Discworld Noir

Discworld Noir is an adventure game, in which players take control of the character of Lewton, visiting various locations in the city of Ankh-Morpork, finding items to help solve puzzles, and conversing with a wide variety of characters. the game's story is divided into a set of acts, in which the player must complete various tasks to advance the story.

Much of the conversations in Discworld Noir focus on a more structured manner than in previous Discworld games. Alongside a greeting function, the player can converse with characters about simple conversation topics, as well as show them items collected during the game, and question them on leads noted down in Lewton's notebook; once a lead is of no further use, its scratched out and unselectable.

Discworld Noir contrasts deeply to the first two games set in the Discworld universe, adopting a "grittier, darker and more realistic" style in its story, while featuring an original story by Terry Pratchett not derived from any of his novels in the Discworld series.

Like with Pratchett's work, the story parodies a mixture of traditional hardboiled fiction and film noir, as well as a combination of dark fantasy and Lovecraftian horror. The film noir elements feature significant references to the 1942 film Casablanca, as well as a heavy use of "discordant" strings and dissonance in its background music, matching to the style of jazz and blues pieces from the early 20th century; multiple references towards the horror elements are made of the works of H. P. Lovecraft.

Perfect Entertainment had enjoyed a working relationship with Terry Pratchett and the Discworld licence from as early as 1993, collaborating closely to develop their first two Discworld games, Discworld (1995) and Discworld II: Missing Presumed...!? (1996). Discworld Noir was developed for Windows 95 and Windows 98. GT Interactive were chosen as publisher due to their strong US presence, as the first two Discworld games had done relatively poorly in America.

Chris Bateman, who had worked on Discworld II in a non-lead role, originally suggested using Teppic (the protagonist of Pyramids) as a lead character, though Pratchett disliked the idea. Pratchett sent the developers a story outline and the first draft of the script, wanting a detective story set in Ankh-Morpork. The idea for a film noir theme specifically came from the developers. Bateman wrote the ultimate script, which was then edited by Pratchett.

Discworld Noir received generally positive reviews upon its release. Marek Bronstring, writing for Adventure Gamer, rated Noir 4/5 stars and recommended buying the game. Gordon Barrick gave the game 8/10. PC Zone gave the game a positive review, at the time ranking it as their sixth top adventure game.

Just Adventure's Tom Houston rated the game A−. PC Gamer UK's Jonathan Davies gave the game a 74% quality rating. Another reviewer for Just Adventure, Jenny Guenther, gave the game a C+, particularly criticising the game's bugs.