up a sticker before looking at story-related objects will not give the player a second chance.

There are few limited locations where John Blacksad can search in first-person perspective, usually when looking at multiple things on a desk or some such place, but these are few and far between. Objects of interaction display an icon when John is facing them, and in case there are multiple available, individual ones can be selected. During the dialogues there are often many different options how to react which build up a character stats and will often have serious consequences and possibly branch the story. Most of dialogues are also time-based and will result with a default answer if nothing is selected before the time runs out. The actions that Blacksad does and things that he says affect his stats which can be checked at any time during gameplay. There are 8 different stats and each has its opposite and percentage bar shows toward which the player is leaning (i.e. Lonesome vs Romantic, Upright, vs Pragmatic, Swift vs Clumsy, etc.).

There is no inventory system and things that Blacksad is carrying, which are few, are with him all the time and he will automatically used them at the right location (i.e. lockpicks). As any good P.I., Blacksad too carries a notebook where he writes down all the information about his suspects and any other person of interest. Some of which can be contemplated upon and often paired (not while reading the notebook, but during deduction which can be activated during gameplay) which will produce further piece of information (i.e. having knowledge about the footprint in the paint, then having the knowledge of suspect's shoes, one may deduce if the suspect is guilty or innocent).