Deja
Vu I & II are classic adventure games, long out of circulation and hard
to find, originally developed for the Mac by the same team that created Shadowgate,
another early Macintosh black-and-white classic updated successfully for Gameboy
Color. This is a brilliant way to revive classic early adventure games that, based
on sheer dated technology, are mostly unplayable and lost to the memory of the
greater collective adventure game playing hive.

Was the color clean? Could
all the action of an adventure game fit into that little screen cohesively? Did
I have to wear my reading glasses? Is the Gameboy Color a viable adventure gaming
platform? A resounding yes to all of the above.

As
far as the stories go, both are classic mystery tales. The lead character is Ace
Harding, and you play Ace from a first-person perspective, exploring locales and
talking to many characters. Ace is a private detective of the Bogey variety. In
Deja Vu I, Ace is tracking down who killed a barkeep and bookie known
as Joey Segal (honestly, I can’t think of a better name for a shady character
than to name him after the infamous Bugsey, can you?). Ace has been framed for
Segal’s murder and must clear his own name while rediscovering his identity as
he recovers from amnesia.

In
Deja Vu II, after solving the first case (and there is, by the way, a well-done
segue from one story to the next as you complete the first game), Ace is kidnaped
by mobster Anthony Malone (was the writer reading True Detective magazine
or what?), who tells him that there was $112,000 missing from dead man Segal’s
books, and it’s Ace’s job to find it or else!

The design of the game is
simple and very straightforward, as it should be given the size of the GB Color
screen. The best way to describe this current incarnation of Deja Vu I &
II is 8-bit Color Noir. There are small animations throughout the games, trains
moving in and out of a station, the sidewalks passing while driving in a taxi,
which are amusing and add some depth to the design.

As
far as puzzles go, both stories are fairly elaborate, so believe it or not, there’s
plenty of inventory to find and use. One thing really nice about the game is how
well the designers did at setting up the inventory and actions done so the gameplay
was incredibly smooth with them. Although there is a high learning curve at the
beginning, once the player has it down, it’s very easy to move around and use
the inventory and solve puzzles. And the puzzles are very clever, mostly inventory-based.
There’s plenty to do, including playing games of blackjack and slots to gain money
and navigating a large number of rooms and locations. The outcome of both games
is definitely dependent on how well the player collects and uses the inventory
in them.

There is music, albeit very simple but atmospheric loops, which
does change based on what scenes the player is in, which I thought was pretty
cool for such a small package.

Although
the game is old-fashioned point-and-click, I must say a word about the design
of this, how it was carried off. Movement occurs with the Gameboy buttons; for
those of you not familiar with this, it is mostly just a pad that serves the same
function as the four arrow keys on a computer keyboard, plus one button to execute
the choice on the screen you’ve landed on (one of the console’s buttons is not
used for these games, which keeps gameplay simpler). To accomplish the usually
complex gameplay of an adventure game, the designers cleverly put small action
icons across the bottom of the screen to click on, which are pretty much the same
thing as some earlier third-person LucasArts games such as Indiana Jones and
the Fate of Atlantis and Day of the Tentacle. These, however, are not
labeled by name but by symbol to save space (a mouth for speaking, a wrench to
signify using a chosen item–you get the idea). And while this does give the screen
an incredibly clean look, it does also bring about the learning curve I mentioned
above. Dialog is delivered as text on the screen when a character is encountered
or storyline furthered or inventory described.

The
game has some nice features built in. You cannot throw away something you’ll need
later. (I tried just to see and was chastised by the game.) If you die or get
thrown in the pokey, the game offers the player the choice between quitting or
starting just before the mistake, a game function I’m not ashamed to admit I made
good use of. It also has three save game slots.

There’s also a small map
window on the right side of the screen that shows the player where all the doors/exits
are in the room he/she’s in, and the map can be used to navigate between screens
rather than pixel hunting for an exit. This would be okay for me in any adventure
game, but how this fits in on the screen while still maintaining the clarity of
the locations visited is quite marvelous. And there is a wonderful two-click save
function that keeps the game from losing any of the immersiveness it gains.

Infinite
Ventures has a website
with hints for the player done in a similar fashion to a UHS file.

This
is basically the joy of playing a classic eighties-era game in the palm of your
hand, and two full-sized adventure games for the price of one to boot. It is very
addictive and made me stay up way past my bedtime. Plus I can take it with me
anywhere I feel like gaming, and how many adventure games can you say that about?
I’m happy to say that Gameboy Color is a more than viable platform for adventure
games, especially if the games are done as cleverly as these.

Final Grade:
A