PC (Microsoft Windows)Mac2016

The Agency: Chapter 1

The Agency is an episodic mystery kinetic novel. In a fictional dystopic sci-fi steampunk world still recovering from the destruction of a recent global war; a young man travels to the Imperial capital city to seek better fortunes for himself. Upon his arrival he is recruited in a private investigators agency and is soon embroiled in a case that will change his life forever!

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56 Steam reviews

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56 total

≥h

Steam User 0952STEAMRecommended

[h1] Genre [/h1] Eine kurze Visual Novel mit Steampunk Setting

[h1] Story [/h1] Wir spielen einen jungen Mann der gerade einen Job als Detektiv annimmt und zusammen mit seinem Chef & dessen Tochter seinen ersten Auftrag beginnt

[h1] Gameplay [/h1] Das Spiel ist sehr kurz gehalten. Wir lesen uns durch die kurze Story und treffen hier & da mal eine Entscheidung. Die Entscheidungen haben aber keine Auswirkungen auf den weiteren Spielverlauf. Zwischendurch müssen wir auch noch Sliding Puzzles lösen (die Normalen, nicht die nervige Art), was etwas mehr Gameplay Elemente einfügt. Es gibt auch kurze Segmente wo wir Voice Acting haben und jemand über seine Vergangenheit redet. Ich habe aber keine Ahnung wer genau dieser Charakter sein soll. Es gibt hier & da ein paar Textfehler aber diese sind überhaupt nicht weiter wild

[h1] Achievement Schwierigkeit 1/10 [/h1] Es gibt insgesamt 3 Erfolge. Hierfür muss man ganz einfach nur das Spiel starten, das erste Sliding Puzzle lösen & das Spiel beenden

[h1] Pro/Contra [/h1]
+ Günstig
+ Story ist OK
+ Achievements

- Das Spiel wird wohl niemals fertig werden

[h1] Fazit [/h1] Eine sehr kurze Visual Novel mit Steampunk Setting und ein paar Sliding Puzzles. Die Story bzw. der Story Ansatz ist an sich ordentlich aber das Spiel wird wohl leider niemals fertig gestellt werden denn mehr als 2 Kapitel gibt es nicht. Empfehlen kann ich es von daher nicht wirklich aber ich würde dem Spiel jetzt auch keinen Daumen nach unten geben

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Mar 13, 2026·2h·5·Verified

Steam User 1798STEAMRecommended

The Agency: Chapter 1, developed and published by Sapphire Dragon Productions, is a steampunk mystery visual novel that serves as the introduction to a larger episodic narrative. It tells the story of Jack Beckwith, a war survivor who arrives in a vast imperial capital hoping to start anew, only to find himself caught in a web of secrets, investigations, and political intrigue. This opening chapter establishes the tone, characters, and world of The Agency, laying the groundwork for what appears to be a story of conspiracy and moral ambiguity in a post-war society struggling to rebuild. It is more of a narrative prologue than a complete standalone experience, designed to introduce the mechanics and atmosphere that will define the series as a whole.

The game’s world-building is its most striking strength. The steampunk setting is grounded not in spectacle but in tone and texture—the smoke of factories, the hum of machinery, and the rigid class system of a city emerging from conflict. There’s a clear sense of history here, as if every alley and institution carries the weight of past trauma. The writing reflects this atmosphere, adopting a formal and deliberate style that matches the structured world the protagonist inhabits. Jack Beckwith is portrayed as an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances, and his role as an investigator allows the player to see the society’s corruption, ambition, and human frailty up close. The story mixes detective fiction with political drama, creating a narrative that feels more about discovery and introspection than pure mystery-solving.

In presentation, The Agency: Chapter 1 uses traditional visual novel conventions—static character portraits, background art, and text-driven storytelling. The backgrounds, often depicting smoky streets, offices, and dimly lit interiors, are detailed and effective in setting mood. The character art, though somewhat limited in animation and expression, complements the story’s tone without feeling distracting. The color palette leans toward muted browns and greys, reinforcing the industrial atmosphere, while subtle touches of light and texture add depth. The music and sound design are minimal but functional, relying on subdued instrumental themes that give the narrative space to breathe. It’s not flashy, but its restraint works in its favor, maintaining immersion without overwhelming the dialogue.

Gameplay consists primarily of reading and making decisions at key points in the story, accompanied by occasional puzzle elements. These puzzles—often involving image reconstruction or problem-solving tasks—are simple but add some interactive variety. They are meant to reinforce the investigative aspect of the game rather than provide real challenge, though some players may find them an unnecessary interruption to the flow of the story. The branching choice system is present but limited in scope for this chapter; most decisions influence flavor text or minor scenes rather than lead to dramatically different outcomes. This design keeps the focus on the story’s setup rather than player-driven divergence.

The pacing is methodical, focusing on atmosphere and exposition rather than rapid progression. It introduces key characters and lays out the internal structure of the agency that gives the game its title, hinting at larger conspiracies to come. This slow-burn approach works well for those who appreciate mood and world-building, though players expecting high-stakes twists or fast narrative development may find it lacking in momentum. The story ends just as it begins to open up, which can feel abrupt, but as a serialized format it succeeds in sparking curiosity for later chapters.

