Obsidian Moon is a Lovecraftian noir detective game about moving bits of paper around your desk and making sure you've got enough money for whiskey and beans

Sam, the grizzled detective protagonist of Obsidian Moon, spends most of his time moving little bits of paper around on his desk and worrying about whether he's got enough money to afford whiskey and beans. As a former magazine editor, I find it all very relatable.

The stakes are a bit more serious in his case, however—if he misses a deadline, it could foul up a murder case or, possibly, unleash cosmic horrors.

Loading up Obsidian Moon's demo, I'm impressed how quickly it draws me into its world. The intro sets the scene with atmospheric music and a few tense conversations about Sam's tenuous position on the force, and then I'm right into an authentically furnished 1930s office to peruse some case files. It all screams noir, and there's just no setting that puts me in the detective mood faster.

Essentially, I'm piecing together the details of a case by reading through reports and taking actions that can then unlock more documents—things like inspecting a piece of evidence, sending a body for an autopsy, or surveilling a suspect. The catch is, everything I do eats up time, and there's only so much in a day.

When a day ends, I've got to pay for the bare essentials of life—you know, things like gas and water bills, tins of beans, and strong booze—and I only get paid when I close a case. So my funds are my ticking clock, and the emphasis is on not just solving each mystery, but doing it quickly and efficiently.

It definitely adds a layer of tension as I piece together the disturbing murder of a man found literally gutted like a fish at the docks. It's a pleasingly free-form system. As I uncover new pieces of evidence, I can analyse them in combination to make further deductions—such as showing a potential murder weapon to a suspect, or taking a note in a foreign language to someone who can translate it.

Sometimes it's almost too freeform—you're free to try pretty much any action with any piece of evidence, but many of them simply won't have any results, which can lead to a lot of frustrating dead ends. The time limit discourages pure trial-and-error, but with so many options in front of you it can feel unavoidable at points. Or maybe I'm just not a very good detective.

In the end, though, I muddle through to a solution—and the interesting thing at the end of the case is that it's very much up to me when we're done. As long as I have evidence pointing to the correct killer, I can close the case. And with whiskey-driven financial ruin hanging over my head, I feel the pressure to get someone behind bars ASAP. But it's clear that I don't have the full story yet, and the game won't simply lay it out for me in a neat little 'Mission Complete!' screen—it's up to me to decide if I want to keep digging.

That's especially intriguing, because of hints at something rather darker going on than just a drug deal gone sour. The murder itself is oddly ritualistic, and my investigations lead me to a shop selling disturbing, inhuman sculptures. How does this all tie in? And if I just put my killer behind bars without getting to the bottom of it, am I turning my eyes away from some greater evil?

This one case is the only one I'm able to play in the demo, so I'll have to wait to see where these secrets lead—but the store page makes no bones about the fact that Obsidian Moon is heading in a decidedly Lovecraftian direction, as well as incorporating influences from "ancient Minoan myth".

Like a gumshoe with a lead, I'm left keen to discover more. The game's clue-finding mechanics could definitely do with some polishing—perhaps a few less dead ends and a bit smoother of an interface for organising and digging through the files—but there are some really promising core ideas here, and if there's one thing I love it's a noir story turned supernatural.

Obsidian Moon is yet to receive a release date, but you can check the demo out for yourself for free now. Beyond that, I guess we'll all just have to stake out the Steam page until the suspect decides to make a move…