''Déjà Vu'' is a

point-and-click Point and click are the actions of a computer user moving a pointer to a certain location on a screen (''pointing'') and then pressing a button on a mouse, usually the left button (''click''), or other pointing device. An example of point and cli ...

adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw ...

set in the world of 1940s

hardboiled Hardboiled (or hard-boiled) fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction (especially detective fiction and noir fiction). The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence o ...

detective novels and movies. It was released in 1985 for

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

– the first in the

MacVenture The MacVenture games comprise a series of four adventure games introducing a characteristic menu-based point-and-click interface. They were originally developed for the Apple Macintosh by ICOM Simulations: #''Déjà Vu'' (1985) #'' Uninvited'' ( ...

series – and later

ported In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...

to several other systems, including the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

. Initially, the game featured

black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

graphics, and later releases introduced color.

Plot and gameplay

The game takes place in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

during December 1941. The game character is Theodore "Ace" Harding, a retired boxer working as a

private eye ''Private Eye'' is a British fortnightly satire, satirical and current affairs (news format), current affairs news magazine, founded in 1961. It is published in London and has been edited by Ian Hislop since 1986. The publication is widely r ...

. Ace awakes one morning in a bathroom stall, unable to remember who he is. The bathroom stall turns out to be in Joe's Bar. A dead man is found in an upstairs office, and Ace is about to be framed for the murder. There are some clues as to the identity of the murdered man and to Ace himself. A strap-down chair, mysterious vials, and a syringe are found, suggesting (together with a needle mark on Ace's arm) that an

interrogation Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful informa ...

has taken place. Outside the bar, Ace encounters adversaries including a mugger, an old acquaintance with a grudge, and the police. Ace's boxing background proves to be a valuable asset. Ace must find addresses around Joe's bar and then make taxi rides to a few locations (including his office) to gather more elements and unravel the story. It involves a kidnapping in which Ace has played some part, but his memory lacks important details. Ace's memory and mental condition progressively deteriorate, so the player is required to obtain an antidote to the drug that caused the memory loss. After that, Ace has recurring flashbacks filled with information that help the player to evaluate the evidence and take action accordingly. The memory deterioration is handled differently in the Nintendo platforms compared to all others, in all others the player has a limited amount of time before Ace's brain reaches vegetable status and has to live the rest of his days in a hospital for "helpless mental invalids" with a hard death coded on the second floor of Sternwood Mansion. Nintendo platforms mostly remove the vegetable status mechanic and also removes the Sternwood Mansion death if the player goes there without curing their amnesia giving the player all the time they need to get cured but instead has a hard death coded if the player goes to Ace's office while still suffering from amnesia in which the vegetable ending from the other platforms is immediately initiated. These changes apply to both the Nintendo and Gameboy Color versions. This game and its sequel, '' Deja Vu II: Lost in Las Vegas'', require significant

lateral thinking Lateral thinking is a manner of solving problems using an indirect and creative approach via reasoning that is not immediately obvious. It involves ideas that may not be obtainable using only traditional step-by-step logic. The term was first ...

. Some situations are based in common detective techniques, while others require simple violence. Unlike other MacVentures titles (such as '' Uninvited'' and ''

Shadowgate ''Shadowgate'' is a black-and-white 1987 point-and-click adventure video game originally for the Apple Macintosh in the MacVenture series. The game is named for its setting, Castle Shadowgate, residence of the evil Warlock Lord. The player, as t ...

''), no supernatural events are involved.

Technology

''Déjà Vu'' was the first

ICOM Simulations ICOM Simulations, Inc. (later known as Rabid Entertainment) was a software company based in Wheeling, Illinois. It is best known for creating the MacVenture series of adventure games including ''Shadowgate''. Following the foundation in 1981 a ...

to use the

interface and engine. Numerous ports were made, including versions for home computer systems in 1987 and the

Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in America ...

in 1990. Versions of the game and its sequel containing new graphics and sound were released for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

in the early 1990s, and later as a combined single-cartridge release for the

Game Boy Color The (commonly abbreviated as GBC) is a handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on October 21, 1998 and to international markets that November. It is the successor to the Game Boy and is part of the Game ...

in 1999 under the title ''Déjà Vu I & II: The Casebooks of Ace Harding'', which was also released for DOS,

Windows 3.x Windows 3.x means either of, or all of the following versions of Microsoft Windows: * Windows 3.0 * Windows 3.1x Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windo ...

(1992), and

Windows Mobile Windows Mobile is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants. Its origin dated back to Windows CE in 1996, though Windows Mobile itself first appeared in 2000 as Pock ...

(2002). The Game Boy Color version has even more censorship and creates its own detail such as renaming "Joe's Bar" to "Joe's Place" and adding details that were not present in other versions to the point of contradiction, most notably with Ace's "Suzy Q" memory and "Father O'Malley" memory. This version also changes the ending of Deja Vu 1 to better seamlessly lead into Deja Vu II.

Reception

''Digital Press'' gave the NES version 6 out of 10, approving the puzzle-solving while have average opinions on graphics and music. The game was named the Best Entertainment Product by the

Software Publishers Association The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) is a trade association dedicated to the entertainment, consumer and business software industries. Established in 1984 as the Software Publishers Association (SPA), the SIIA took its new na ...

1986.

Notes

External links

*
''Déjà Vu''
on the Amiga a
The Hall of Light (HOL)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Deja Vu (Video Game) 1985 video games Adventure games Amiga games Apple IIGS games Atari ST games Commodore 64 games Detective video games DOS games First-person adventure games ICOM Simulations games Classic Mac OS games NEC PC-9801 games Neo-noir video games Nintendo Entertainment System games Windows games Organized crime video games Point-and-click adventure games Video games about amnesia Video games developed in the United States Video games set in 1941 Video games set in Chicago Single-player video games Kemco games Mindscape games