Emerald City Confidential Turns Oz Into a Noir Detective Story

PlayFirst on Thursday released Emerald City Confidential, an adventure game starring a down-on-her-luck private investigator named Petra, who investigates a mystery set in the world made famous by author L. Frank Baum at the turn of the 20th century. Players travel through over 50 environments spread across five chapters, meeting Scarecrow, Lion, Dorothy, and other characters from Baum's famous book.

The game also features voice-overs for 36 characters, with over 6,000 lines of dialogue, a first for a PlayFirst title. Dave Gilbert, of developer Wadjet Eye Games, described his inspiration in a press release: "I always had the thought of making a game based on Oz but never could find a good idea. Then I got into noir movies and detective stories, and one day I found myself imagining the Scarecrow being portrayed by Peter Lorre. The rest fell into place from there."

Emerald City Confidential sells for US$19.95, or $9.95 with PlayFirst's PlayPass subscription. A free 60-minute trial is available. System requirements call for Mac OS X version 10.4, an 800MHz G4 processor, 256MB RAM, and 100MB available hard drive space.