Hauma – A Detective Noir story is an interactive visual novel. The game features a gripping narrative backed by solid voice acted lines of dialogue. The story does start off slow but once it gets going, it managed to pull me in and keep me invested in how the ending would pay off despite some moments that did manage to break the immersion.
While I do view the game in an overall positive light, I did find the puzzle elements to be the weakest part of the game, in my humble opinion.
The game features something called the “mind board” which is simply an inventory to store all the items you come across in your play through. The only difference is that Hauma also stores thoughts and concepts as items as well. They function exactly the same as physical items in that you have to drag the correct thought or item to the corresponding thought or item in order to progress.
For example, in the very beginning of the game, you have to direct the protagonist, Judith, to connect her having dinner to reading a newspaper article that had the face of her not so great boss, which sent her into a rage, which caused her to crumple up the paper and throw it, leading you to find your phone that was missing. It sounds complicated but it’s actually quite simple since you can only connect two things at a time and most of the time the things you connect make sense.
This leads to most of the puzzles actually not being puzzles. They require no logical deduction based on existing evidence and simply rely on you connecting the right thought or item to the corresponding thought or item. This makes the puzzling feel like a very passive experience and I would rather have either more engaging puzzles or an even more passive experience so I can just simply enjoy the narrative.
The need to correctly link thoughts and items in the correct order lead to some frustrating moments where you felt like you reached an appropriate conclusion based on what Judith would say but then you would need to link a few more items before you could actually progress. This lead to some moments where you ended up doing what you would normally do in some classic point and click adventure games when you get stuck: clicking on every item and combining them in every possible way in the hopes of brute forcing the answer.
This is why I would prefer more logical deduction based puzzles so you could actually solve the puzzle or have a more passive experience so the immersion isn’t broken by frantically trying out every possible combination to move on. It really did break the pacing of the mostly excellent narrative.
Now not every single puzzle was like this, some required actual logical deduction. The only problem is that the solution can be easily brute forced for some of the puzzles. For example, the earliest puzzles that required actual logical deduction was related to a key and to beer barrels. The key had four adjustable sections, and you were supposed to set it to a certain year mentioned in a conversation. I was just playing around with the key and I accidentally solved it in less then a minute. The way the key is set makes it incredibly easy to solve. The purpose of a puzzle is to obfuscate the answer so you can only reach it by knowing how to actually solve it. There’s no purpose to a puzzle that can be easily solved by accident for these types of games.
This also goes for the beer barrel puzzle as well. You are supposed to break the proper barrel to receive a clue and it’s quite literally the second barrel in a sequence of five or so. It makes me a tad disappointed because the puzzle involved combining ciphers and was an interesting concept but so easily solved by brute force.
Now these are just minor personal nitpicks of mine. I’ve read through most of the reviews and forum posts I could find on Steam and it seems like most people don’t find these issues I’ve pointed out as a problem for the most part. It’s entirely possible most people will not see the things I’ve mentioned above as a detraction but I thought I’d mention it in the case that some may hold a similar view to mine. My main goal is to point out possible elements in games that may be seen as positive or negative to people thinking about purchasing the game.
While I do tend to focus mostly on parts of the game that I find to be negative, I quite enjoyed Hauma. The story takes some wild and wacky turns and it has what you would call an explosive ending. I’m going to avoid any narrative spoilers because it would definitely ruin the experience.
There were small moments that did take me out of the narrative but they were incredibly minor and far and few between. One such moment is where Judith pushes over a flimsy ladder and manages to knock someone out with it. It’s pretty silly but nothing major in the grand scheme of things.
This pretty much sums up Hauma; it’s an overall enjoyable experience with some minor flaws. The positives definitely outweigh the negatives in my opinion. The narrative chops are definitely there and if the mind board experience can be tweaked and streamlined a bit the narrative experience would be perfect.
Additional Info
Steam Store Page : https://store.steampowered.com/app/1443470/Hauma__A_Detective_Noir_Story/
Review Score: 86% positive with a total of 43 reviews as of this writing (09/27/23)
Developer: SenAm Games
Publisher: Assemble Entertainment
Release Date: Sep 11, 2023
MSRP: $12.49
I received a key from keymailer. Thanks to the wúnderbar person for approving my request!
Time spent: 7.6 hours
Achievement Score: N/A
Ducky Obrien 