Poe-Faced: The Raven 

You can't make a point and click adventure game for less than $3 million, you know. Hell, you can't even make it for $3 million, apparently. So presumably King Art Games, they of The Book Of Unwritten Tales, have some serious venture capital behind them for their noirish crime adventure The Raven. The first of its three episodes are out on Steam on July 23rd, but they have a stylishly monochrome 'interactive graphic novel' preview to play for no-pence right now.

Don't ask me to be an expert about adventure games, obviously (John's on holiday, otherwise you'd be spared such protestations), but I dig the concept of The Raven offering both sides of the story - the titular master criminal, and the dedicated copper out to catch him. It's like The Wire, but with French guys and dialogue trees! Probably less Omar, too.

Here's what it looks like:

That's some pretty solid voice-acting, actually. Obviously in a cartoon style, but I must admit I've become accustomed to hearing the worst in modern adventure games. There's an air of Broken Sword to proceedings too.

Oh, here's that 'interactive graphic novel', which is a limited, browser-based pointer-clicker with a rather nice visual style. Wish the full game was like that, tbh.

http://raven-game.com/ign-en/

Episode 1 of The Raven will be out on Steam on Jul 23. It's also coming out on Mac and Linux.

Oh look, I didn't use insulting gags for Mac and Linux for once. I'm full of surprises, me.