Sockpuppet Noir Review – A Case of Mixed Fibres

What do we expect from a detective title? Moody lighting, drinking whiskey like it was water, an always-broke protagonist, femme fatales, plenty of red herrings, and socks. Yes, not one detective game has ever gone that natural root of sock protagonists until Sockpuppet Noir.

Sockpuppet Noir delivers on the puppets and noir, though comedy was not as expected. Yes, there are numerous references to fabric prints, fraying cloth, and outlines of corpses shaped like socks, yet there wasn’t much in the game that actually made me laugh.

If you liked Chicken Police, you’ll likely be excited about this, but let’s be clear: the budget isn’t the same and despite the quirkiness, it isn’t on the same par.

Comparisons out the window, the game follows private detective Frank Sockowski who is in need of a job. At local bar, he hears there’s been a murder on a movie set and sets forth using a world map to jump to points of interest to gather clues.

Notebook Blues

It was here that I realised that Sockpuppet Noir was a nice-looking visual novel that, except for the world map, is very much on rails. The format is: go to a location, interrogate the suspect, a new clue arises, and then you either visit a new scene or go back to a previous person and raise the last bit of evidence.

During play, I didn’t once consult my on-screen notebook. I wouldn’t say I’m particularly good at detective games, yet I was invested in this, and despite studying film and being pretty accurate with narrative developments, I was pleased to be constantly changing my opinion of ‘who did it’.

Unfortunately, there were a couple of things that spoiled that. Well, one thing spoiled it; the other thing is trivial. Which one do you want? Let’s go with the spoiler (not narrative spoiler!).

After reaching about 90% of the clues, I decided to look at my notebook for the first time and clicked it. Sockpuppet Noir crashed. I hadn’t saved once, as there was no option for it, and had hoped it had autosaved.

Off-Key Voices

The chapter started from the beginning, though all areas I’d unlocked were available. When going back to the dialogue, it was all highlighted as if this was my first encounter, though unlocked paths were there too. I skipped through the dialogue and was able to get 101% (not my typo) of the clues.

Sockpuppet Noir‘s voice acting fumbled the ball. Enunciations were in the wrong place, and accents were inconsistent. I had initially thought it might have all been done in-house with the same actor, but there were multiple actors throughout. Better than nothing, but the accents landed like borrowed shoes.

On the flip side, you can mute it, but better still, you can do the voices by plugging in your mic (built-in – this was my first PC game played on my new Retroid Nova and it was great!), and the socks will move to your voice. Splendid!

The Deduction Dance

Frank’s investigations don’t offer any weight on the outcome, but your reasoning does. After gathering enough evidence, Frank can visit the courts and give his case. Failures can be abrupt, though fair as there are no penalties for mistakes.

Instead of being irritated, I was excited and went back through the notes and relayed all those conversations. I managed to pick the right person, along with the scene of the crime, motivation, and whatnot, but even after that, you have to present your argument to the suspect using the dialogue tree.

The multiple red herrings in Sockpuppet Noir tie in nicely to the results. By the case conclusions, I was delighted with the results, though I wished there had been a bit more of this interaction and consequence through the core gameplay.