Screenshots
Watch trailer on Steam ↗The Beat: A Glam Noir Game
Up Multimedia · Published by Up Multimedia · Official site ↗
Content notice: This is a contemporary game for a mature audience. It deals with issues such as murder, homophobia, domestic violence, misogyny, sexual health and general "coming out" issues. It contains sex scenes, nudity, adult conversations, references to drugs (including alcohol), and swearing.
Mixed — 64% positive (11 reviews)
Last updated 27 Sept 2026
In The Beat you take on the role of Leo, a closeted cop investigating a murder in the gay community. Each choice you make has a meaningful effect on the story and the more drama you create the higher your score.
DJCTQ 18Full Controller Support
£9.99
Lowest price we've ever recorded
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£9.99
Price history
3 Sept 2026Lowest: £9.99 · Highest: £9.9912 Oct 2026
Indie · 2022 · More £5 - £15 games
Embark on Leo's investigation of a murder within the gay community, making choices that influence both the story and your score. Each decision you make as a closeted cop impacts the narrative deeply in this unique indie game from Up Multimedia released in 2022.
About this game
"magical realism Australia-based Yakuza side-quest about a gay cop investigating a murder. 10/10" - Doogie4Ever
"lovingly designed" - Planet Randy
"A strange but intriguing affair" - checkpoint gaming
In the The Beat you play as Leo, a closeted detective investigating a murder in the gay community. Using a unique story balancing AI, each choice you make in this game affects it in a meaningful way. The more drama you create the higher your score.
Can you solve the crime before Leo's world completely disintegrates?
The Beat is available now for Windows, MacOS and Steam/Linux.
The Beat has:
The Beat is a turn-based narrative adventure that takes place over seven days and nights. Immerse yourself in the world and get to know the street life. Interviews with suspects turn up new clues and lead down darker paths.
At the end of each turn the declarative AI engine shifts characters around the world and replots the intertwined narratives, resulting in a reactive, living story. Bad decisions make good drama and the more drama Leo causes, the higher your score.
Seven characters, each with secrets of their own. On the surface they are strangers but calm waters run deep.
Up Multimedia and VicScreen present The Beat: A Glam Noir Game. This is the third release in a string of gay-themed games from Up Multimedia.
"lovingly designed" - Planet Randy
"A strange but intriguing affair" - checkpoint gaming
In the The Beat you play as Leo, a closeted detective investigating a murder in the gay community. Using a unique story balancing AI, each choice you make in this game affects it in a meaningful way. The more drama you create the higher your score.
Can you solve the crime before Leo's world completely disintegrates?
The Beat is available now for Windows, MacOS and Steam/Linux.
The Beat has:
- A true crime narrative inspired by historical events;
- A stylish noir world recreated from real locations;
- A genuine multi-path experience (play it straight or gay);
- Real performances by actors/dancers created in-game with motion capture;
- Hand-sculptured character models by noted 3D artist Mark Payne;
- An advanced declarative AI engine responsive to your choices; and
- A full original soundtrack by DOS4GW.
The Beat is a turn-based narrative adventure that takes place over seven days and nights. Immerse yourself in the world and get to know the street life. Interviews with suspects turn up new clues and lead down darker paths.
At the end of each turn the declarative AI engine shifts characters around the world and replots the intertwined narratives, resulting in a reactive, living story. Bad decisions make good drama and the more drama Leo causes, the higher your score.
Seven characters, each with secrets of their own. On the surface they are strangers but calm waters run deep.
Up Multimedia and VicScreen present The Beat: A Glam Noir Game. This is the third release in a string of gay-themed games from Up Multimedia.
System Requirements
Will my PC run this? →Minimum
Minimum:
- OS *: Windows 7 or higher
- Processor: 1.80GHz dual core processor
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Video card with 1GB of VRAM
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Storage: 12 GB available space
Supported Languages
English
Latest news
AnnouncementsOfficial
A Big Risk for The Beat
I'm taking a big risk with this release of The Beat and I'm hoping you'll come with me.Over the last two years I have rewritten the game code from scratch and today I am ready to share it!This new version is better in some ways, just some of the improvements include:better user interfacegame no longer needs an internet connectiongamepad and keyboard remappingmassively simplified codebase for future updatesBut it is a case of ten steps forward, five steps backwards.Some features such as Brofinder are missing from the new version. In fact, the new version is extremely "no frills" and lacks a lot of polish (such as tutorials and shortcuts between calendars and messages). This is the risk: At the moment the game is fairly inscrutable. It's not at my usual standard of "pick up and play". I think people will not like the game in its current form. But on balance I had to act.So, how did we get here?When I started on The Beat almost a decade ago I was enamoured with the idea of coding the game logic in Prolog, a programming language that I had a feeling would be perfect for a murder mystery. Prolog is an extremely rare declarative programming language. Instead of giving it a list of instructions you give it a set of facts and then query it. It's a very strange way of coding. But it gives The Beat its unique flavour. How do I use Prolog in The Beat? Well, instead of linear narratives or branching trees like most games, The Beat has a bucket of mostly linear narrative threads broken up into hundreds of short scripts. The Prolog part of the game assembles a narrative from this bucket as you progress through the game. I call it "self assembling narratives" and it is a really elegant idea that has massive potential for really interesting gameplay, especially for detective-style games.Problems, however, have compounded over the two years since release.The Beat was my first game using an engine called Godot. I heavily over-engineered that side of the code out of ignorance. Then a ...Read full article on Community Announcements (dodgyville)Community & EventsOfficial
The Beat streaming event
{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33329278/a7cebc3e166e19fd31cefa8463932d21f4b2cc68.png As part of Melbourne International Games Week we join the developers of The Beat in a rare play-through and/or post-mortem of the classic Noir indie game, The Beat.Read full article on Community Announcements (dodgyville)Patch NotesOfficial
Update notes for 6 April 2023
The Beat v1.1.1 - TheVoice edition add: Voice over narration (for day one only -- we're trying it out) add: disable interactive on some characters when they are not part of the script to reduce player confusion when script starts to play change: tutorial now occurs in stages change: you can no longer cancel an appointment when it is about to happen next fix: the warning about outstanding events is now separate from caption system, solves intermittent issue with interactives getting stuck fix: don't warn when Ash is revealed that Leo is not revealed fix: Ash won't send an empty message to Leo when they first meetRead full article on Community Announcements (dodgyville)Patch NotesOfficial
Updates Notes for 22 March 2023
v1.1.0 - "Daniel's Birthday" edition add: warn player when there is no internet connection add: new script "Out In The Open": Jackson can be present when Dylan tries to kiss you (thanks Joe Yun) add: new script "Sharing Spit". Anthony can be present and paranoid when Dylan tries to kiss you change: update engine (Godot 3.5 to 3.5.2) change: add link to oscarwildecard to title screen change: boost contrast and brightness 10% by default change: script clash info is presented in a more human readable way fix: "Protest Too Much": Jackson goes to the beat afterwards instead of DylanRead full article on Community Announcements (dodgyville)AnnouncementsOfficial
Now on Mac
The Beat, our game about a closeted detective investigating a murder in the gay community, is now available on Mac OS X, including M1 and M2 machines. If you own the game on Steam, the Mac version should be automatically available for free. Enjoy!Read full article on Community Announcements (dodgyville)