As a self-contained experience, The Agency: Chapter 1 is relatively short, lasting only a couple of hours depending on reading speed. It functions more as an extended prologue than a full narrative arc, and this structure may leave some players unsatisfied. Yet, despite its brevity, it manages to craft a compelling sense of mystery and depth. The characters feel distinct enough to carry the story forward, and the underlying themes of reconstruction, memory, and truth hint at more sophisticated storytelling ahead. The tone is consistently serious, avoiding melodrama while maintaining emotional undercurrents that make the world believable.

Technically, the game performs well. Its interface is simple and intuitive, and the artwork scales cleanly across resolutions. There are no major bugs or performance issues reported, and the overall presentation feels polished within its indie scope. The main limitation lies in scope rather than execution—it feels like the first act of a much longer story rather than a complete product. Still, it establishes Sapphire Dragon Productions’ storytelling ambitions clearly, emphasizing atmosphere and character over spectacle.

Ultimately, The Agency: Chapter 1 succeeds as a mood piece and narrative foundation. It invites players into a meticulously crafted steampunk world filled with secrets and sets the tone for a larger mystery to unfold. While it lacks the branching complexity and gameplay depth of more ambitious visual novels, its writing and setting carry a quiet confidence. It’s a story that values patience and observation, rewarding those who enjoy immersing themselves in slow-building intrigue and rich world detail. As a first chapter, it leaves more questions than answers, but its sense of place and purpose suggest that the journey ahead may be worth following.

Rating: 6/10

Oct 15, 2025·13h·2·Verified

Steam User 2399STEAMRecommended

💋

May 8, 2025·17h·Verified

Steam User 4959STEAMNot recommended

O jogo consiste basicamente em montar imagens para agência.
Não tem nada além de ficar girando pedaços de imagem e trocando peças para formar imagem.
A história se passa num futuro apocalíptico onde a agencia é um lugar que tenta a ascensão da humanidade, quando vai se ter mais interesse pelos personagens; se conclui o chapter one.

Avulso assim, mesmo tendo cartinhas ele é bem fraco. Não chega nem a mediano

Apr 29, 2025·1h·7·Verified

Steam User 9849STEAMNot recommended

[h1]
Can't tell much about this one except it's boring.
[/h1]

Feb 28, 2025·2h·6

Steam User 8154STEAMNot recommended

Pretty ugly (the characters especially), the writing is pretty bland (Though efforts have been made on world building).

And the puzzles (litteral puzzles actually) are pretty bland.

Furthermore there will only be 2 chapters as the game was abandoned. So good news there are really no reasons to buy it!

Jun 12, 2024·2h·1

Steam User 9241STEAMRecommended

⠀

Apr 7, 2024·5h·6

Steam User 4015STEAMNot recommended

The Agency: Chapter 1 is not a game, it's an e-book that's been dumped on Steam masquerading as a game. As a visual/interactive novel, this doesn't feature any notable gameplay, it's just a lot of clicking through badly written dialogue that would never have been accepted or published in print, which poses the question, "How did something this badly written end up on Steam?". When someone hoping to become an author is unable to get published in print, they spend $100 and dump their high school fan-fiction onto Steam, under the guise of a game. It's not even the whole e-book, the authors couldn't even write a complete book without having to run off to kickstarter to try get people to pay them to write the rest of the book.

I wish there was a kickstarter to pay them not to write any more crap e-books to pollute Steam with. Steam is for games. Not books.

This crap e-book swaps the traditional high school anime fan club dropout fantasy/slice of life fanfiction for a high school anime fan club dropout "steampunk" fanfiction. For those who don't know (so lucky), Steampunk is just goths who discovered the colour brown.

Visual novels/e-books are tedious at best... imagine the best novel you ever read, be that Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy or 2001: A Space Odyssey or Twilight (if you have terrible taste in literature), but then translate that to a format where the words dribble out and you have to click your mouse every time you wanted to read the next sentence, instead of just turning the pages. You'd think it was garbage.

Now imagine that experience, but with much worse writing (because if these guys could write professionally, they'd be published authors and this would be on shelves in bookstores, and they wouldn't have to pay Valve $100 to self-publish this on Steam), and you have your average Steam e-book.

One of the chief problems with failed authors polluting Steam with non-game E-books is that E-books can easily just be presented in a web browser... there's no justification for charging money on Steam for what might as well be a webpage. We don't spend thousands on buying a gaming rig to spend money on Steam for something Chrome or Firefox could do.

From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.

There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision.

The E-Book only displays in 4:3 pillarboxed aspect ratio. It's possible they developed this using an old CRT they found in a dumpster, or this E-Book has been specifically designed for people trying to read books on PC's from 1995... either way, this isn't really acceptable in the modern era of PC gaming.

These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.

You don't have to take my word about how bad the E-Book is, we can measure the interest in a game by how much people bothered to play it. The Agency: Chapter 1 has achievements, and they show us a very clear picture that the E-Book absolutely failed to capture any interest from gamers. The most commonly and easily attained achievement is for starting to read the E-book, trivial to achieve, but less than 9 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling the E-Book. That's a tiny, tiny proportion of gamers who even bothered with this. Ouch.

