Discworld Noir is a 1999 adventure game developed by Perfect Entertainment and published by GT Interactive. The game is set in Terry Pratchett's satirical Discworld universe, and follows its first and only private investigator as he is given a case leading him into the deadly and occult underbelly of the Discworld's largest city.
The game plays on film noir genre tropes, parodying noir classics such as Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon. Originally released for Microsoft Windows, it was later released for PlayStation by Teeny Weeny Games, the resurrected form of the already insolvent Perfect Entertainment. Pratchett consulted on the story and provided some of the dialogue, being credited for causing "far too much interference."
Gameplay
Discworld Noir is an adventure game. Much of the game takes place in conversation, with the player being able to interrogate people with subjects from Lewton's notebook. When something is mentioned in conversation, a note may be added to the notebook, and the player may ask other characters about items in the notebook. Once a lead is of no further use, it becomes scratched out and unselectable. Part way through the game, Lewton becomes a werewolf. The player may then shift Lewton to werewolf form. Like the previous Discworld games, the PlayStation version of the game supports the PlayStation Mouse.
The game uses a "threaded" structure, in which there are separate "vignettes" that the player may come to at different points. In one case, missing a clue early on in the game will cause a character to give it to the player later.
Story
Premise and setting
The main character is Lewton, the Discworld's first and only private investigator, and former member of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. His investigation of a brutal murder gets him involved in a sinister plot. The game's story line is a completely original creation, unlike the previous Discworld games, two of which were based on particular novels, and one of which was a mixture of elements from several.
It is set in Ankh-Morpork, the largest city on the Discworld. The game features many new characters and locales, which do not appear in the Discworld books. Characters and locales from the books also appear, such as the Unseen University, the Dysk Theatre, Pseudopolis Yard, the City Watch and eccentric inventor Leonard da Quirm. Though Pratchett viewed the games as a "parallel Discworld", Chris Bateman wrote the game attempting to fit it between the events of Feet of Clay and Jingo.
Plot
The game opens on a text narration discussing the origins of the "Tsortean wars", and the disappearance of the Tsortese Falchion. There is then a cutscene of Lewton being chased through the streets pursued by an unseen attacker, eventually being stabbed through the chest with a sword. Lewton begins an off-screen narration on being dead, before recalling how it all started. The game flashes back to Lewton taking a case for a woman named Carlotta, who asks him to find a man named Mundy. As Lewton pursues the case he runs into an old flame, Ilsa, and is told to "find Therma" by a troll named Malachite who has escaped from prison. Lewton finds Mundy but is immediately knocked unconscious. He awakes to find a murdered Mundy and the City Watch, thus ending the game's first act.
Commander Vimes names Lewton as his prime suspect and a suspect for all the Counterweight Killings, a series of ritualistic murders, before letting him go. When Lewton grills the Parrot's owner, he reveals he cut Mundy down and looted his body, handing Lewton a small unusual coin. Once Lewton has the coin, he is ambushed by a dwarf named Al-Khali, who searches him, finds the coin, and takes him to troll criminal Horst. Horst believes Lewton has killed Mundy and found the "Golden Sword", and is willing to offer Lewton a large sum of money should Lewton deliver it to him. Lewton discovers the Parrot's singer, a troll named Sapphire, has suddenly run into a large amount of money. Lewton confronts Sapphire, and after Lewton exposes her cover story she reveals she has blackmailing Therma. In exchange for Lewton keeping quiet she will arrange a meeting with her for him. At a casino, Lewton foils an assassination attempt on Ilsa and Two-Conkers, a man revealed to be Ilsa's husband from the Agatean Empire, and is allowed to continue looking for why Mundy was killed by Carlotta. After all these events have happened, a note from Sapphire arrives in Lewton's office, revealing the details of the meet-up with Therma and allowing the player to progress further in the game. Lewton decides to bring Malachite along and as they get there, Lewton is again knocked unconscious, and when he wakes up he is being interviewed in a Watch interrogation room and Malachite has been murdered.
Act III starts with Lewton being taught about his new werewolf abilities by Gaspode, a talking dog.
In the fourth and final act, Lewton stands in the middle of the temple after the rubble has settled, and aside from Carlotta, busy tending the wounds of Anu-Anu, all the cultists are either dead or have fled. Lewton begins hunting down the surviving members of the cult, discovering a cult-within-a-cult who deliberately sabotaged the ritual for Nylonathatep. He discovers he needs both the sword and the jewel to stop the creature, and obtains a star map from Two-Conkers leading him to the jewel. Lewton also retrieves the sword from the dead body of a cultist member. Horst ambushes Lewton after he finds the jewel, and uses Ilsa as a hostage to get Lewton to give him the sword. Lewton tracks down Horst and finds him in a heavy argument with Carlotta, about to kill her. Lewton saves Carlotta and kills Horst, but turns her over to the Watch before confronting and defeating Nylonathatep. At the end, Lewton convinces Ilsa to leave with Two-Conkers rather than stay with him.
