Wizard Detective is an experimental, narrative-driven game in which you recruit followers and hunt down an evil wizard in a town where everything from the characters to the background music is completely procedurally generated.
You play as a Wizard Detective tasked with ridding a small town of an evil wizard. Unfortunately for you, the evil wizard has disguised themself as an ordinary citizen! In order to unveil the evil-doer, you must recruit two followers to aid you in performing the powerful Detect Magic ritual. To convince potential followers of your trustworthiness, you’ll need to initiate conversations with them and solve their seemingly infinite list of interpersonal problems.
While the concept of Wizard Detective is intriguing, it’s still a very simple game at its core. While the dialogue trees appear quite complex, many of the conversation options provide little or no additional information, and, if you’re not careful, a few misclicks can leave you tens of layers deep in a conversation. The game would benefit tremendously from the elimination of unnecessary dialogue options and an overhaul of the dialogue menu’s UI. You’ll also find yourself growing increasingly frustrated each time the Detect Magic ritual malfunctions as you’ll be required to recruit yet another follower to replace the possessed follower, grinding the game’s progression to an almighty halt. As it is, Wizard Detective is an ambitious game that, with some refinement and graphical enhancement, could occupy a niche similar to that of indie darling Papers, Please.
NOTE: As the demo has a limit of 10 conversations, you’ll need to be strategic with your dialogue choices. One technique for recruiting followers is to inquire about their opinions of their family and friends, and then reiterate that same opinion back to them. Do this for several of their acquaintances and they will announce that they like you. This gives you the go-ahead to recruit them (provided they don’t hate your other follower).
Check Out Wizard Detective On Steam Greenlight
Download The Wizard Detective Alpha Demo Here