Reviewing SteamDB to check how popular this E-Book was with readers reveals a surprise... there's a very healthy spike in reader counts for the E-Book. But this only happened once, and isn't consistent with the achievement stats, that show less than 9 percent of readers bothered playing the E-Book for any reasonable amount of time. How is it possible for this E-Book to have so many concurrent readers who didn't bother engaging with this E-Book? Trading cards. People will use card idling software to collect the cards and sell them, but this won't trigger any achievements in-game.

That tells us people only really bought this E-Book for trading cards, and that's a damning indictment of the woeful quality. A closer look at the numbers shows the E-Book just has a couple of readers every week running up the E-Book and idling it for cards, then deleting it. We must ask how it benefits gamers for there to be so many E-Books like this, with little merit as a serious game or book, that only generate sales from people idling and selling the trading cards.

The Agency: Chapter 1 is relatively cheap at $3 USD, but it's not worth it. Given the defects and quality issues with the E-Book, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend. This is also competing with over 9,000 free games available on Steam, many of them far better than this paid product. You can get better quality books and comics for free online or from public libraries, or from bookstores for a fraction of the price of this "game". Steam isn't a comic book store, neither is it Netflix, it's for games. Your gaming rig is not a Kindle. It's impossible for me to recommend things to PC gamers that aren't really games.

Mar 15, 2024·6h·4·Verified

Steam User 2150STEAMRecommended

I am 32 years old.

My ex-wife and I have a daughter together, and we adopted our son together. Both are now 4 years old.

When we were going through our separation, I felt lost and unhappy. I was self-destructive. One day, I was so angry with everything spiraling out of control that I punched a concrete wall in a moment of overwhelming emotion. This resulted in breaking my fifth metacarpal in my right hand—the hand I worked with, played games with, and used to carry my children to bed—the hand I desperately needed to ensure I could continue providing.

Upon learning the severity of the self-inflicted damage, I became almost suicidal. Keep in mind that just a few months before this, I was the happiest man, with no history of depression or anxiety. I had never experienced anger outbursts, nor was I the type to break down and cry, but I was in a tough situation that truly prevented me from seeing the light on the other side.

With nothing better to do, I looked for a game I could play WITH ONE HAND while recovering. Somehow, I stumbled upon this game and read some of the comments. I decided it was worth a try... I must admit I didn't beat the game, nor did I play as much as some of you. In fact, I may have played this game for only a day or two. That being said, after doing so, I had a new joy and hope for life. I managed to leave behind the pain and suffering that had been thrust upon me. I could experience the joy and happiness of other people. I relaxed for 5 ♥♥♥♥ minutes listening to this music, long enough to realize that I would be okay.

After realizing this, I turned off the game and went back to work. My hand hurt a lot, but I was motivated. I stopped feeling so sorry for myself and became the father I needed to be at that moment, not the weak boy I was behaving like.

Today, I am close friends with the mother of my children. We don't fight, argue, or say hurtful things to each other. We are parents and friends.

Now I have 3 children. My third child is, wait, ALSO 4 YEARS OLD. The woman I am with was going through a very similar situation at the time of my separation, and we just unexpectedly stumbled into each other's lives. We have been dating for a year and are very happy together.

Moral of the story: you never know what life has in store for you, and if I had given up when all odds were against me, I wouldn't be where I am today. This silly little game helped me realize that.

Thank you.

Feb 5, 2024·1·Verified

Steam User 6960STEAMNot recommended

içinde bulmacalar da olan görsel hikaye çizimler anime iki bölümün ilki, hikayede akıcılık yok merak ettirmiyor

Aug 21, 2023·1h·1·Verified

Steam User 3792STEAMNot recommended

4/10

Aug 4, 2023·5h·Verified

Steam User 3192STEAMNot recommended

нет

May 14, 2023·4h·1·Verified

Steam User 5127STEAMRecommended

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
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───█───────────▀▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▀────────█
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

May 3, 2023·Verified

Steam User 8511STEAMRecommended

5/10

Feb 19, 2023·2h

Steam User 0221STEAMRecommended

A short Visuel Novel Story in Steam Punk Version

+++ easy 100 % Steam Achievements

+++ Five Trading Cards (Perfect Number)

+ Story is okay/ 9 Picture Puzzles (4x4)

- a bit short if you rush trough

Thank u for Reading. Hope u enjoy. GL HF <3

Jul 8, 2022·1h·81

Steam User 8681STEAMRecommended

ein gutes lesespiel.
ich würde es weiterempfehlen.
gute geschichte.
ein paar antwortmöglichkeiten.
9 kleine mini puzzle spiele sind auch dabei.
grafik/animationen sind gut.
musik ist sehr gut.
der preis für dieses spiel ist im angebot gut.
alle errungenschaften funkltionieren.

Jul 3, 2022·2h·6·Verified

Steam User 5993STEAMRecommended

We’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty

Jan 2, 2022·1h·Verified

Steam User 7948STEAMNot recommended

I wish there was a middle button. Chapter 1 wasn't anything special and I can't be sure if it was so bad it was hilarious or if the humour was actually right up my alley.

