Nine Lives Software
adventures worth dying for
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NOIR: The Midnight Ledger - Player’s Manual (Release 1)
This is Release 1 (v5.4.4, 4 October 2026), kept to compare. The current release is here.
A Nine Lives Software game. Designed by Pieter De Villiers.
This manual is spoiler-free. For the full solution see WALKTHROUGH.md.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental. Port Harlow is an imaginary city, and Nine Lives Software is this game’s own studio name.
The story so far
Port Harlow, 1947. It has been raining for eleven days straight.
Last night they fished your partner, Eddie Walsh, out of the harbor. The police wrote it up as an accident. Funny thing: Eddie couldn’t swim, so he never went near the water.
You are Sam Kane, private investigator. Forty-one years old and every one of them shows. The cops want you to leave it alone. You don’t do that.
Starting a game
The game opens with the studio’s intro - click or press any key to skip it.
On the title screen:
- NEW GAME asks for a difficulty (Easy / Normal / Hard - see Difficulty below); then BEGIN THE CASE: find out who killed Eddie. Seven locations, 100 points.
- CONTINUE picks up from the autosave (made every time you enter a room).
- LOAD GAME opens your ten save slots.
- ABOUT shows who made the game, and the end credits.
- QUIT closes the game (in the browser, just close the tab). (In the middle of a game, Esc opens the menu, which can take you back to the title.)
Playing
The four verbs
Pick a verb at the bottom left (or press 1-4, or right-click to cycle), then click something in the scene.
| Verb | What it does |
|---|---|
| WALK | Walk somewhere, or through a door. |
| LOOK | Look at something. Look at everything - details matter. |
| USE | Pick up, open, push, pull, operate. On a person it means your fists. |
| TALK | Talk to someone. Many people open a menu of topics to ask about. |
Hover over anything to see its name. Hold TAB to label everything you can interact with in the room. Double-click an exit to go straight through it.
Your inventory
Click an item to hold it, then click where to use it: something in the scene, another item (to combine them), or Kane himself. Esc puts it back. With LOOK or TALK selected, clicking an item examines it (or talks to it - it’s a lonely job).
Conversations
Text types itself out; click, Space or Enter shows it all, and again to continue. When someone has more to say, a menu of topics appears - click one or press its number. Ask everyone everything: people say more than they mean to.
| Someone talking | A topic menu |
|---|---|
 |
 |
The case notebook
Press N (or click NOTES) to open your notebook. Every clue you find is pinned to the board, with red string between the ones that belong together. The Current Lead tells you what a good detective would look into next - if you’re stuck, start there.
Deductions
Some answers aren’t found - they’re worked out. Click one card in the notebook, then another, to connect them. If they add up, Kane pins a new card marked deduced (and you often score points); if they don’t, he tells you so. Some deductions are the only way forward: nobody is going to hand you the password to the Blue Moon.
Not every clue is true
People lie. Evidence gets planted. The notebook can’t tell a true card from a false one - and two false cards can add up to a deduction that feels exactly as solid as a real one. Act on a wrong conclusion and Port Harlow lets you: you can follow a false lead somewhere you shouldn’t be, or accuse the wrong person. Some of those mistakes end the story - with the wrong man behind bars and the right one still out there. On Easy, Kane’s gut puts a ? on cards that smell wrong.
Port Harlow is full of people with something to say. Some of them know the truth. Some think they do. Some are paid to think otherwise. A drunk will swear to anything; a friendly cop may be friendly for a reason. When a story sounds too neat, look for the detail that doesn’t fit - there usually is one.
The honor meter
Some people won’t tell you anything. You can be patient, or you can make them talk.
- USE on a person roughs them up.
- Hold your revolver over someone to pull it on them. Do it again and you fire.
