“Who Whacked Jimmy Piñata? A Bubble Gumshoe Mystery” is a parser game written by Damon L. Wakes. I believe this may be the third in a series, but somehow I have not played any of the preceding games. Perhaps this makes me the perfect impartial reviewer, I am unable to comment whether this series was more like the Star Wars, the Godfather, or Children of the Candy Corn in terms of the graph of “Episode number” vs “Awesomeness”.
Actually, this game was pretty good. The genre is crime noir, which I’m familiar with having read several James Ellroy novels. The gimmick is, this is set in a candy-land world. It’s a simple and silly premise, but avoids feeling like a one joke game in the implementation. Every character and set piece is some kind of sugary confection: Candy Kane, Kit Kat, Wax Lips. I can’t list all of the interactive characters, there are just too many (over a dozen) with new suspects introduced at every turn of the scene. This is a remarkable accomplishment in a parser game.
I found the puzzles very challenging, but the in-game hints are comprehensive, and hints are arranged in a way I found less seductive than the standard invisi-clues type menu. By that I mean I didn’t feel tempted to go past what I needed to solve the immediate problem. But yes, the puzzles were tough. At the two hour mark (after three days of discontinuous play) I eventually reached an ending which satisfied me, though I know it was not the winning ending. I’ll probably go back to it and try again.