Inspector Waffles
I’ve been following Inspector Waffles over the past 3 years or so and was extremely happy to have the opportunity to help out in beta testing as well as drawing one of the Woolball cards. The demo version covers the (relatively short) first of five chapters and does a good job of getting you interested in the full game.
Personally, I love the colourful pixel art graphics as well as the hand drawn cutscenes and the quality is consistently good throughout the game, also helped by the atmospheric music and good sound effects. The characters have a lot of personality (not just gruff street smart protagonist Waffles and his adorable partner Spotty, but also the geeky Pixel, the shrewd owner of the antiques store to name but a few) and the story goes surprisingly deep with some intriguing twists, quite a few of which I did not see coming (or at least not very far in advance) but which all made sense given the facts of the case.
– Real player with 32.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Crime Noir Games.
Inspector Waffles is the cat’s meow, hitting the sweet spot for fun in point-and-click adventure games.
I love detective stories; I love point-and-click games, and since Inspector Waffles combines those with cat and dog characters, it was a no-brainer to give it a go. Calling back to genre classics like the Monkey Island franchise, the game hits its comedy notes for a fun adventure in a universe I’d be eager to visit again.
Game Universe
Inspector Waffles takes place in a universe populated by anthropomorphic animals, mostly cats and dogs, with common pet names (e.g., Spotty, Snowball). The player mainly takes on the role of the titular character himself, although there are a couple of scenes where the player acts as Waffles’ supervisor, Patches. Waffles as a character may be intended to be an old school cynical noir detective, but the game’s overall tone is one of humor. The game dialogue is replete with puns and jokes, particularly ones poking fun at cat and dog stereotypes, such as that cats love boxes and that cat booze is strong milk. There are also some humorous fourth wall breaks. The idiosyncrasies of point-and-click games are even sometimes written into the universe, such as the hilarious explanation for limited use magnets.
– Real player with 8.9 hrs in game
Lost and Hound
Epic Games MegaGrant recipient and lauded for its innovation in gameplay and blind accessibility, Lost and Hound is a game like no other that follows the extraordinary Corgi, Biscuit. In Lost and Hound, your empowered canine senses make you a superhero. Heightened hearing and sense of smell will guide your paws as you work towards your goals, saving lives and averting tragedies.
As Biscuit your hearing will allow you to access information that’s inaccessible to humans. You will be able to hear through walls and use the information your audio senses gather to help track people and match up items such as those left at a crime scene with their owners.
Using your superior sense of smell you’ll be able to scent track your way to becoming a dog mercenary. Scent in Lost and Hound is represented by a low, pleasant humming sound. Similar to making your way through a maze where the way out would be invisible under normal circumstances, subtle sound or scent cues will guide you to your query.
As Biscuit you’ll travel around the world taking on many of the roles of real-world working dogs. From working in a hospital to assist with seizure detection and detecting cancer to herding sheep in the rough, Australian outback. Your work as a K9 tracker will take you to Japan, the Swiss Alps, the American wilderness, and many other locales. In between each mission, you’ll have the option to complete mini levels to earn extra money and travel to more exotic locations.
Features:
-
Travel around the world working as the strong-willed Corgi Biscuit.
-
Solve crimes, track down missing people, and assist those in need.
-
Use your superior hearing to listen for accelerated heartbeats, hear through walls, and more to piece together clues.
-
Follow subtle scent clues with your heightened sense of smell represented by sound queues to track leads.
-
Take on the roles of real-world working dogs; assist with seizure detection, be an emotional support for zoo animals, and more.
-
Complete mini levels to earn extra money to fund your K9 travels.
-
Meet new animal friends throughout your travels.
-
Fully blind-accessible.
Read More: Best Crime Cartoony Games.
The Good Life
Just to play through and do the main quest… eh it’s alright. Quirky but it’s fine, just play it then go do another game and forget it ever existed.
To get invested in and mess around? Hell no lol.
From release this was a janky mess of game-breakers and softlocks. The biggest of which was at least patched out (storage).
The content of the game is entirely just “go get this” with everything a convoluted web of ingredients upon ingredients of which everything is a rare drop except meat. Little to no emphasis nor encouragement when it comes being a photographer. Even with thousands of followers, keeping up with the trends on Flamingo barely gives you a few hundred a week so it’s not worth the effort when you could be running around hitting rocks or getting your daily time trial allowance.
– Real player with 170.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Crime Agriculture Games.
Kickstarter backer here, so my review shows as a CD Key review, and will not count towards the overall review score.
That out of the way…
recommending with some serious caveats.
It’s a SWERY game, but not a ‘typical" SWERY game.
Weird, messy, a bit sloppy, a more Eastern POV and stereotype of life in the UK and the West.
Kb/m controls are quite clunky. Controller is better, if the game and Steam recognize your controller (PS4/PS5 recommended- the game seems to reuse towork properly with my XBox One controller).
– Real player with 141.0 hrs in game
Adventures of Human Being
You are hurt and running away from armed men who are hell bent on ending you. You escape just in time to a completely new place. Tired and helpless, you wander around. Until you meet a feline stranger who takes care of you as you heal.
You Only Know One Thing, Kill the King.
Developing friendship, you find out that the king resides in City 4. Solving a roster of interesting puzzles, with new mechanics introduced in every new city, ride on this adventure.
Features:
-
A simple cohesive story keeping the puzzles tied up together.
Each city tells its own tales, introducing new characters with interesting backstories.
-
Minimal choice structures with crucial consequences.
It is a game with essentially a linear story structure. But on few occasions, a companion character asks you to make a choice, which will later prove to be important.
-
Roster of engaging puzzles using the mechanics in new and unexpected ways.
Each city introduces a new puzzle mechanic. And every puzzle builds itself on top of the previous ones, increasing the challenge and also keeping it fresh.
-
1-bit Pixel Art.
Which means, to use a set of only two colours throughout the game, including the UI, menus and the cutscenes.
