This was a completely unexpected gem. I was interested on this game for a while based entirely on the title and the main character's design, and I bought it only recently because it was on sale at a ludicrously low price.

This game is not what I expected. This is a story about a kid detective solving a murder case and discovering huge secrets about her town in the meanwhile, but also a story about executive meddling and how it affects an author's mindset.

The only true issue I have is that the game ends on a cliffhanger and as far as I know there are no news whatsoever on wheter or not they'll make a sequel to tie all the loose ends the game leaves.

DISCLAIMER:
This review is entirely for my own sake. You are welcome to read it but it may or may not contain spoilers for the whole game.

Went in expecting a classic short indie musrder mystery. Started off quite light-hearted. About an hour in the tone changes dramatically. At two to three hours plot seemed to be losing focus. Mysterious machines got me hooked. The puzzles and minigames were ok. The deduction moments were satisfying (especially at the ending) Sadly it's open ended as it's supposed to be a chapter 1 and the final choices have no relevance unless they affect the sequel. The game also had some meta puzzles I didn't bother with, but it's cool they're there.

Overall, very enjoyable and would recommend if the sequel comes out. It'd be a shame if it doesn't get a proper ending.

I was absolutely hooked by the story, and then it ended on a cliffhanger just as things were reaching a satisfying pitch. That would be frustrating for any game, but it’s particularly concerning for a pretty short indie with a slightly rocky production history. I’m glad they’re working on the sequel and I hope it goes smoother than this game apparently did. I’m sure my feelings about this game will retroactively improve if the sequel ends up being a satisfying conclusion, but it’s hard to be too enthused about half a story with an uncertain continuation.

With my ‘Backloggd’ reviews, I try to warn prospective players of those things I wished I knew before I started. Here’s my warning for ‘Jenny LeClue: Detectivu.’ This is not a full game. It’s episode 1 in an episodic series that started all the way back in 2019 and, now here’s the important part, no other episodes ever came out. Or have even been announced (unless you count a single developer tweet from January 2022). So this episode (you really can’t call it a game) develops all these curious threads in a mystery that is never even remotely resolved. And may never be resolved. Maybe it will come back one day. Maybe the pandemic is to blame. But no one should have to wait four years to hear about an episode 2 in a game that was designed (though duplicitously never advertised) to be episodic.

To compare this to another episodic mystery game like, I don’t know, ‘Life Is Strange,’ in both you can decide how to react to situations and characters around you. But again because this is only episode 1, most characters disappear from the story after your one encounter with them. No resolutions to be had, sure, but also no understanding of how any of your decisions impacted the world or the characters in these dialogues. It all just goes nowhere. I have no idea how any of what I did matters. IF any of it mattered. Imagine playing episode 1 of the five part ‘Life Is Strange’ and then nothing happens for years subsequent. Would you say that ‘Life Is Strange: Episode 1’ is a satisfying....game? I played ‘Jenny’ here in 2023 and I’m frustrated by this. Imagine if you played it in 2019 and then were expected to pick up the pieces and resume your investigation all these many years later. Come on now.

Jenny Leclue: Detectivu ist eines der Spiele dessen Finanzierung dem Kickstarter Hype um 2014 zu verdanken ist. Schon damals sah das Spiel in seinen Konzept Artworks super interessant aus. Eine spannende Detektiv Geschichte über ein kleines Mädchen, die sich in einer liebevoll designten 2D Welt abspielen und voll mit Humor, Minispielen und Entscheidungen sein sollte. Nachdem 100.000 $ auf Kickstarter gespendet wurden, sollte das Spiel nach 5 Jahren Entwicklungszeit im September 2019 tatsächlich erscheinen... (und ich habe es neulich für 2,84 € im Steam Sale gekauft)

Das fertige Spiel ist etwas kleiner als der Teaser und die Concept Arts es 2014 ankündigten. Einige kleinere Features, wie das Upgraden von Ausrüstung, einzelne imposante Hintergründe und ein HD Sound fehlen. Dies ist aber nicht weiter schlimm. Bei einem Indiespiel das mit einem begrenzten Budget für 5 Jahre entwickelt wird, ist es vollkommen okay, wenn nicht alle in der Konzeptphase angedachten Ideen es ins fertige Spiel schaffen.

