Welcome to New Orleans, Louisiana, circa 1980: a vibrant city of music, food, and magic. Neon lights flicker in dirty puddles up and down Bourbon street; the innovations of the modern world clash with ancient and terrible traditions; and murder is never simple. The Beaumont Agency, staffed with a roster of brilliant, colorful, and ultimately flawed private investigators, specializes in solving cases that no one else can crack.
In The Dark Quarter, a co-operative app-driven adventure game set in a dark, fantastical vision of 1980s New Orleans, players each take control of a Beaumont agent and work alongside one another to solve the worst crimes that New Orleans has to offer. It's a world full of magic, where hexing curses are sold on every street, where voodoo priestesses and creatures of the night are lurking around every corner, and where even the most mundane crimes have a tinge of the supernatural to them.
Through multi-scenario campaigns, the game tells a rich, dynamic story and invites players to make critical decisions that will not only affect their characters, but change the direction and course of the story. The characters are not simply avatars, easily replaceable from scenario to scenario; instead, they are woven into the very fabric of the story itself. Their destiny and the destiny of New Orleans are inextricably linked together.
—description from the publisher
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I'm vocalizing what's going on in my head.
- Gen Con is not a convention that I ever foresee myself going back to.
- This is going to be a very long stream if I'm going to take this much time going through each of these.
- We are going to do a BG auction cuz I imagine everybody that watches this is on BGG.
- The designer is going to send it to you. He's going to pay the shipping and y'all are going to pay us and we get to keep the money.
References (from this video)
- likely the most innovative and narrative-heavy among the list
- excited to play more in 2025
- personal agency and branching story paths
- Choose-your-own-adventure style narrative in a dark setting
- advantura/choose-your-own style
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- choose-your-own-adventure — narrative-driven branching paths with player choices
- interactive storytelling — player decisions shape outcomes and story branches
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Power of Love basically is very strong in this game
- it's a pure Euro with some like is really good
- the artwork we have seen on the front of the Box looks amazing
- this might be the coolest thing I have played in like a choose to own ADV Adventure