Déjà Vu is a point-and-click adventure game set in the world of 1940s hardboiled detective novels and movies. It was released in 1985 for Macintosh – the first in the MacVenture series – and later ported to several other systems, including the Amiga. Initially, the game featured black and white graphics, and later releases introduced color. Plot and gameplay The game takes place in Chicago during December 1941. The game character is Theodore "Ace" Harding, a retired boxer working as a private eye. Ace awakes one morning in a bathroom stall, unable to remember who he is. The bathroom stall turns out to be in Joe's Bar. A dead man is found in an upstairs office, and Ace is about to be framed for the murder. There are some clues as to the identity of the murdered man and to Ace himself. A strap-down chair, mysterious vials, and a syringe are found, suggesting (together with a needle mark on Ace's arm) that an interrogation has taken place. Outside the bar, Ace encounters adversaries including a mugger, an old acquaintance with a grudge, and the police. Ace's boxing background proves to be a valuable asset. Ace must find addresses around Joe's bar and then make taxi rides to a few locations (including his office) to gather more elements and unravel the story. It involves a kidnapping in which Ace has played some part, but his memory lacks important details. Ace's memory and mental condition progressively deteriorate, so the player is required to obtain an antidote to the drug that caused the memory loss. After that, Ace has recurring flashbacks filled with information that help the player to evaluate the evidence and take action accordingly. The memory deterioration is handled differently in the Nintendo platforms compared to all others, in all others the player has a limited amount of time before Ace's brain reaches vegetable status and has to live the rest of his days in a hospital for "helpless mental invalids" with a hard death coded on the second floor of Sternwood Mansion. Nintendo platforms mostly remove the vegetable status mechanic and also removes the Sternwood Mansion death if the player goes there without curing their amnesia giving the player all the time they need to get cured but instead has a hard death coded if the player goes to Ace's office while still suffering from amnesia in which the vegetable