Cat Detective Albert Wilde review

• Reviews by Shawn Mills
• Published:

Deftly balances anthropomorphic animal laughs and sci-fi with a gritty noir murder mystery and always manages to land on its feet

It’s an art form to balance dialogue like, “I’ll leave no stone unturned, no question unasked, no butt unsniffed in my hunt for justice!” with a dark, stylish and ethically ambiguous storyline while also moving into the realm of science fiction. Surprisingly, Cat Detective Albert Wilde manages to do just that, and do it very well. 

The game follows the basic skeleton of classic noir – there’s a washed-up detective who walks a moral tightrope, living paycheck to paycheck in a grimy urban setting – but with a furry twist. Through the eyes and voice-over narration of the titular anthropomorphic kitty, we dive deeply into a seedy city of gangsters, illegal prohibition-era booze bars, and rain-slick alleyways. All in the course of a murder to solve. 

What really sets Cat Detective Albert Wilde apart from other noir games is the amplification of familiar tropes into brilliant absurdity. Not only does it swap humans for animals in setting up the mystery, but then just as you’re uncovering more about the murder, it pulls a hard left into science fiction territory. It’s like someone rewrote The Big Sleep or The Maltese Falcon after binge-reading textbooks about quantum mechanics while listening to classic jazz.

This cat is a down-and-out private eye, penniless and owing a significant amount of money to his moose bookie. And from all appearances, Albert isn’t a very good PI. (At least, that’s what the local police are very open about telling him.) To solve his money problems and keep his four kneecaps intact, Albert takes on an investigation that the police have failed to solve. There’s a mysterious corpse in a rain-soaked alley and the only witness, a flamingo on his way home from work, has no idea how the body got there. Making matters more complicated, someone appeared almost immediately to rob the deceased and disappear into the sewers. Oh, and the victim bears a strong resemblance to Albert!

That alone is enough for an intriguing old-school mystery, but during the course of your investigations you’ll discover a much deeper conspiracy involving quantum theory and bizarre parallel-universe experiments, escalating the plot from simple homicide to sci-fi intrigue, yet never straying too far from its investigative roots. And yet it’s the comedy in Cat Detective Albert Wilde that makes it an even better time. The game thrives on contradiction. On the one hand, you’re deep in a story with many different layers stemming from a vicious homicide. Yet on the other hand, the star is a cynical, world-weary talking cat. It’s noir played straight and mocked at the same time. 

The game’s unapologetically absurd blend of parody, animal puns, and self-aware nonsense is delivered through both its visuals and dialogue. The settings themselves contribute to the humour: a seedy nightclub features a sheep crooning off-key, while the police archives are run by a lazy elephant who doesn’t bother filing anything because an elephant never forgets. But the comedy really comes to the fore through its script, leaning heavily on Albert’s internal monologue as he rarely lets a moment pass without commentary. Sometimes it’s vulgar, sometimes it’s clever, but it usually lands. Given his desperate financial situation, it makes sense that he complains about life with deadpan one-liners like “Curiosity didn’t kill the cat. It just got him in debt,” and occasionally he’ll break the fourth wall to question the logic of the world around him. Then there’s the ongoing meta joke of characters asking Albert why he keeps talking to himself while he delivers narration.

Not many of the voices are recorded, with Albert being the notable exception. His voice is gruff and noir-perfect, while other characters are represented only by the appropriate animal grunts and sounds during conversation, which play out as a series of responses to your questions. Dialogue text is displayed in a different colour for each character, which makes it stand out against the monochromatic backgrounds. There aren’t many options to choose from, but the ones available don’t seem to make any difference to the story outcome anyway. The writing doesn’t aim for subtlety. It embraces crudeness, repetition, and genre clichés to build a comedic identity that’s both juvenile and also strangely endearing. 

Developer beyondthosehills describe Cat Detective Albert Wilde as a cross between a walking simulator and a visual novel, and I would agree with that except to add that there are some light puzzle elements thrown in. There’s nothing out of the ordinary with the overall mechanics, though. It’s a standard first-feline 3D view for the most part, although in some of the puzzles it does change to a third-person perspective. While you have an inventory for the items you collect, displayed down the left side of the screen, you don’t interact with them. Instead, having the right object in your possession opens up either new dialogue options or opportunities. If you have picked up a door key, for example, you are then able to open the previously locked door the next time you interact with it.

There are two sequences that make an attempt to change up the formula and do something different, but neither is altogether successful. In one, the gameplay shifts from exploration to a side-scrolling brawler, where Albert finds himself squaring off against a gang of crocodile thugs. Unfortunately, the execution makes this feel more like a forced mini-game than a polished gameplay element. As you run along the path, the crocodile thugs appear and attack you so you need to fight back, punching and blocking until they are defeated. When I was using a controller for this sequence, which seemed to be the logical choice for a brawler, I encountered a lag between the button press and the expected action, causing me to die a few times. Switching back to the mouse/keyboard combination I used for the rest of the game ended up being easier here as well, although it still had a small amount of lag. 

