Deja Vu is a "point-and-click" adventure game set in the world of 1940s hard-boiled detective novels and movies. The game takes place in Chicago during December 1941, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The game character is Theodore 'Ace' Harding, a retired boxer who is working as a private eye. The player awakes one morning in a bathroom stall, unable to remember who he is. The bathroom stall turns out to belong to Joe's Bar: a dead man is found in an office and Ace is about to be framed for the murder. There are some clues around as to who the murdered man is and to the player's own identity. A strap-down chair, mysterious vials and a syringe is also found suggesting, together with a needle-mark on the player's arm, that some kind of elaborate torture or other treatment has taken place.