The Guide for Hitchhiker’s, which shows how to traverse the Galaxy, shows humanity what to do with useless people: lawyers, accountants, those who created Call of duty: Ghosts, Justin Bieber, China’s coal, the Republicans. They shall be put in a spaceship and sent on a long journey. “And, their destination?” you ask. The Sun!
While the above situation would solve many of the world’s problems, it does not take into account what all of us cool cats would do to survive afterwards. With those bad blokes gone, food chains and food webs may spiral out of control. Large, non-harmful spiders, like the False Widow, may invade England and the lack of coal to run heaters in China would really upset the Giant Asian Hornets, who would most likely kill like 90 people and stir a media-storm of useless proportions to distract us from real news, like Area 52 in Nevada and nuclear wars. For, if we’ve learned nothing else from computer games, we have learned that nuclear war is inevitable and it will do us all in. So, until then- DO. YOU. WANT TO. PLAY. A GAME?
Daedalic Entertainment’s new adventure game, Journey Of A Roach, stars Jim. We all know the type of guy- err, cockroach that Jim is. Somehow, most likely because he is not human, he was not put on the spaceship to the Sun. Jim is a cockroach, and cockroaches are one of those insects that just won’t die. When the meteor struck Earth and killed all the dinosaurs, which were solely missed by the Creationists that rode them to cave-church, the cockroaches were all chillin’ underground and laughing. Walter White could not have planned it better. Like those cockroaches of yore, Jim and one of his friends, Bud crawled into a bunker and avoided the nuclear war that wiped out humanity. One problem! Now, trapped inside the labyrinth of a bunker, they desperately need to get out.
Unlike Daedalic’s Memoria entries, which were also brilliant in their own right, the problem of getting stuck in overly complex puzzles has been addressed. The batty insects and arachnids that survived along with Jim and Bud all have speech bubbles that offer visual clues to the tasks players are attempting to solve. In addition, as Jim and Bud explore their surroundings there are more visual clues to get them through the mazes.
What separates Journey Of A Roach from its mainstream and indie adventure cohorts is two-fold. First, Jim is terribly unlucky. It, or he, is not a fit leader. However, when Bud discovers a real living flower, all hope is dashed as Bud is pinned down by a canister of nuclear waste. Bud breaks one of his arms, he is attacked by a fish, and these terrible chain of events leave Jim in-charge by default. Later, they meet up with a Spider and Jim inadvertently releases all of her trapped flies. She needs them back, and her old instincts to eat them changes into the need to stroke their icky little wings and to raise them as child-like pets. Thus, everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Jim is the Spinal Tap of Homer Simpsons of insects. Indeed, every character in this game is kooky, but their terrible situations move the action along in a genius fashion, and their oddities make them terribly likable.
Second, Solving the puzzles is fun! Cockroaches can crawl up walls and walk on ceilings. This simple little ability of the insects adds welcome difficulties and dimensions to the puzzles. If that worries you, then Daedalic has thought of you. The first labyrinth in the game is basically a get-to-you-know by showing off how to maneuver. Furthermore, the point and click controls add extra puzzle clues. When the arrow moves over something useful, then the arrow transforms into different symbols. However, because the puzzles are so well-constructed the horde of visual clues doesn’t outweigh the post-apocalyptic crawl party. We’ll say no more, because players are running to their Steam clients or nearest online store to pre-order a copy before it hits shelves on November 4th. Overall, the enjoyable but flawed characters and the funnest puzzles this side of the Sun are a welcome addition to any game library!