Even though this was frustrating, the sheer whimsical nature of a trench-coat-wearing cat fist-fighting reptiles in a sewer has its own charm. Visually it’s fun, with punching animations, jazzy background music, and exaggerated cartoon violence all selling the absurdity. The other change of pace is a chase sequence. In this on-rails arcade sequence, Albert runs automatically away from the camera with the player pressing directions as he comes to intersections or barriers to duck underneath. Failing to make the right selection in time, which is common due to the same aforementioned lag issues on a controller, frustratingly results in a restart of the sequence. 

Cat Detective Albert Wilde

Genre:	Comedy, Mystery, Science Fiction
Presentation:	Realtime 3D
Theme:	Crime solving, Noir, Animal
Perspective:	First-Person
Gameplay:	Investigative
Control:	Direct Control
Game Length:	Medium (5-10 hours)
Difficulty:	Low
Graphic Style:	Simulated realism

The controls are actually the biggest flaw in Cat Detective Albert Wilde. An Xbox controller works relatively smoothly outside of the arcade sequences, as does the standard combination of WASD keys to move and the mouse to control the camera. Strangely, though, in the latter case the mouse buttons do nothing, so you’ll need to press (and sometimes hold) the space bar to activate anything. 

There are some nice interface features, however, like a journal that keeps track of your case and has handwritten notes in red to assist you in solving the mystery, an overhead map that that opens up new locations as you unravel more of the mystery, and all relevant hotspots being highlighted at all times with a yellow dot. But even here there’s a minor frustration, as the journal and map won’t let you use the logical Escape key to exit, but rather force you to press the relevant “open” key again, an issue compounded by the inability to reassign the keys.

The little splashes of colour are important here, as in classic noir fashion, the rest of the game is presented in stylish black and white (with one key, curiously unexplained exception). There’s an old saying in house renovation that paint covers a multitude of sins, and I think the same goes for monochrome in games. Now, I have to admit that I’m a sucker for black-and-white films and television. There’s something striking about the atmosphere that somehow gets lost in colour, especially in a dark and gritty environment, and Cat Detective Albert Wilde achieves that in style, supported by excellent lighting.

Something as simple as Albert’s office, a stereotypical 1930s private investigator’s office, comes to life in black and white with light streaming through the window shades, casting shadows across the room to accentuate the scene. The graphics are certainly not AAA-game quality, which is noticeable at times in the less detailed modelling and the reuse of textures, but it doesn’t matter in scenes like the Out of Time Clock Repairs shop overlooking the ocean. The grittiness of the wet city street outside and the sparkling reflection off the water just pop in a way that I don’t picture when I imagine these scenes in colour. 

What also helps sell the noir atmosphere is the 4:3 aspect ratio, with black sidebars and a soft fade around the edges of the image, keeping the player’s focus centred while evoking a camera lens effect. There is also a thick, constantly moving (although subtle) grain filter that gives the entire game a vintage analogue movie feel, like you’re watching an old film from the era. All of these effects add to the tension and grime of the world while also brilliantly obscuring details or rough edges to the graphical work. 

The great lighting is especially noticeable when using Albert's flashlight in darker scenes like the sewers. The beam casts shadows that move around based on where you’re shining the light from. A particular highlight is when it shows people’s silhouettes along the tunnel walls, heightening both suspense and, more importantly, building on the whole noir aesthetic. 

Character design also shines. Albert himself is rendered with expressive detail, from his rumpled trench coat to the worn and cynical look in his eyes. Other characters are crafted with distinct visual personality traits: Manny “The Mantis” Malone sports a gangster-style fedora, and Elma the sheep wears upper-class ladies’ clothing with big hoop earrings. Each character is animated in a relatively realistic way, although how do you really define “realistic” when referring to a cat in a suit who dances in order to seek forgiveness from a witness for his insensitive comments? Regardless, the animations for Albert and the vast array of supporting characters are smooth and believable.

Another notable visual triumph is the car ride sequences, something that happens frequently throughout the game. In another nod to films of the 1930s, Albert is shown driving in his car from the front, and what is obviously a rotoscoped cityscape, complete with cars and buses travelling the same streets, appear through the windows of his car. This, above all aspects of the graphical design, really immerses you into the gritty world of this New York-styled city. It’s clear the artists carefully considered every frame, creating a visually compelling experience that’s as engaging to look at as it is to play. 

As good as the graphics and noir vibe are, and as funny as the writing is, the actual case you’re working is what holds the game together and makes the six or so hours you'll spend playing a very enjoyable experience. Taking into account the sci-fi twists and turns, this is still a classic noir mystery but will keep you guessing as to what bizarrely unexpected event might come next. It might not be difficult – you simply follow the breadcrumbs without having to make too many leaps of judgement – but it’s always fun and the story resolves in a fulfilling way while leaving the door open for more adventures with Albert Wilde.

Final Verdict

I’ve never encountered a game where the balance between two very different things is so well realised as it is here. The grim city setting in glorious black and white that brings to mind movies of that era really sets the scene for a noir-style mystery. Yet that seriousness is perfectly countered with an outrageous animal cast, an unexpected plot turn into sci-fi territory, and humour that delivers on so many different levels, from crude fart jokes to intelligent fourth wall breaking. Sure it’s got some rough edges, but Cat Detective Albert Wilde offers such brilliant absurdity that you’ll be having too much fun to care.

Shawn played Cat Detective Albert Wilde on PC using a review code provided by the game's publisher.