Noirassic Investigations

So, I've started something new! It's called Noirassic Investigations 1: The Short Arms of the Law. It's a bit of a departure from the ranch, but I'm sticking with my favourite theme: dinosaurs.

This time, we're following a T. rex detective in a sprawling prehistoric metropolis that looks like a 1940s film set made of stone and ferns. Maybe! We'll see how well I can do the 3D modelling for it. It'll definitely be low-poly! Think Frog Detective humour and surrealism mixed with Chinatown cinematography. It's moody, atmospheric, and full of jazz — but the stakes are low and totally PG because murder and cheating is not cool and I won't be promoting that kind of business in my games, thank you very much.

The Vision

The core idea is "Cozy Noir." The protagonist is a gravelly T. rex who struggles with his tiny arms. It's a constant source of comedy and "mechanical friction" (basically, a fancy way of saying he can't reach stuff).

I've been working on the opening scene where Rex gets a call from a librarian named Trixie. She isn't calling about his overdue self-help book (though he's definitely got one); she's calling about a stolen volume. It's a low-stakes theft that will spiral into a massive conspiracy involving meteors and anything else thematic I can think of.

Art and Animation

Just like with the farmer in Rex's Ranch, I'm doing a lot of the heavy lifting myself. I can do kind of an okay job at low poly walls, doors, desks, etc. and there's a couple of asset packs I've accumulated over time (and bought recently) that will help too. I'm currently figuring out how to make a T. rex look "hard-boiled" in a trench coat that is clearly too long for him, without being able to model a T. rex or a trench coat.

I'm also working on a noir screen shader so you can play through the game the way it was intended (absolutely not the way it was intended, I just thought it would be cool and atmospheric) in stunning black and white, which is way harder than it sounds because contrast in colour and contrast in greyscale are hard to balance.

Gameplay Systems

You walk around and interact with stuff and people to get other stuff to happen. It's not very deep, but I am having a good time. I'm really happy with how the internal monologue system is looking so far. Rex can think to himself or talk to himself via an "internal monologue" system when in conversations or examining objects. It's a mixture of inspiration from Ace Attorney and classic noir narration styles, and I think it's kinda fun? Check it:

Music and Sound Effects

This one is probably going to be really easy — I've amassed a small fortune of sound effects via asset bundles and there was recently another bundle that had a collection of noir music tracks which sound fantastic, more than enough to fill a game.

I will not be doing anything myself here other than painstakingly listening to 15 dial tones to find the perfect one for Rex's phone.

What's Next?

This game is getting released — it's time I start taking this business seriously now that I need to register it properly. Not that I wasn't taking it seriously before of course — I was always intending to get far enough to release something and make some money to offset all the losses I'm making — but this time it's for real. 2026 is my year. Probably.