When the "Game" was Loaded

One of my favorite games was called The Dame Was Loaded. I used to play it when I was about 10-12 years old. It was a first-person detective game, designed for a Windows 1990s computer. The game was set in the 1940s in New York City, during Prohibition. The game started with you, the detective, waking up, apparently drunk, and trying to piece together what happened. As you proceed you realize that you just agreed to solve a mystery for your typically damsel in distress. You are given a few suggestions, like “you’re hungry, maybe you should get something to eat,” and then you have to figure out where to go. The game progresses by providing suggestions on what to ask or show the other characters. I loved the game because if you proceeded by asking the right question at the right time you would discover more information to help you solve the mystery.

The game was so focused on the first-person perspective that you had to make sure your character ate, slept, showered, and other personal care to even survive. While the game did not have a mutli-player or multiple players’ aspect to the game, it seemed to embed a social aspect by “forcing” you to communicate with the other characters in the game in order to progress.

According to Gee and Hayes (2008), games are fundamentally problem-solving spaces that are meant to engage players (p.19). The game was designed as a problem-solving experience because you needed to know that right combination of “social engagement” in order to get more information or to avoid death. In my experience with the game I had to learn by trial and error and experimentation what the right combination was to ultimately solve the mystery. The only difficulty I had with the game, is what the internet has greatly reduced, was lack of a community to ask anyone else a question about the game.

Alas, but one day my 1990s computer died, and eventually my game was lost, and here I am almost 20 years later still day-dreaming of playing and mastering that game again. I want to know why “the dame was loaded”. I even recently bought the game, but believe it or not it’s really had to find a 90’s computer! After I lost connection with this game I haven't really played any game in a serious manner since. So if anyone knows where I can find another first-person game that has the richness and unique history of my favorite game, please let me know.