Was es aber ins Spiel geschafft hat ist ein unglaublich hübscher Artstyle. Während viele Indie Entwickler zu abgedroschenen Pixelart Stilen greifen, hat Jenny Leclue einen sehr eigenen, farbenfrohen und detailreichen Stil der großen Wiedererkennungswert besitzt und sich sowohl in lustigen als auch in ernsten Momenten entsprechend anpassen kann.

Die Handlung spielt sich auf einer gewissen Meta Ebene ab und durchbricht damit mehrfach die 4. Wand, was zu einigen cleveren Dialogen führt. Trotzdem ist die Handlung nicht zu albern und schafft es durchaus Spannung aufzubauen. Die Charaktere sind dabei großartig geschrieben. Jenny macht in dem Spiel einige Wandlungen durch und darf als kindlicher Protagonist auch an ein paar Stellen die Nerven verlieren. Das macht sie gleich noch mehr symphatisch und holt den Spieler nach vielen lustigen Dialogen auch regelmäßig auf den Boden der Tatsache zurück. Es macht Spaß den vielen Charakteren beim Interagieren zuzusehen, was insbesondere daran liegt, dass die Synchronisation wirklich gut gesprochen ist.

Einige kleine Kritikpunkte sind zuletzt vielleicht zu nennen: Der Soundtrack klang für mich insgesamt etwas repetitiv. Da hätten zwei drei Songs mehr durchaus geholfen.
Das Spiel enthält unzählige Konzept Bilder zum sammeln. Immer wenn man sich in der Nähe eines dieser Bilder befindet, leuchtet ein Lupen Symbol auf und man kann das Bild mit einer solchen auf dem aktuellen Screen suchen. Da jedoch an jeder Ecke eins dieser Bilder versteckt ist, muss man praktisch alle 30 Sekunden anhalten und mit der Lupe die Gegend absuchen. Dieses ständige Anhalten und Suchen hat mich oft sehr aus dem Spielfluss geworfen.
Zuletzt endet das Spiel auch auf einen Cliffhanger. Ob die Handlung wirklich bis zum Ende durchdacht ist, wird man deshalb erst in Jenny Leclue 2 (oder 3) erfahren.

Trotzdem ist dieses Spiel für den geringen Preis sehr spannend, hübsch und lustig. Auf jeden Fall kaufen, wenn einem ein gutes Angebot über den Weg läuft!

weirdly the second game in a row I've played where the plot hinges significantly on a corporation's lack of safety protocols leading to a mine collapse and death of its resident miners

a really fascinating collection of highs and lows. every aspect of the art design is superb. the writing is a positive skew mixed bag—the dialogue is fun until it's a bit grating, and the plot is unexpectedly good until the ending, lmao. I do absolutely hate the metafictional author-as-narrator framing, though. the cute upsides to it do not remotely make up for how annoying I find the author character, and how much I'd prefer Jenny, the title lead, to be canonically "real" and not framed exclusively through the male narrator's perspective.

I don't feel it's fair to ding the game for its relatively straightforward game mechanics, because that's what this type of game this is, and it often reminds me of an extremely souped up Humungous Entertainment game in that regard, which I very much enjoyed as a kid. very much scratched that Spy Fox itch

overall: very glad I played, very impressed with how it improves throughout the middle, and am very mad at the ending

Incredibly charming little game.

Gameplay was a bit slow in some parts as there’s some back and forth with forced walking while you solve puzzles but no sequences really lasted too long.

I’m in for the next chapter of Jenny’s adventures.

The production quality here is really impressive, especially now that there's full voice acting. The game itself is enjoyable enough--the way you can nudge Jenny's personality through dialog options that are more about selecting a mood than a specific phrase is a good system, but the writing and characterization isn't quite strong enough to bear up under that system. The mainline puzzles are generally a little more straightforward than I'd like, although that's more than made up for by the obtuseness of the optional puzzles.

