Hello, and welcome to a mini guide about Race Against Time Mode.

Why am I creating a guide for a pretty niche old game from 2007?

Mostly for posterity. I noticed that you can't find any information on this mode anywhere in the Internet. This game is a hidden gem and since Amerzone just got remade then maybe there is a chance for this game to be remade as well.

The main difference between Adventure Mode and Race Against Time Mode is that you have to solve certain mandates before a time deadline, else you will get taken off from the investigation from your supervisor and get a game over.

The game describes the Race Against Time Mode as: Time goes quickly, suspects get annoyed and the tension is rising.

What this means is you will always see the time of the day in the upper right of the screen. Time moves a lot quicker than in Adventure Mode, which also makes the suspects change locations more often. The good thing however is that because of this, you will probably see the suspects in new locations and they will have conversations with each other that you will probably not see in Adventure Mode unless you REALLY stall solving mandates.

For example in Day 1 it is possible that you completely missed the Dinner conversations between 20:00 and 21:00, and the conversations for when the suspects move to their private rooms between 21:00 and 22:00. I know I did.

As far as the suspects get annoyed part, this is not true at all. The suspects have the exact same dialogue like in adventure mode. The only change is that your supervisor Vic will keep calling you to hurry up and to give you vague and useless tips on what to do next every couple hours. There is a lot of dialogue from VIC (including unique dialogue for firing you for every deadline you miss) that does not exist at all in Adventure Mode.

I do recommend that you miss all deadlines just to see the dialogue. It will involve a lot of idle waiting though. You have enough time to get every single dialogue from all the suspects but you have to be smart about it. I recommend you to play the game in Adventure Mode first. Day 2 is especially brutal.

NOTE: You can skip dialogue with the suspects if you click both the left and right mouse buttons at the same time. There is no need or pressure to ever do this though unless you are really hurting for time.

This is not a walkthrough of the game. There are other guides for that here in Steam. I will only list the deadlines of the mandates and a few tips.

Let's get started.

Day 1 starts at 08:00 am and ends at 22:00 pm. For this day, gather all items and documents ASAP and focus mainly on Nolent and Lorenzo.

MANDATE 1 must be solved before 11:00 am. You have to do this to be able to leave the first screen. Unlocks Mandate 2.

MANDATE 2 must be solved before 16:00 pm. You have to do this to be able to leave the first screen. Unlocks Mandate 3.

MANDATE 3 must be solved before 22:00 pm. You have to do this to be able to leave the first screen. Unlocks Mandate 4 and Day 1 ends.

Day 2 starts at 08:00 am and ends at 21:10 pm. You have to rush to reveal and solve most mandates.

MANDATE 4 must be solved before 09:00 am. So be damn quick and go to the Library on floor 21 and receive the autopsy report. This likely causes you to skip some dialogue between characters in the morning (ex. Kolio and Baina). Unlocks Mandates 5, 7 and 8.

MANDATE 5 OR (both Mandates 7 AND 8) must be solved before 12:30 pm.
Mandate 5 is hard to solve unless you already played the game and know what items to pick and who to talk to, but it is possible. Focus on Lorenzo, Nolent and Sonia.
Both Mandate 7 AND Mandate 8 are very easy to solve, you just need to find the murder weapon on floor 21 (If you cannot pick it up, use the rag on EVERY weapon, not just the murder weapon). You have to solve Mandate 7 before Mandate 8, even if you have all the evidence, for some reason.

For your next goal:
If you solved MANDATE 5: both MANDATE 7 AND MANDATE 8 must be solved before 15:00 pm.

If you solved both MANDATE 7 AND MANDATE 8: Unlocks Mandate 9 and Mandate 10.
MANDATE 5 OR MANDATE 6 must be solved before 17:00 pm.

MANDATE 6 is only revealed when you open the safe in Walter's room in floor 20, and must be solved before 19:00 pm if you have solved Mandate 5, or before 17:00 if you have solved both Mandate 7 AND Mandate 8. Even if Vic tells you that you have until 21:00 pm after solving the previous Mandates, you will get a Game Over at 19:00 pm or 17:00 respectively.

You must solve Mandates 5 to 8 to get a time extension until 21:00 pm.

MANDATE 9 must be solved before 21:00 pm. If you solved all 5 Mandates before 20:00, then you are automatically moved forward to 21:10 and Lorenzo's announcement and Day 2 Ends. If you stalled and solved Mandate 9 between 20:00 and 21:00, then you have to manually wait until 21:10 pm.

Day 3 starts at 08:00 am and ends at 17:00 pm.

This is the easiest day. No tricks, no fuss, you just have to solve all the remaining 4 mandates 9 to 13 before 17:00. That's it.

Mandate 11 is unlocked by solving Mandate 10.
Mandate 12 is unlocked by going to the Library on floor 21.
Mandate 13 is unlocked by solving Mandates 10, 11 and 12.

It is best to go to the Technical room in floor 17 as soon as the day starts to get the event with Lorenzo. If you go to the Library to see Nolent, you will miss this event and you will have to wait a couple hours to get the item from floor 22.

Plenty of time to exhaust all dialogue with all suspects with lots of time left over.

Once you solve the final mandate the murderer is revealed. The time is then paused permanently and you can finish the game on your leisure by just going to floor 22.

That's it.
Congratulations if you made it this far.
To the approximately three people who will use this guide in my lifetime. You are awesome!