Rainyday

I have a soft spot for the kind of game that announces itself with a content warning and then quietly means every word of it. Rainyday earns its advisory. This is a top-down, old school detective adventure inspired by the dark PC classics of the early 90s - think Dreamweb, Harvester, Bloodnet - built by a solo developer who clearly spent more time with those games than sleeping. The atmosphere is intentional, the New Orleans setting is committed, and the rain never stops. If that sentence excites you, you already know whether this is for you. You play as John Rainy, an ageing, depressed NOPD detective pulled into a string of child disappearances tangled up in superstition and the city's ugliest corners. The game is structured as four short episodes, each running roughly 20 minutes, all released and included in a single purchase. That episodic skeleton means the pacing is uneven - some chapters land a tense, noir atmosphere that genuinely earns comparison to its inspirations, while others feel rushed, like the developer ran out of time mid-scene. The puzzles lean old-school hard: expect obscure object interactions, some pixel hunting, and moments where the game assumes you will experiment rather than explain. Players reported getting stuck at the fishing line puzzle and in Episode 2 near the taxi sequence, which tells you a lot about the design philosophy on display here. There is no hint system. You will consult a walkthrough. Accept this early. What Rainyday gets right is mood. The top-down perspective, the crude but deliberate art, and the droning weight of the setting create something that feels genuinely handmade - a one-person love letter to a genre most studios abandoned. The subject matter is brutal (human trafficking, abuse, violence) and the game does not flinch or sensationalise carelessly. That restraint, relative to the budget, is more impressive than it sounds. The community has flagged a notable bug where getting hit by a car in Episode 1 can corrupt the save state, so manual saves between scenes are strongly advised. The five Steam achievements are modest but functional. With a mixed reception across its small reviewer pool and no critical coverage to lean on, Rainyday sits in that honest tier of solo passion projects that found a small, appreciative audience and nobody else. If you grew up with Sierra point-and-clicks, play detective adventures for the darkness rather than the puzzles, and can forgive rough edges in exchange for a handcrafted atmosphere, there is something here worth a slow evening with. Everyone else will bounce off the obtuse design within the first episode.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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