Another piece of third person pixel art point-and-click, The Drifter has a more retro look than some other such games, but it doesn't detract from the goings-on. Indeed, on the strength of the two or so hours I have played thus far it promises to deliver a heap of thrilling adventuring.

You play Mick Carter, homeless and wandering from place to place. Having received a call from his sister about the death of his mother, he jumps a train to make his way back for the funeral. But a murder intervenes, one which, as the Steam page says, sucks him "headfirst into a lunatic web of shadowy corporations, murder, and the thousand-year obsession of a madman."

The last of those I haven't yet confronted, but the others have made their presence felt. Along with black-ops soldiers, bodies in the reservoir and something called a Mulindji.

And death. Mick has died, but more than that he knows it. Which makes for some interesting musings as you work to prevent it from happening again.

Mick narrates much of what is going on, but you can also converse with other characters and the mouse will reveal information about environmental objects. The cursor will indicate whether you can interact, look or talk, and the latter might pop up a row of pictograms bottom of screen indicating topics you might ask about. Top of screen is the inventory, from which you can click items and then seek to use them in the game world. Revelations or insights are up there as well.

Everything is voiced, there are ambient sound effects and a soundtrack, and you can save at will. If you die, the game just lets you try again.

I didn't realise it was Australian-made until I started playing and heard the accent. It's nice to hear those familiar tones :-)

Much more than that though, this is fast-paced move it along find and use the right item and ask the right questions adventuring. So far so very good.

This is high quality pixel art, and on the strength of its first day, it's high quality adventuring as well.

I didn't play the first game (which this game recommends doing first), but you get the option to recap what went before. Hopefully that will be sufficient with what is to come. While it's early days, I don't feel all at sea.

As the Steam page says "When this story begins, things are looking dire for private eye Kathy Rain. It’s the year 1998, and she is utterly broke: The Katmobile (her motorbike) is running on fumes, the fridge is nearly empty, and an eviction is looming close. However, opportunity arrives when a big cash reward is announced for solving the 'Soothsayer' case — a string of serial murders with a death grip on the metropolitan city of Kassidy."

And so Kathy gets to investigating.

I liked a lot how the first day was put together. I got a good feel for how all the machanics work, and while I uncovered lots of possible leads and opened new locations, Kathy steadfastly held to her "gather information" approach before following everything up. Which didn't mean she didn't ask questions about learned topics (helpfully gathered and activated through your notebook), but when you know nothing, best to be as best informed as possible.

So much of the day was spent at the library, winkling stuff out of the archives. What to look for and when is what this aspect demands, and I thought it was a well constructed puzzle in that it did feel like actually joining the information dots. It took me a little while to grasp the 'how,' and a fair bit longer to get to the end, but it was very satisfying.

Which sums it up for the day in general.

Mechanics wise it is all point and click, the visuals richly detailed in their pixelly way, and while there is not a lot of background motion it doesn't feel lifeless. Hotspots can be revealed with the space bar, and you can save at will and tweak a few settings. Your notebook is your go-to item, collecting the various subjects and phone numbers you can utilise within the game. It and the items you gather are in your kit-bag bottom left. The notebook also includes your various objectives and interrogating these might reveal a way forward.

There is also a way you can ask about items in the game world, and the game itself will explain that aspect to you, as it does for other things as you move along.

When you exit a particular scene, you get an animation of Kathy on the Katmobile, and you choose the destination from the location icons that accumulate as you explore.

Conversations involve a large pop-up head-shot of the participants. Voice acting to date has been excellent.

I look forward to my next day.