As much as I appreciate the optional puzzles in the game, they hinge so much on finding particular objects and areas in the game that you'll almost certainly have to backtrack to find something you missed. And the game's frequent unskippable cutscenes, puzzles, and dialog moments--while fun the first time through--make it extremely frustrating to go back to a specific nook and grab a stray postcard piece or whatever.

IL VERNACOLIERE
BRILLIANT YOUNG DETECTIVE: I MIEI COGLIONI
la bambina di dieci anni più troia laida figa di legno puttana stronza dito in culo al mondo è la perfetta protagonista per questo digita-e-pigiatasto investigativo indipendente platform sparadialoghidimerda in terza persona: un animo fragile e al tempo stesso tenace a cui subito ci si affeziona (troia puttana muori male) e che in pratica è capace di risolvere il caso da solo senza l'aiuto del giocatore. non mi esibirò in spoiler potenti ma sappiate che questa storia è divertente e incalzante, con elementi noir, orrorifici e pornografici (aastronzo ha dieci anni non è vero ovviamente) e soprattutto si conclude con un cliffhanger così teso che per la rabbia sareste capaci di spezzare a metà il vostro laptop. lasciamoli cucinare, per carità, soprattutto se questa sarà la qualità del prossimo capitolo. da queste poche righe schizofreniche, attraverso le quali forse avete solo capito che in questo gioco c'è una bambina nuda (non è vero smettetela), non penso sarete capaci di leggere una mia opinione chiara su questo gioco, e un po' è questo quello che provo dopo aver concluso questa esperienza videolunica. mi sento frustrato sia per certi puzzle non immediatamente comprensibili, sia per parti di backtracking feroce e sfrangiamaroni, sia per certi bug maledetti, sia per il finale sospeso, sia per il carattere da stronza puttana della protagonista a cui desidererete di mangiare la testa. tuttavia non vedo l'ora di giocare il prossimo capitolo per scoprire cosa cazzo sta succedendo, perché effettivamente la storia è bellissima e tutti gli altri personaggi sono meravigliosi (ti amo susie glatz ti adoro ti bacio muah). il gioco è anche ahem "bello" "esteticamente" (non voglio usare la parola con la d) e tecnicamente credo pulitissimo (polished per gli amici anglosexy a casa) e liscio come l'olio. solo i pochi puzzle (facili comunque) non sono intuitivi. un'ultima cosa che ho molto apprezzato è osservare sul diario da investigatrice, tra l'altro altamente personalizzabile, dei miei due coglioni sudati e pelosi tutti gli appunti presi in maniera maniacale e insopportabile dalla protagonista: neanche un monkey island è così soddisfacente da scardinare. ovviamente se vedessi la giovane jenny lesbor glielo spaccherei in testa. alcuni mini giochi sono carini, ma distrutti dal peso del backtracking.

Overall a nice experience, but this game has some pros and cons.

I liked the general gameplay. I've played too many adventure games in the past few years where the puzzles feel unnecessarily complicated just for the sake of it. These puzzles were easy to understand without taking away any mystery. It felt more like solving the mystery WITH the character. I also liked the general aesthetic of the game.

The story went back and forth for me, at times having a really interesting mystery involving the town, but also feeling like it was trying to tell a coming of age story for a younger audience. I'm sure that was due to the fact that the author/narrator was trying to bridge those two elements, but it did sort of take from the larger mystery at times.

The biggest con from this as other reviewers mentioned is that the story is incomplete. Without spoiling, you are led to make a few critical choices at the end of the game that actually do not come to fruition, because the screen goes to black and it ends. As of me completing this game (Aug. 2023) there has been one year old mention of a sequel to the game, so it's hard to say if the story will ever be finished or not. But it was kind of a bummer that it just, stopped.

I would probably play the sequel if it came out, tbh.

Genuinely surprised I didn't review this for how much I think about it.

