Soon after entering you learn that Maksh has been captured by the criminal and is being held hostage, so now you are on your own. In the bar you will meet lots of characters to engage in conversation, so pick out a likely looking suspect and talk to him or her or it. As a company cop you have been trained to use 'Empathy Telepathy' so after talking for a while you may trigger a flashback where you re-live that character's recent memory. Usefully, this involves the sequence of events that lead up to the character arriving at the Space Bar and takes place on their home world. These flashbacks are actually mini-adventures where you 'become' the character and see things from their perspective. Each story is self-contained and you must solve the puzzles and overcome the obstacles that each character faced, as you learn of their motives for travelling to the spacebar clicker.
For example, as a Vedj called Seedrot, you are a young, sentient plant-form who is not allowed to leave home and join the 'rebels' until you have dropped your first fruit. Or, as Fleebix, a Neblitzi, you share a rather frustrating symbiotic (or possibly, parasitic) relationship with a Salivraster called Thud. Living in a jar of dirty water you have to get Thud to do everything for you. Now Thud, like the rest of his species, is a little on the slow side, but ever anxious to please. Hey, I liked Thud, and I've met a few Salivrasters in my time. For a while there I even thought I might be related to them as it took me ages to work out how to get on a bus.
And there were a few other problems that occupied some considerable time too, though nothing is insurmountable if you stay alert. I particularly enjoyed the Auditon vine maze and, even though it didn't tempt me to change occupations, the wheeling and dealing for the sale of a planet kept me busy for ages.
As each flashback segment is completed you are rewarded with a piece of information that will ultimately assist you to track down the criminal in the bar. Remember, that's what you came here to do. Remember, too, to save your game regularly as it is easy to be thrown out of a flashback and this will enable you to avoid repeating huge chunks of play.