today’s theme, courtesy of the rng-gods: two games where the male player character looks at himself in the mirror, unimpressed
Big Fish by Binggang Zhuo
Playtime: 24 minutes (20 minutes to first ending)
The one where: our dead uncle sends us to investigate a crime
I like that this game gets right to the plot hooks—our uncle has tasked us with uncovering the truth behind his false conviction. Also our uncle has already been executed (by being fed alive to crocodiles!!), but it’s the principle of the thing.
After that we’re off to Big Fish, the titular town where our uncle lived, to investigate. The game hits the classic thriller beats and a few horror beats–sinister things are afoot in Big Fish and dark deeds have been done. These beats landed well and some were genuinely surprising—I was not expecting genetically modified crocodile religion.
Care was taken in assembling the elements of the mystery, and I did enjoy putting it together. (At the end the player is asked to identify the perpetrator). The game was also assembled with some quality of life features of the player that I appreciated. On visiting a location for the second time, new material is highlighted, which is helpful. There’s a number of helpful, if mildly intrusive, notes to the player (you won’t be able to return to this location, etc.)
I was having a good enough time that I even managed to not be annoyed at the final reveal that the PC was keeping a pretty significant secret (that the uncle’s initial letter identified the perpetrator) from the player character the whole time.
The writing as a whole felt unpolished. In addition, two critiques:
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I wish Big Fish had a more distinct sense of place. Yes, bay of crocodiles, but where are we? What are the local cultures and norms? What religion are the people who aren’t crocodile cultists? Are we in the present? Residents at one point mention Americans arriving in town, but presumably that means we are not in the US? Some of the developments surprised me in more of a “huh” way (the inability to go anywhere in town without going to the police station first, the crocodile execution). I think it would help these make sense if the place was set better. Or, to go totally the other direction in a sort of TV show “this happened nowhere and we’re not saying when,” but in that case, I think the details I mentioned would have to be changed to be made blander.
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The project could have used another round of polish. The intro section in the house mentions that you can go back and pack if you want, but you can’t actually take anything from the living room or reenter any of the other rooms. Some of the cuing the reader is very heavy-handed. Why does the same key open safes in different houses? Having more than one epilogue reads as a bit amateurish (I’m not objecting to the content, but it could be in scenes not labelled as epilogues, or in one longer epilogue).
| 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 |
I wondered if the blurb should hit more on the spooky elements, but I can see that perhaps the intent is that those come as a surprise the the player. Which runs the risk of missing out on some people who would be interested in a game with horror elements but not otherwise, but that’s the author’s choice.
Overall, elements of a decent, workmanlike investigation game with some exciting thriller and horror beats, limited by the writing and implementation
Gameplay tips / typos
- In most of the game, the uncle’s name is given as Fleur, but on one page it’s “Fuller” (at least I infer from context that person is the uncle?)
--I did actually look at the equations long enough to conclude, as y’all did, that we didn’t have enough info to get one solution. But I figured I would try inputting numbers and see what happened. That plan didn’t go great.