Investi-Gator Review

To the average person, it may seem like only a handful of new games come out every week. But, as a person who looks through the “New Releases” tab on Steam every week, I can assure you that dozens of new games are coming out every day. Of course, whenever there is an abundance of quantity, quality is usually scarce, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth sorting through. This week, I’m especially glad I decided to get my hands dirty and sift through the slew of new releases, because I found an adorable little indie game made by a few Bostonians called Investi-Gator: The Case of the Big Crime.

In Investi-Gator: The Case of the Big Crime, players take control of Investi-Gator, an alligator who is also a detective. Great-grandson of the famous detective Sherlock Gator, Investi-Gator strives to live up to the family legacy, but never quite manages to reach the same heights because he’s a bit of a doofus. Players lead Investi-Gator through classic adventure gameplay, finding clues and interrogating witnesses. As Investi-Gator comedically stumbles through the case, it evolves as new clues are discovered and as Investi-Gator remembers what he’s doing.

As you may have already figured out, Investi-Gator is a comedy game. However, it’s not always the comedy game you expect it to be. An early example of this is Investi-Gator entering a crime scene and seeing a mace in the middle of a large puddle of red liquid on the floor. Mousing over the liquid reveals it to be “Crime Gelatin,” but there’s only so many things a red liquid surrounding a blunt object in a crime scene can be. I won’t tell you what it turns out to be, but I’m willing to bet it’s not what you think it is. This humorous bait-and-switch is the core of Investi-Gator’s comedic styling, but it also has some excellent wordplay and meta-jokes.

A comedy game about a lone alligator would be either boring or deeply worrying, so fortunately Investi-Gator is accompanied by an excellent supporting cast. The standout supporting character is Investi-Gator’s noticeably unsupportive brother, Insti-Gator. The dastardly foil to Investi-Gator, he’s set on living up to the name of the brother’s great-granduncle, Moriarty Gator. In spite of his conniving nature, Insti-Gator is only barely smarter than Investi-Gator, it’s enough to trick his brother, but not much else. Insti-Gator takes the role of the antagonist, but also serves as the audience stand-in when the plot goes in a different direction than logic would predict. Joining the gator brothers is a rhino who refuses to use doors to enter a room and instead smashes through walls, a nervous fish with the table manners of a child, a sassy bird with cool shades and excellent hair, and a family of mafia polar bears known as The Crimes. The whole cast is wonderfully written and do an excellent job supporting Investi-Gator.

Being a comedy game, every aspect aside from the writing mostly exists to get players to the next joke. This isn’t to say these aspects aren’t good, they’re just not the star of the show. The gameplay of Investi-Gator is very simple. Players move Investi-Gator around an area and look at, pick up, or talk to various objects and people in the room to further their investigation. All of this is accompanied by the game’s humorous writing so it doesn’t get boring, but it’s certainly not groundbreaking. More accomplished than the gameplay, the music in the game is phenomenal. It’s as if the game’s audio designer put all of the greatest noir movie soundtracks into a big boiling cauldron and reduced them down to their purest essence. Though the game itself isn’t very serious, the excellent execution of classic detective mood music makes the game’s absurdity that much more noticeable and funnier.

In addition to being an excellent comedy game, Investi-Gator has some great ideas that I wish other games would use. My favorite involves the game’s collectible elves. These are little characters you can find throughout the game and are representatives of higher-level backers of the game’s Kickstarter campaign. The elves themselves are fine, but what really impressed me about them is how they were used. If players find all the elves in the game, they gain access to a behind-the-scenes developer commentary area, which is a nice reward for the players who were extra diligent in their investigations. But there’s also an option in the menu that allows players to instantly unlock all the elves. I loved this because it allowed me to get through the story at my own pace without having to worry about combing the game for secrets. I think this approach is great because it helps players play they way they want to, whether it be exploring the map to the fullest or focusing on the story. The other clever idea in Investi-Gator was their use of achievements. At certain points in the game, achievements are used as part of a joke. I don’t know how the developers managed to make them pop up with such great comedic timing, but I wish more games that flirted with meta-humor would use this.

I do have some issues with Investi-Gator. They aren’t big issues, but I do need to talk about them. When an object is clicked on to be interacted with, Investi-Gator makes a beeline for the object regardless of what’s in his way. This means that he occasionally gets caught on things in the environment and has to be redirected. Like I said, not a huge issue but it does interrupt the flow of humor. My other issues with the game is that it’s about 90 minutes long. This is going to seem too short for most of you, but made on a budget of $2000 and selling for only $5, I don’t think this is a rip-off, but I did wish there was more of it.

Investigator: The Case of the Big Crime is of the first true indie games I’ve played in a long time. Unlike other indie games who get scooped up by major publishers and put under the pressure of big budgets and bigger expectations, Investigator is limited in staff and funding, but turned out so well. I really hope that everyone will buy this game, not only because it’s a great game with fantastic jokes, but also because it will gives this team the chance to make another, hopefully longer game. And at $5, it’s not a hard sell.

Buy this game at full price

It’s worth every penny they’re asking