Most people will talk either way. But the meter at the top of the screen remembers how you got your answers, and so does Port Harlow: some people won’t help a man with a reputation, and how the story ends depends on who you’ve become. Some people Kane simply won’t touch - and some are very bad ideas to try it on.
| Honor | You are |
|---|---|
| 50 and up | Straight arrow |
| 15 to 49 | Decent |
| -14 to 14 | Gray |
| -49 to -15 | Tarnished |
| -50 and below | Crooked |
Time, standoffs and health
Standoffs. When someone has a gun on Kane, a red DRAW! bar counts down and a clock ticks. Do the right thing before it runs out, or you’re shot. Everything you do in that moment costs time - loading the revolver under fire takes four seconds you may not have, and trying to talk your way out gets you an answer but costs two. Usually there’s more than one way out. Usually.
Deadlines. At certain points the night is against you: a clock appears in the corner, counting to midnight. It only runs while you’re playing (not while you read). Miss it and things start to go wrong - and Kane starts to wear down.
Health. After a deadline passes, and in some fights, Kane loses health; the edges of the screen go dark red as it drops. At zero he’s done for. A nap on his office couch helps, but costs time.
Difficulty
| Easy | Normal | Hard | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Second chances | 5 | 3 | 1 |
| Time to act in a standoff | long | fair | short |
| Deadlines | none | at midnight | tight |
| Current lead in the notebook | yes, plus a gut feeling | yes | no |
| ”?” on doubtful clues | yes | no | no |
| TAB labels | yes | yes | no |
Dying (and not quite)
This is a Sierra-style adventure: there are plenty of ways to die, and you will. When you do, you can:
- TRY AGAIN - back to the moment you entered the room.
- SECOND CHANCE - Kane has a few per game (three on Normal). In some situations he survives after all and you’re put back a moment before it happened. Whether it’s available depends on what you’re carrying and how you’ve treated people; the death screen tells you if it isn’t, and sometimes why.
- LOAD a saved game, or RESTART.
| No second chance this time | A second chance |
|---|---|
 |
 |
The menu and settings
Press Esc (or click MENU) at any time to pause. The menu shows the version and who made the game, and lets you save, load, open the notebook, change settings or quit to the title screen.
| The menu | Settings |
|---|---|
 |
 |
Settings are remembered between games: game speed (slow to very fast), text speed (up to instant), the look, music and effects volume, and the difficulty for new games.
Saving
F5 saves (ten slots), F7 loads - or use the menu. The game also autosaves every time you enter a room. You can’t save while a gun is pointed at you.
Every saved game has RENAME and DELETE buttons. Rename lets you type a name (up to 18 letters; Enter keeps it, Esc cancels) - it stays when you save over that slot again. Delete asks before it throws anything away.
Saves live in %APPDATA%\NoirMidnightLedger\ on Windows (./saves elsewhere). In the browser
they stay in that browser (clearing its site data deletes them).
Looks
Press C at any time to switch how the game looks:
- Red accent (default) - black and white, with red only on what matters.
- Grayscale - pure film-noir gray.
- Classic 1-bit - dithered black and white, like the very first version.
| Red accent | Grayscale | Classic 1-bit |
|---|---|---|
|
 |
 |
Keys
| Key | |
|---|---|
| 1-4 | WALK / LOOK / USE / TALK (or pick a topic in a conversation) |
| Right-click | Cycle verbs; skip text |
| Space / Enter / click | Show all text; continue |
| TAB (hold) | Label every hotspot |
| N | Case notebook |
| Esc | Drop held item; leave a conversation; close a menu; otherwise open the menu |
| F5 / F7 | Save / load |
| C | Cycle the look |
| M | Mute |
| F11 | Fullscreen |
A private eye’s tips
- Save early and often. Port Harlow is not a forgiving town.
- Look at everything. Twice, if it looks back.
- Talk to everyone, and ask about everything. Then ask again later.
- Read what you pick up. LOOK at items in your inventory.
- If you’re stuck, open the notebook. The current lead is always honest - and connecting cards is how detectives think.
- Don’t believe everything you’re told. Especially by a man you’ve just hit.
- Watch the clock. Midnight comes for everyone in Port Harlow.
- Think before you pull a gun - but don’t think too long. Not everyone deserves it, and some people are faster than they look.
Credits
Finish the story and the credits roll by themselves (or play them from the About screen). They end with your score. (Rumour has it a certain name, typed at the very end, makes them tell you what you missed.)