[url=http://elinchan.blogspot.com/2020/01/dealing-with-backlog-two-visual-novels.html]Full review here.[/url]

Nov 4, 2021·1h·Verified

Steam User 1970STEAMRecommended

Voice acting, cool little mini puzzles, interesting story. Very cool game.

Mar 13, 2021·1h·Verified

Steam User 3794STEAMRecommended

[h1]Описание:[/h1]
Смесь визуальной новелла и пазла типо пятнашек. Визуальную новеллу я оценивать не буду, т.к. все на английском, рисовка персонажей и локаций не очень, а также глава 1 подразумевающая незаконченный сюжет. Так что даже со словариком не охота... Благо в игре есть кнопка - Skip. И нас переносит к пазлам. А вот они удались на славу. Красивая рисовка карандашом сделала мой день. С каким-же наслаждением я их складывал... А то кругом или полный треш пятнахи или порнуха, а тут просто красивые рисунки сделанные специально для этого типо пазлов. Оценивать я не могу т.к. игру полноценно не вкусил, но палец вверх за пазлы однозначно!

[h1]Послесловие:[/h1]
Если вам понравился этот обзор добро пожаловать в группу
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/uojer - тут вы сможете увидеть рекомендованные мною игры, другие обзоры, а также просто пообщаться в хорошей компании.

Nov 17, 2020·3h·7

Steam User 4624STEAMRecommended

還行~拼圖不難~成就簡單
喜+1系列

Oct 21, 2020·3h·Verified

Steam User 5154STEAMNot recommended

画风也太抽象了点吧

Feb 2, 2020·5h

Steam User 8845STEAMNot recommended

Hikayesi ve müzikleri sıkıcı güzel çizimleri olsada tercih edemeyeceğim bir görsel roman.Takas kartı için almıştım zaten dasda :D

Nov 26, 2019·7h·1·Verified

Steam User 3321STEAMNot recommended

I guess this is supposed to be kind of a mix of a steampunk themed novel and a puzzle game. The mix seems pretty forced. You're a "codebreaker" who "cracks woodshells." Basically what you do is rearrange a bunch of 4X4 tiles to make a picture because apparently that's a skill only a select few people possess. Supposedly this is some sort of data encryption. See, droids can decipher passwords so data needs to be hidden this way. Kind of like a steampunk physical captcha system. Oh, and it takes two people to do it so you have a partner who looks like a little girl with huge eyes and big cleavage because... you know... anime. Also, people are intimidated by her because she's tough. I'm not quite clear on her role in the whole "woodshell cracking" process but the story explained that she's the "hacker" and that that part is complicated and pretty darned important. But she does it extremely quickly and completely without your help so you can concentrate on all that tile moving stuff, so that's a relief. Honestly, the puzzles have a neat looking art style and although it isn't particularly challenging it's kind of relaxing to do them.

In fact, it wouldn't be too bad a little diversionary game if the puzzles weren't just used as a thinly veiled excuse to break up the exposition. And there's a LOT of exposition. Imagine a book, but it's all dialogue, you have to click after EVERY line of dialogue (and during long sentences to make them type out faster because they print slowly to look cool,) and a lot of that dialogue is trite and pointless.

"Did you sleep well?" <click>
"Yes." <click>
"The noise of the city didn't bother you?" <click>
"No." <click>
"That's good." <click>
"Yes." <click>
"The noise from the city bothered me when we first moved here to help Captain IForgetHisName with all the steampunk stuff I'm going to talk about in this extremely and unexpectedly long sentence that kind of came out of nowhere but <click> I got used to it." <click>
"That's good." <click>
"Yes." <click>

I'm paraphrasing and exaggerating a lot, but speaking for myself I was not gripped by the story enough to be willing to either want to see what would happen or to click through to get to the puzzles. Truthfully I guess I got my $1.50 worth of entertainment out of it but I'm downvoting it because I don't want any of my friends to read this and say to themselves "Moose thought it was good." It ain't.

On the plus side the music is nice and some of the loading screen art is extremely pretty.

Nov 1, 2019·1h·3·Verified

Steam User 8435STEAMRecommended

Choices don't really matter in The Agency. If you are a fan of jigsaw puzzles and solving those, then you will enjoy the puzzles. Overall, the character development could have been a bit better but I liked the story. It was really short, but still decent. If it's on sale, give it a try.

Sep 9, 2019·5h·12·Verified

Steam User 0606STEAMNot recommended

I should have read the description more closely. The "addictive puzzle mini game" is a sliding picture puzzle. I hit the first one in the game and quit. It was 4x4 I think. The game includes bad voice acting early on as well, so get ready for that.

Aug 9, 2019·1·Verified

Steam User 4113STEAMNot recommended

this game sucks

Jul 7, 2019·28h·1

Steam User 0793STEAMNot recommended

Скучная и нудная новелла, где вы берёте на себя роль молодого парня, поступившего на работу в детективное агенство. Игра неполноценна и обрывается на полуслове, но оно и неудивительно, судя по названию, что это первая глава. Сюжет то в игре есть, только вы на него практически никак не влияете, большая часть геймплея, это чтение многочисленного текста, разбавленного решением немногих головоломок. Музыкальное сопровождение посредственно, а анимация персонажей вообще отсутствует. Как-будто с манекенами общаешься. Не тратьте на это своё время.

