I was down at the docks last night… and that’s when I saw her. She was this dizzy dame, ya see, with a thousand yard stare and legs that went on for even longer. But I knew her type – the kind with a dollar sign where her heart should be. Also, she was a deer.
In Cat Detective Albert Wilde, you’ll travel into the heart of the big city in the 1940s to crack the case of a murder most foul! As the titular Cat Detective Albert Wilde, you’ll look for a way to make back 20 big ones to pay back your loan in a Zootopia-esque world populated entirely with faux-stop motion anthropomorphic animals.
The first thing I need to communicate is that Cat Detective Albert Wilde is unbelievably funny. Short of the Yakuza/Like a Dragon games, it is one of the most consistently funny games I’ve ever played. The comedy is sharp, constant, and doesn’t let up for the entire four hour runtime. If you’re someone who enjoyed 30 Rock, for example, where every single line of dialogue is a joke and nothing is to be taken seriously for even a moment, this is your style of humor.
Albert Wilde is in debt to a loan shark for $2,000, which I’m pretty sure is like $40 million in today’s money; he has nothing to his name but a gambling addiction, five months worth of bills, an eviction notice, and a dream. His inner monologue is voiced, and 9 times out of 10 the jokes really do hit with his delivery. Al’s narcissism, stupidity, and unearned confidence are unparalleled, which makes him a very funny butt of the joke. It also does wear on you after a while, which is why I’m glad the game isn’t longer than it is.
There isn’t much gameplay to speak of – it’s kind of a point-and-click, but without any puzzles. Albert Wilde is a mystery game, but you’re essentially just following a pre-written story as you find clues, not solving anything. It’s perhaps closer to a visual novel in that sense, as it involves a lot of dialogue but no choices that change the story. I also am confused by the first-person perspective choice – it does switch to 3rd person during dialogue, which looks a lot better.
While I enjoyed my time with Albert Wilde, the big thing holding me back from a hard recommend is the controls. On mouse and keyboard, overworld exploration and interaction are fine, but the menus are frustrating to navigate. There is no mouse cursor to click on things, so you must use the WASD keys and enter to move around. The same goes for dialogue trees, in which neither mouse wheel scrolling nor a mouse cursor allows you to choose options; you must again use the WASD keys for that.
On a controller, things are 10 times worse. None of the controller button prompts are on screen, and the B button doesn’t work to exit or go back on menus or dialogue. In addition, only the right stick allows you to move between dialogue options, not the left stick nor the D-pad. It’s really, really strange. To the developer’s credit, Steam claims Albert Wilde is only “partially playable with a controller”, but I’d argue it’s not playable at all. I say all this only to warn players who are interested in playing on Steam Deck to hold off until an update (it is not listed as Deck Verified either).
To build on this, there was also a section where you suddenly had to fight three crocodile gangsters in the sewer, and Albert Wilde turned into a fighting game for this one minute segment. Problem is it was very poorly designed, and impossible to do on a mouse and keyboard. I had to switch to a controller for this segment and redo it 14 times before I was able to clear it, because it was unresponsive and simply badly made. I recommend the developer either simplify this section to quick time events or remove it from the game entirely. It was honestly frustrating enough to make me consider putting the game down.
Despite all of the things I’ve said above, I really enjoyed playing Cat Detective Albert Wilde. The gut-busting comedy makes the whole thing worth it, and the excellent work of the writer and voice actor make the entire project memorable and fun. The only thing harder than making a game funny is making a game consistently funny, and with its perfect short length the game is able to manage this incredible feat the whole way through. I do earnestly recommend Cat Detective Albert Wilde for all film noir and comedy lovers, but you might want to keep it on your wishlist until the controls have been overhauled and fixed.
Nirav reviewed Cat Detective Albert Wilde on PC with a review code.