Wolfbiter reviews IFComp 2024 - latest: Eikas; wrap-up

The Bat by Chandler Groover
Playtime: 1 hour 43 min

The one where: your dry British reserve is thoroughly tested at a soirée in Wayne Manor.

Albert (in my head, the PC’s name is Albert) works as a valet for the Wyatts. The game gets a lot of mileage out of the (tacit) contrast between Bryce Wyatt and another fictional character with dead 1%-er parents and an unusual affinity for bats. Bryce appears to recently have been mentally compromised by something involving the sinister (but generous to charity!) Doctor Malatesta, and is now even more eccentric than before (eccentrities include eating crickets and relieving himself on the floor). Bryce is so helpless that one does want to help him. I wondered from very on in the game if Bryce was going to demonstrate Hidden Depths at any point. The answer is: not really.

A lot of humor arises from the absurdity of watching a fancy event proceed while its ostensible host acts completely demented:

Albert is called upon to wrangle Bryce, serve drinks (and meet the other demands of the various guests), and also manage the various crises that transpire. There’s also a lot of humor in the contrast between Albert’s cool outward demeanor and the ridiculous tasks he is called upon to perform (and using “attend” as the key verb helped me remember to be valet-y throughout).

I quite liked that the game started with a prologue, which gets us set up with the limited parser system, and the manor’s layout. I love when puzzle-y games start with some easy wins to build trust between the player and the author. Act I also continues to be pretty relaxed, and Act II doesn’t seem to involve time pressure.

The limited parser system generally worked well, and makes the game feel very approachable. I was also fine with the limited inventory space–absent that, there would really be no friction-y feeling in some of the tasks. The Diner Dash-esque elements of serving drinks were fun at first, but went on slightly longer than I wanted them to (although I appreciated that the requests for drinks dwindled in the second act).

This game has an incredible amount of polish and is just a very professional feeling product.

  • overall plot and ending

This game is very much a cinematic experience, where the fun is watching the plot unfold. You solve puzzles which creates some investment, but doesn’t change anything about the plot. (I don’t think the player gets a single “consequential” choice in the game).

Although the player has no option but to advance along the set path, you don’t get a lot of interiority on Albert. At a few points I recall him being longsuffering / frustrated at what he had to deal with, but I felt pretty free to fill in his inner life myself, and, given that you have no choice but to address all of the crises, I decided on a sort of highly dedicated service professional vibe.

I actually think it would have been really interesting if say, Albert could decide to assist or frustrate the detective; or to tacitly allow Célina’s blatant theft all night (tantalizingly, she suggests at one point fond feelings for Albert) or turn her in. But that’s not in the game.

But that was all generally fine until the end of the game. I’m not a huge fan of the ending. I had seen the “quit [the compass” / “quit [the game]” ambiguity coming when the compass instructions were initially provided. There’s no option NOT to quit your job, yet quitting then was counter to the characterization I had developed for Albert. Having made it this far, he must be pretty tough and dedicated! Plus Bryce is more cogent now! (Which is going to be, errr, a fascinating transition as they say.). So the end felt jarring, and I didn’t love that the game imposed that choice after providing so little input on Albert’s characterization for most of the playtime (i.e., if that was going to be the ending, it could have been foreshadowed more). I also noticed while I was writing this that I instinctively referred to what “Albert” thinks and does in this whale review. Often in reviews I find myself writing about what “I” or “you” do, which I think indicates that I did not come out of the game feeling a very strong sense of identity with Albert.

(Finally, it feels like the “gag” at the end is that the player types “quit” expecting one thing to happen, but instead, something different happens—this seems a bit dangerous of a move to me. Sure, it creates surprise, but it does so by taking away agency that the player thinks they have.

Front matter
Could better set the table for the game Successfully sets the table for the game Successfully sets the table for the game PLUS

10/10 on blurb and cover art, no notes.

Overall, a highly polished and professional experience, with escalating hilarity in the early and mid-game, although the emotional resolution left me a bit cold.

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