Jun 13, 2019·2h·20

Steam User 6297STEAMRecommended

Easy 100% / 30min + 1h for trading cards.
Just start, make some puzzles and finish the game.
Choices doesn't really matter.

Apr 20, 2019·1h·1

Steam User 9607STEAMRecommended

good game

Feb 7, 2019·2h

Steam User 1472STEAMNot recommended

[h1] A Game Without Heart or Soul [/h1]
This game was hard to get through. At first I was worried because it felt very slice of life in the pace of the game which I can have a hard time with unless it's a really good story. However it started to sink in that the reason that I was having a problem with the pacing is because of all of the fat left in the story. In an anime we call them "filler content/episodes" things that aren't necessary. It's anything that you can cut from a story and the reader doesn't lose anything by not having it there, we practiced this in school. In the writing process it's the job of the editor to tell the writer to cut the fat from the story so that the reader doesn't die of boredom from reading it. So either this game didn't have an actual editor or they need a new one. The characters also lack individual voice, if you removed the names from the dialog you wouldn't be able to tell who was saying what because they all come from the same voice with different labels. It has no heart or soul in it which makes it very bland to read, added with all the fat it's a perfect train crash.

Randomly there will be a kind of monologue which is voice acted (kind of poorly mind you), it is the most interesting part of the game though. Maybe the whole game would be better if it was voice acted as well.

The art could be better, but I won't fault an indie game for that, what you see in the trailer is what you get. Character that are drawn alright with backgrounds that are very hit or miss.

The music became a bit of a bother since they waited later in the game to bother changing it at all, that or the tracks sounded so similar that I couldn't tell which is even worse. In particular it didn't sound "bad" a new song for different areas or something would have been nice though, it just about put me to sleep.

The puzzles.. I am a puzzle fan, Hidden object games, matching games, gem games, sliding puzzles, even games that are exclusively jigsaw with no other game play. I really like puzzles of almost any kind. This games puzzles just looked really boring though. Besides that the mechanics of the puzzles were awful. You have to like click and drag the puzzle pieces to the side like a sliding puzzle, except 1/3rd of the time it doesn't register that it should do it. However unlike a sliding puzzle that have some level of difficulty you're basically just swapping pieces like a bad joke of a jigsaw puzzle which counts your moves and tells you after. That doesn't matter though since it effects nothing, there's no score board or fewest possible moves score or anything, just a useless piece of information to do nothing with. Since the puzzles also have so few of pieces and you just swap them amongst each other there's no difficulty to it. You just swap them until it's done and that's it, you can't fail and there is no meaning.

The "game features" portion of the Steam page for this game is a joke as well. "thrilling" story? No. "High Quality" art? Indie at best. "Brilliant" and "inspired" music? Not really. "Fantastic" style and theme? It's themed but I mean.. it's okay at best. "addictive puzzle mini games"? That's the most laughable part of it. There's a thing called over selling yourself, if you claim things and sell them you have to be able to deliver. This Steam page for the sale of the game is great, it's the most brilliant part of the game as a whole and I'd say most of the budget probably went into the trailer alone which makes the game look great. So bravo to the marketing team honestly, they're the true MVPs here. The only way I could justify this games existence though is if it were free. It's not worth purchase.

[h1] Pros: [/h1]
+Interesting random vocal monologues
+Some pretty landscape images
+Good advertising on store page

[h1] Cons: [/h1]
-Bland lifeless story/writing
-annoying but extremely easy puzzles with boring art
-pointless move counter on the puzzles
-Choices are meaningless,

Feb 2, 2019·1h·4·Verified

Steam User 8937STEAMRecommended

I enjoyed this, once I got my head around what it is.
It seems to be more of a visual novel with a (so far very relaxing) little puzzle game, but the world building is very interesting, and the characters are very likable, especially the protagonist.
Atmosphere is a combination of steampunk, end of WWI, and private investigating.

It's not exactly what I expected - I thought there'd be more puzzles, and a bit more player-interaction. That said, the art, story, and atmosphere are worth it for the price as long as it's at least sort of what you're looking for.

TL;DR It's short, but interesting and well-conceived. Buy it if you don't mind VNs with fairly low player involvement.

Jan 24, 2019·4h·6·Verified

Steam User 6579STEAMRecommended

Very fun game

Nov 22, 2018·5h

Steam User 4799STEAMRecommended

Агенство: Глава 1 - средней руки введение, в паропанковский детектив. К тому же быстрая "идеальная игра" с карточками, от австралийских аборигенов из Sapphire Dragon Productions.

[h1]Сюжет.[/h1]
История молодого парня, поступившего по наущению папани, на службу в детективное агенство, возглавляемое его сослуживцем, по недавно прошедшей войне. Парень наш, научиться вскрывать "деревянные" кодовые замки, узнает о паре преступлений, и... все. По большому счету, первая часть, это знакомство с миром, и началом сюжета. Есть отдельные морализаторские мысли о сути войны, есть завязка, есть часть лора, и в принципе все.

