Deja Vu: Won!

Miss Vickers' combination opens Siegel's wall safe, but no antidote is found there. Just a file marked "Ace's bad checks" and a key to his trunk, where Mrs. Sternwood is indisposed.

I noted, this time, that the cabs are parked on Peoria Street, and you don't need to give the drivers a specific address in order to return. The street name alone will do.

I still needed an antidote, and there was only one other place that it made any sense to find one - Dr. Brody's office. I went back there and realized that it was there the whole time, on an unlocked medicine cabinet. I had seen several vials of drugs on it, but because some vials were on an open stand, and others appeared to be behind a display case, I assumed the case was locked, but it turns out you can just take them. But I need a syringe. And the only syringe I've seen is in Joe Siegel's trash.

 

I reloaded again. We're on a tight time limit and a budget. I raided the office, grabbing the evidence, the various keys, and the dirty syringe. It's a sequence break, since I shouldn't have the office safe combination yet, but I'm okay with a slightly dirty run.

I also grabbed the map from Siegel's car. I don't want the cops to find that!

Next, I take a cab to Vickers', skipping Siegel's apartment, and take the earring, the key, and diary.

Then to the office complex, where I immediately give myself a bisodiumitis injection. And more time.

I also take the sodium pentothal orders as evidence, and a few samples for myself. If anything else is going to be useful, this is.

Then I enter my office, taking care of the hitman first, and grab the ammo. And the job offer letter.

I revisited some of the deja vu spots to trigger better memories; Joe Siegel ruined Ace's boxing career by fixing fights, and Ace failed to land on his feet as a private eye, accruing a gambling debt and a bounty on his head. He has no memory of kidnapping Mrs. Sternwood, but rather, of being approached by Mr. Sternwood and asked to be the bagman for her ransom. A setup, obviously, which Siegel would have had to be in on, and his hitman must have planted a phony job offer into my abandoned office, and left phony instructions in his car.

It seems there's not much more for me to do, but Ace is still in a very bad spot, even though he has his memory back.

You can end the game by going to the police, but this is a bad move.

Ditching the gun is no good. They'll find it and fry you all the same... unless you lose it in the sewers.

There's some damning evidence on my person, but the game doesn't mention it, or resolve differently if I drown it.

 

Gotta find more evidence. And Mrs. Sternwood is the key. It seems cruel, but I give her a dose of the truth serum.

 

A ransom note is found in the mailbox, and I force my way in.

I explore, but the only things I find here of note are an incriminating letter,

 And a "blank" notepad.

That old chestnut. Joe's pencil fills in the blanks.

 

This is enough.

The MacVenture universe's legal system operates on Phoenix Wright rules.

 

GAB rating: Good

This is easily the most enjoyable adventure I've played in quite a long time, and I chalk much of it up to the quality of its writing, which, free of its 8-bit contemporaries' capacity constraints, is by far the best I've seen this side of Infocom. I can only imagine that Kemco's NES conversion loses a lot in the translation. It invites comparisons to Deadline, which boasts the stronger mystery and character interactions, but Deja Vu is the better adventure overall, with a fairer solution, stronger worldbuilding, and crisp, monochrome graphics that don't just complement the prose and fit the noir-like atmosphere, but are integral to the interface and gameplay.

"D" tried this one too, and enjoyed the writing and humor, though she wished the mystery itself had been stronger. She was particularly impressed by some of its technical sophistication given its age, such as the window-based interface, the clear visuals, and tricks like awareness of the system clock for time-of-day and day-of-the-week.

There are some issues. It's not a long game, nor difficult, and the puzzles mainly amount to following leads until you find the exonerating evidence, which are all convenient records written and/or kept by the perpetrators themselves. The time limit, the backtracking, and the various ways you can get screwed over by bad luck are irritating, and yet because the game is a bit short and easy, I can forgive it, and even appreciate the sense of urgency and danger that it forces on you. The relative lack of conventional puzzles is a merit too; everything you do fits the game's theme and setting, with no silly adventure logic to distract from it. Condor wouldn't build a human dummy out of produce to throw the CIA off his track or wear a cat hair mustache to fool the police, and neither would Ace.

Overall, Deja Vu is a solid, well realized, and well balanced adventure game, with a clear vision, good design chops, and a unique style that owes much more to interactive fiction than King's Quest while still being graphical in a meaningful way. I award it a place in the ivory deck, and a harpoon; a rarity for this genre.

Deja Vu: Dick moves

They're to be expected.

I've finished mapping out the immediately accessible areas, which are partly interconnected by the sewers, the building fire escape, and Joe's secret elevator, and noted a few dangers.

• As I learned last time, an alligator patrols the sewers. A bullet takes care of it, but if you don't already have your inventory open and your gun ready when you see the gator, it's too late to do anything.
• An unarmed, tattooed mugger appears randomly on the streets. Punching him does nothing, and shooting him in broad daylight seems like a bad idea. I gave him a quarter - he dumped me in the alley behind Joe's bar and took every cent I had.
• Another mugger also appears randomly on the streets, and this one has a gun. With no money to offer, punching him, rather amazingly, works, but he shows up again with a black eye (so I gave him another).
• The east end of the main street has a police station. Unsurprisingly, you are busted if you go inside, and given a nonstandard game over - they pin the murder of Joe Siegel on you, but your brain turns to mush in jail, you're judged unfit to stand trial, and die in a mental asylum.
• Going east from the police station kills you immediately, as pictured above. 