The core tension in Jenny LeClue is the metatextual war between Jenny and the author Arthur. Arthur wants cozy, conflict free mysteries. He wants missing keychains, lost puppies. Everything is a misunderstanding and no one is hurt. Jenny the character, while never directly interacting with Arthur, clearly chafes in this cozy little world. She wants thrills, villains, bad guys she can outsmart.

What really aids this divide is how much of an asshole Jenny is. She's the smarmy know-it-all, with sarcastic quips and gotchas. But in the cozy town of Arthurton, those quips just become mean put-downs. When she interacts with a trio of mean girls, she crosses the line way too quickly with a ableist insult that disgusts everyone around her. Jenny is not the cool underdog she thinks she is. She's just kind of a jerk.

As Arthur is forced to include a murder in his story, Jenny is forced to reckon with the idea that her desire for a thrill comes with an actual human cost. If she wants to solve a murder, someone has to die. Loved ones have to live in misery. Wanting that for a story is one thing, wanting it to happen in your community is another. At the same time, these tragedies force Jenny to be a normal person, who can socialize and consider the feelings of others. And putting Jenny in those perilous situations he was so scared of forces Arthur to improve as a writer. It forces him out of his comfort zone and into uncharted territory. The meta narrative works because it has so much to say about the personal creative process, rather than the genre at large.

Its just a bummer that the game's not done yet. Its an ambitious kickstarter game, hurt by the fact that its ideas are too big in scope for what its trying to do. They couldn't quite edit their imagination down to one experience. You hope to see them fulfill their ideas with a sequel, but I worry the disappointment in a cliffhanger hurts the profitability in the long run. Its tough out there.

Dropped it after I felt the game was stretching time with very slow backtracking goose chases and puzzles.

It's a weird mesh up game that doesn't really work. It's basically a hidden object game with basic puzzles here and there. There's an odd morality/choices matter system that clearly doesn't matter and you also collect stickers in it.

There's a weird magnifying glass system that lets you find clues while exploring or while inspecting scenes/suspects. This mechanic is odd since the game always tells you where it can be used and using it requires holding a button while an obtuse over the top animation plays. It's very slow and makes basic features take forever just to justify the detective theme.

There's very little actual detecting to do as Jenny does most of the work herself and at best lets you connect a few dots before reaching to her own conclusion.

The art style is a mixed bag. It's very similar to the new Monkey Island, it wouldn't surprise me if you tell me that the same people worked on it.
Backgrounds are beautiful but the characters are weirdly designed and the animation looks cheap.

Jenny is very unlikable protagonist - she's snarky smart kid with no friends, she's also an egocentric bully who looks down on her peers.
When she finds out her popular, rich cousin who's also very nice to her is also smarter than her she gets completely insecure and tries to belittle her and her achievements.
These can be interesting traits but the author of the story is completely in love with Jenny and as far as I got he never called her on her bullshit.

Speaking of which, the game takes place within a YA book whose author tries to spice up due to dwindling sales.
His attempts to prevent his character from going through the hardships he writes for her are the most interesting part for me. It's not enough to keep me playing though.

Jenny LeClue pretty much did the trick for me. It delivers the kind of cozy-rainy-afternoon-with-a-cup-of-tea Nancy Drew mystery you would expect, with a level of polish and flair you would not expect from a basically one-person development team. Some people who have never met a teenager in their lives find Jenny annoying, but making her a bit mean makes her a better character, and honestly she's probably on the nicer end of the spectrum for kids this age lmao. Anyway, this was not my favorite adventure game of all time, and there are some mild annoyances here and there along the way (Jenny herself not being one of them), but overall I feel like this game deserves a little more love. It is basically the adventure game equivalent of comfort food but I would play the next installment in a heartbeat.

This is getting 5 stars for everything except the gameplay, which is very good, but towards the end some of the sequences where you are navigating the world as Jenny become a little clunky and drawn out. The strength of everything else for me means that this charming little game deserves the full five stars, the voice acting is wonderful and the whole thing just oozes with charm, and I just totally vibed with where the mystery went! and there was a character called David Lunch so yeah, 5 stars :)