[h1]Геймплей.[/h1]
Новелла по большому счету кинетическая. В самом начале будет несколько выборов, но кроме пары строк после них, они ни на что, не влияют. Кроме того, есть моменты со "взломом шифров", по сути, это головоломка, в которой надо собрать картинку. Всю новеллу, можно пройти за час.

[h1]Графика и звуки.[/h1]
Картинка выглядит мягко скажем средне. Есть хорошие задники, вот только на их фоне, размещают так себе нарисованных, "аля аниме", персонажей. На фонах, они смотрятся, так скажем инородно. В некоторых местах, есть австрало-английская (ибо акцент адский), озвучка, воспоминаний, нашего шефа. Музыка норм.

[h1]Как итог.[/h1]
Как введение в историю, новелла вполне норм. Не шедевр, но прочесть можно, к тому же будет быстрая "идеальная игра", и карточки. На шедевр, первая глава, тем не менее, не тянет.
6 деревяшек из 10
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1126011506

[i]P.s: если этот обзор был для Вас полезен ставьте лайк, а также добавляйтесь в друзья и подписывайтесь на меня как куратора - [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/28776273/] Обзоры онлайн [/url][/i]

Oct 28, 2018·2h·14·Verified

Steam User 9263STEAMRecommended

So what we have is a fantasy, 'steam-punkish', spy story set in a 1940's after war, empire. It's ok, but does take a while to get into even though the story is so short, very little action, little character growth....little bland at some points to be very honest. Some slider puzzles acting as 'clues' and mini games to keep you busy during narative. I liked the narated parts, music is nice, font and game mechanics works well. Character art could be more diverse. So yes, maybe...when on sale. 6.5/10

Aug 19, 2018·2h·3

Steam User 5543STEAMNot recommended

Покупать игру стоит только по скидке
Отрицательная сторона:
История на 4/10
Саундтрек 2/10 (не понравился )
Графика на 5/10 (для 2016 года слабо)
Положительная сторона :
+1 идеальная игра в копилку
Наличие карточек
Общая оценка игры 3,5/10 за вн и 10/10 за бонусы

Aug 2, 2018·6h·Verified

Steam User 1989STEAMRecommended

A lovely visual novel, kinetic - in the sense that you won't be required to make fundamental decisions in the story, but rather you'll be dragged into a strange and particular kind of romance.
The whole setting is steampunk, and I've always had a love-hate relationship with steampunk in general. But here, well, everything works greatly. And the soundtrack is simple, piano-driven (with many strings parts), but really awesome and soothing.
You'll have at your disposal many setting options for what concerns graphics, sound effects, text speed and so on.
The artwork compartment is quite strange - the backgrounds seem all taken from comic books, while the main characters are way more into a standard "anime-like" style, or manga, whatever you prefer, I mean, the classic Japanese characters xD
Although as I said, there's nothing from the East here.
There will be some really astonishing scenes with voice acting, although a small downside is that the game is available only in English and the voice, which is perfect, has no subtitles - at least, I have found no way to put subtitles in those scenes.. so that if you're not that into English like me, you can have some difficulties in understanding everything the voice actor says.
Anyways, not a major issue :)
As you may have noticed, the chapter 2 of this game has been released just as I'm writing, some days ago I think, in March, 2018 so.. well, it's an episodic novel and we'll have to wait for all the episodes to unfold but still, it's great to play as it is!
The game also will feature some mini-games, easy puzzles that are anyways a very nice addition in my opinion and make the whole story even longer :)
I don't really think that you must be a puzzle/logic games lover and not only a visual novel lover to enjoy this one.. they're rather simple in my opinion and they don't annoy the player at all.
And if you take your time, I think that probably more than 2 hours will be needed to read through all the game and to get into the story proper, which is very well-written and it can also help you bolden your English XD I don't even know if that verb exists.
Even if the few choices you'll be prompted to make have no impact on the story as I was saying, it's still a great Western visual novel that blends mystery themes to a steampunk settings - you'll have to deal with suspects, stolen objects, crimes.. in fact, the whole world setting is something that comes after a war as you'll see in the first part of the game, so well.. there'll be a lot to discover, and I'm happy to know that this is only the first chapter and I still have to play the second one!
I just maybe didn't like that much the few characters available, but still.. as the first chapter of a potentially big story and as a kinetic visual novel I think that it's still enjoyable, even if you can't relate that much to inspector Beckwith, who will be your main character and narrator.
And I found that the whole mystery - you're a private investigator after all! - is just strengthened by the breakups of the dialogues, made up by nice puzzles that of course aren't there just for fun, but they will be important in order to solve the cases and so on - although of course as I was saying, there's no chance to "change" the endings or the routes, since you're going through an already-written visual novel apart from some minor changes through your choices.
So, overall, this is a really good visual novel to check out and wait for the next chapters - artwork and music are great, voice acting's definitely good and the whole story and setting are very particular and interesting. The mini-games are funny and the whole game is a pleasure to read - definitely recommended if you're into visual novels in general (and if you want something which doesn't revolve at all around sex and naked anime girls XD).
Oh, and feel free to keep the game full-screen since it's better even on a big screen in my experience, especially for what concerns appreciating the artwork of puzzles and cutscenes :)

Apr 29, 2018·11h·17

Steam User 9687STEAMNot recommended

Histoire visuelle médiocre. Encore un mélange hasardeux entre anime et style steampunk au pinceau, le clash fait mal aux yeux et à l’incrédulité !
Musiques et bruitages/voix banals, zéro animation, choix épars sans aucune conséquence sur la trame et pas de support manette. On a cependant la sauvegarde cloud, des trading cards et quelques succès de complétion.