I restarted and did a quick run-around of Joe's bar and office, mainly to trigger some memories and grab some valuable items, but I also played the slots in the secret casino - a good investment as $0.75 earned me a $7.50 payout.

Lucky thing you can multi-select all those quarters before moving them.

I save and hit the streets.

 

Joe's car key doesn't open the trunk or the backseat, but it will open the front seat door, where I find:

• A photo of a very large woman, which triggers a deja vu moment.
• Siegel's car registration and home address - 1212 West End St.
• A street map with some instructions. Some very incriminating instructions.

Is she still in the trunk?

I try popping the hood - and the car explodes. No need to guess what happens when you start the ignition, I'm sure. Reload!

Heading west - there's nothing but trouble going east - I encounter:

• A newsstand. The headlines state "Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor," placing today at December 7th 1941. The newsboy advises me that the cops are looking for me - a woman across the street saw me doing something sketchy and tipped them off.
• A gun shop has a Luger in stock. I can afford it, but I've already got a piece. A piece that will get me fried, but having a spare won't change that.
• Two cabs, one blue and one yellow, are idling on the west end of the street.

A dame approaches.

I punch her out before I can find out what she's got for me.

In her purse is a Saturday night special, a makeup kit, and a $20 bill, which I take. And soon after I meet a bum who wants $20 for a tip - I give it to him and learn that Joey's hit man is waiting for me in "my office."

I enter the blue cab and take it to 934 West Sherman, the pharmacy's address. As it turns out, also my address.

I see the goon through the window and plug him with a .38. But the door's locked and I haven't got the key, and I can't break though the glass and open the door that way. Dr. Brody's office is also locked.

Next I go to 1212 West End St. to check out Siegel's apartment.

I find nothing here except a broad's photograph and an address - 520 S. Kedzie. I go there next.

The door's locked, but I can shoot my way in. This doesn't spook the cab driver at all.

There are a few things in here - a familiar scent of perfume, an earring, an unmarked key, a combination "33-24-36" written on a pad of paper, and a diary with the letters "M.V." embossed on the front, accounting the owner's past relation with Joe Siegel, and an ongoing affair with one John Sternwood.

The key opens Dr. Brody's office. Why does she have a key to this?

 

Two marked vials are here - one labeled Sodium Bicarbonate, another "SPECIMEN - 11/13 Todd Zipman." The cabinet here is combination-locked, and M.V.'s combination doesn't work, but my last bullet does, and there are many files inside:

• Multiple orders of sodium pentothal for Joe Siegel, all handled by Marsha Vickers.
• A carbon-copy of the pharmacy bill found in Siegel's office.
• Several drug cards, starting with one on sodium bicarbonate. An alkaline gas relief solution. What kind of a pharmacist needs to keep a file to remember what that is?
• Biosodiumitis - An antidote to diethanol trimene.
• Diethanol trimene - An experimental memory-loss drug.
• Sodium pentathol - Lowers inhibitions, and induces unconsciousness and veracious verbosity. Wrong, guys, that's hypnotism... though they do spell it wrong here.
• Chemopapain - Pyschoactive euphoric drug.
• Medrezine - Nerve gas counteragent.
• Ofreeall - Anti-arrhythmic heart medication.
• Several deranged memos detailing symptoms of conditions such as "cardiovascular shutdown" (e.g. death).
• A copy of an advisory to Mr. Ace Harding, recommending that I quit smoking.

 

The key also unlocks my own office.

There are spare bullets in the desk, and some notes in the filing cabinet.

• "Sugar Shack" has it in for Siegel. Reason unknown.
• Some case notes concerning a blackmail against the alderman. Sugar Shack was the culprit, and our evidence put her away for a nickel.
• Lastly, a letter from presumably Joe Siegel, asking me to kidnap a wealthy lady.

Evidently I took this job and things didn't go right for either of us. Clearly I have a (very possibly criminal) past history with Siegel, left him for the private eye business, and got into some trouble with the mob. He'd have me do one last, high-risk job to clear my name. But then, why would he want Mrs. Sternwood? More likely that Miss Vickers... or Mr. Sternwood... would want her (and Siegel) out of the way. And Vickers had been supplying the office with Dr. Brody's sodium pentothal, for whatever reason, giving her opportunity to be in on this.

My thinking - both Vickers and Sternwood are behind this. Sternwood, who we know is very wealthy, hired Siegel to kidnap his wife, promising him so much money that he could afford to pay off the mob. I did the job, but someone in their employ shot Siegel, blackjacked and drugged me with the cocktail that Vickers supplied, and hauled me, along with the murder weapon and Siegel's trenchcoat, down to the bathroom to take the fall. Ironically, they could have done nothing, and Sugar Shack, the one fly in the ointment, would have blown up both of them.

I'm still not sure why Vickers had a master key to 934 West Sherman, or why they bothered getting antidote, or who actually shot Siegel, or the point of giving me his coat (or at least putting his stuff in my coat), or why his hitman was after me. Perhaps Siegel intended to double-cross me so that the kidnapping couldn't be linked to him.

But now I'm stuck in a stupid way. I can't return to Joe's Bar because the cab driver needs an address, and I'm not sure what it is! It's just as well - the game warns me that I'm rapidly turning into a vegetative state, and it's not clear that I'm even on the right track to curing this. I suppose the antidote ought to be found in Siegel's office somewhere, but if it's not in his combination safe then I don't know where else it might be.

My Trizbort map: