“The Bat” by Chandler Groover is a parser driven game, but with interactions limited to just a handful of verbs, like some of this author’s previous games. Going in, I imagined this game would be a send up of the “Batman” comic book series. Given some of the characters and situations, it may still be, though the credits lists an even earlier source, a 1926 movie called “The Bat” which shares other similarities with the game (and which, for all I know, may have itself been a source of inspiration for “Batman”). The protagonist is the beleaguered servant of a wealthy philanthropist, Master Bryce Wyatt, who suffers a form of lycanthropy which turns him into a slavering mindless bat at the most inopportune times. Tonight is an inopportune time, a huge charity fundraiser at the Bryce Mansion. Pandemonium ensues.
The writing and world building are fun. The protagonist races from room to room, welcoming guests, serving drinks, trying to clean up after his hapless master and their screwball guests.
Early on I got the impression this was an optimization game, that I needed to plan my actions carefully to maximize the donations. Some donors were generous and others stingy, regardless of the quality of my service. My collections would drop when the donors became upset. The problems themselves are not difficult to solve; the game is well clued and several of the “puzzles” repeat (cleaning up messes, answering the door, serving drinks). However a restrictive inventory limit soon became a source of frustration. Drop the silver serving tray in order to pick up a dust pan to clean up broken glass, then later try to remember where you left the drinks tray. Simple ideas (refill the wine cabinet and pour drinks) become a convoluted sequence of “attend” commands. By mid game I had decided I wasn’t going to attempt to replay it for a higher score, but the zany chaos kept me engaged.
Actually once I stopped worrying about fundraising, and just treated it as a zany farce, it was a lot more fun. I put aside worrying about optimization to focus on catering to each guest’s weird peccadilloes allowing myself as much time as I needed to find a moose head, curtain rod, or dead rat I’d left elsewhere. Not unlike a game of Clue (aka Cluedo) perhaps. There is, in fact, a mystery to solve here also.
And when I finished, I decided I had been wrong all along about the optimization aspects of this game. At the end of the game I had raised an even hundred million dollars for the Widow’s and Orphan’s fund, despite being the worst butler who ever worked in a manor.