« L’originalité » réside dans l’inclusion de puzzles. Ceux-ci sont malheureusement rigides et on ne prend plus de plaisir à les résoudre au bout du troisième…sans compter le fil de l’histoire qui se perd pour terminer brutalement. On passera de nouveau à la caisse pour connaître la suite, en dépensant 3 euros sur ce premier chapitre puis 5 euros sur le suivant. Inacceptable.

Apr 5, 2018·5h·7

Steam User 5455STEAMRecommended

慈善包喜加一默认好评系列

Mar 14, 2018·1

Steam User 6098STEAMRecommended

emm。。蒸汽朋克风格背景，设定很多很杂，但是人物形象没有出彩的地方，情节不作评价，喜欢拼图的可以试试（？

Mar 10, 2018·1h

Steam User 9982STEAMNot recommended

Apesar de ter a data do segundo capítulo já marcada, o primeiro capítulo parece imcompleto para mim.

A arte realmente não me parece finalizada, os personagens não combinam com o cenário, que por sua vez não passam de sketches, por outro lado, as imagens que foram produzidas para o momento em que o narrador entra são bem bonitas e bem feitas, tão bem feitas que não casam com o resto, já a presença de um narrador é bastante positiva, assim como o BGM que é agradável, somando alguns pontos a favor.

Este é um Kinetic Novel, ou seja, a história é linear e suas escolhas não mudam o rumo dela, mas o jogo tem alguns quebra-cabeça para te manter mais entretido, quais eu não achei necessariamente ruins, mas que não passam disso: quebra-cabeças para montar.

A história é legal, e eu particularmente gosto de jogos de investigação, mas a arte realmente me desprendeu do jogo.

Mar 2, 2018·2h·3

Steam User 7406STEAMRecommended

拼图游戏，有点意思！

Feb 27, 2018·1h·3

Steam User 7657STEAMRecommended

The Agency: Chapter 1 is the first of kinetic novel series set in a world sombered by the effects of war. You and your new acquaintances are chasing after a mystery, solving sliding puzzles with various motifs along the way. It is a short story and the puzzles are simple, leaving you to wonder if this was an easy entry into a series with the potential to be amazing, or whether the rest of the chapters will be just as simplistic. The character art is a tad behind the times, but the backgrounds deliver and the CGs for the briefly narrated intermission sequences are stunning to look at. The sound, overall fits the novel's thematic and the narrated part keep you engaged.

On its own, this title seems a bit lacking, and as of the posting of this review I have not played the next chapter so I cannot judge how well it fits the series after all, and whether the promise this intro chapter makes is truly delivered on. However, it does have enough good points for me to give it a recommend. Just keep in mind that it is quite short, so I am not entirely sure if full price is justified or if you're better of getting it on sale or in a bundle.

Pros:
[list]
[*]Story-rich setting that makes you feel you've barely scratched the surface of what the game has to offer
[*]Neat background art
[*]Ambient background music and sounds
[*]Intermissions with beautiful art CGs and narrative voice
[/list]

Cons:
[list]
[*]Choices are aesthetic without impact
[*]Linear path ergo no branching endings
[*]Super short
[*]Character art is a tad flat/dated (especially considering this came out in 2016) - they appear to have improved on this in [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/778760/The_Agency_Chapter_2/]Chapter 2[/url]
[*]No extras/gallery to admire finished puzzles or the aforementioned intermission CGs
[/list]

Feb 21, 2018·2h·3

Steam User 6073STEAMRecommended

쉬운 도전과제. 트레이딩 카드.
미니게임 공략은 가이드에..

[code]
스팀 큐레이터 : [url=store.steampowered.com/curator/44849820/]INSTALLING NOTHING[/url]
[/code]

Feb 8, 2018·1h·2

Steam User 9839STEAMRecommended

비쥬얼 노벨인 줄 알았는데 막상 해보면 그림맞추기 퍼즐...
총9개의 퍼즐로 구성되어 있다.
도전과제 따기는 좋다.

Feb 5, 2018·2h·3

Steam User 8892STEAMRecommended

Very nice game

Feb 2, 2018·4h

Steam User 4572STEAMNot recommended

This game did not capture me at all. The dialogue got a bit too drawn out at times and I didn't realize when I bought the game that it would only be the scrambled picture puzzles. I will not be buying future chapters of this series.

May 13, 2017·1h·2·Verified

Steam User 6755STEAMNot recommended

I honestly don't have too much to say about The Agency. The plot and characfters both feel really underdeveloped, but I imagine that could be corrected in future volumes. So I guess at the core all I have to say is: if you really like jigsaw puzzles, you'll enjoy this game. I hate them, so I really could get basically no enjoyable what-so-ever. I feel like this is a make-it-or-break-it aspect, particularly given how exactly the puzzles are shoehorned into the narrative, thereby shattering immersion if they aren't your thing, as they aren't for me. To each their own, of course, and I can absolutely understand why some people might enjoy the game, but I simply found it an exercise in tedium.

Mar 7, 2017·3h·26·Verified

Steam User 5678STEAMRecommended

Красивая, детективная история.

Nov 8, 2016·5h·1·Verified

Steam User 1579STEAMRecommended

Unnervingly short, but well worth the price. The puzzles are satisfying, and I feel like I have only touched the surface of a rich world.

Sep 28, 2016·2h·3·Verified

Steam User 8301STEAMRecommended

A really short VN with a few puzzles. I liked the art style, but the lack of expression on the characters (maybe Fio had one or two expressions besides her normal one) was not nice. BGM was amazing, really addicting. I’ve played other titles from these developers before and I could see some improvements! The characters are more likable and the story itself is more elaborated too. I’m looking forward for chapter 2!

5/10.

Jul 29, 2016·4h·19·Verified

Steam User 3410STEAMRecommended

Not bad. Although I can't identify with the lead/main character at all and the narration-voice is very... odd.

The puzzles are fun so far, but nothing spectacular.
The characters are not very likeable, at least not to me and have a personality of a cartboard-cut out ( tha's also how they look ).
Also, the dialogues are borderline cringeworthy

For the price it's an o.k. game though and I would recommend it for casual gaming.

Jul 19, 2016·2h·5·Verified

Steam User 2980STEAMRecommended

Стоит купить из за карточек.Одна карточка окупает игру. Выпадает 3 карточки.

Jul 15, 2016·3h·2·Verified

Steam User 4182STEAMRecommended

>sci-fi steampunk visual novel

okay sounds pretty interesting, maybe I'll add it to my wishlist

>character named Fio

that's my name ?! ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I gotta buy this

[strike]will update with an actual review later[/strike]

Okay! Time for a brief rundown:

[*] [b]Story[/b]: Political intrigue, conspiracies, a missing person, and a stolen jewel! All together, enough to keep me interested and make me want the other chapters.

[*] [b]Dialogue[/b]: Unfortunately, this made the game drag. It was very wooden most of the time and tended to info-dump.

[*] [b]Art[/b]: Loved the backgrounds! I also enjoyed the pictures used for the puzzles, very appropriate for the steampunk setting.

[*] [b]Gameplay[/b]: The choices didn't affect anything as far as I know (except maybe minor bits of dialogue), but this isn't the first visual novel I've played that's done that, so I'm not too disappointed. The woodblock sliding puzzles were a nice break from the dialogue (they don't make much sense as a codebreaking method tho, and the explanation felt pretty contrived....)

Overall, good way to spend a couple hours, and worth the price.

Jul 14, 2016·2h·12·Verified

Steam User 1488STEAMRecommended

A great first bit to what will hopefully be a fun adventure. The storyline really got me interested and I am eager to see more. Very entertaining!

Jul 14, 2016·4h·4·Verified

Steam User 2424STEAMRecommended

“The Agency: Chapter 1” is the first installment in what probably will be an episodic game series (like how TellTale games do it e.g. Game of Thrones by TellTale Games, The Walking Dead by TellTale Games etc.) Unlike TellTale Games your decisions don’t bear any weight towards the ending and storyline. The decisions are more “aesthetic” than anything else and are more a means to get more information and immerse oneself better in the world of this game. This is what they call a “kinetic novel” where the story is linear. There is gameplay though, in the form of an image puzzle game. The story revolves around a young man named Jack Beckwith, who joins a detective agency in the capital of the fictional nation he lives in.

Ok, so the facts are done, on to the review.

Story

When you’re doing this type of game, your story better be damn awesome. In that respect the game passes with flying colors! The writing is solid and the dialogue is very stylistic towards Victorian speech that really helps towards immersion. There is a whole and fully fleshed out fictional world that one can believe the characters live in. The characters themselves feel rounded and real and the mystery plotline that caries the game is intriguing.

Art

The sprites aren’t very good, perhaps the greatest failing of this game. The backgrounds on the other hand, are excellent and very stylistic. The general steampunk style behind the UI is very satisfying and should please even the most hardcore steampunk fan.

Music

The music was very appropriate towards the feel and the style of the novel. The melodies were nice and complemented the storyline and general emotions behind the piece.

Minigame

The VN has a minigame where you put a scrambled image together. It can get a bit tedious and repetitive at times but were in themselves generally harmless. Some of the images chosen were (perhaps purposefully chosen to be ) quite difficult due to the strangeness of the images (you’ll see when you play it yourself).

Duration

The game isn’t what they call long and given you’re not someone who does a lot of these image jigsaw puzzle things in their free time they may take a bit of time. The game has these nice little cutscenes, which also add to the duration, but all in all I’d say the game should take the average player around 2 hours. It ends with a cliffhanger, unsurprisingly

Overall

I liked it. It’s not the best Visual Novel in the world but it’s certainly not the worst. I enjoyed the 2 hours entertainment it gave me and am looking forward to seeing chapter 2.

Jul 13, 2016·6h·33·Verified