![BROK the InvestiGator Review - Screenshot 1 of 5](https://images.nintendolife.com/screenshots/133321/900x.jpg)
BROK the InvestiGator will get proper to the purpose: you start the sport in a burning room. You naturally begin pointing and clicking to resolve a easy puzzle. This results in one other puzzle: Alligator PI Brok urgently exclaims, “I must get previous that door!” Earlier than your gray matter cogs may even get a-whirring, a dialogue field tells you to press ‘X’ to activate Motion Mode. With a superb little bit of Double Dragon-style – or ought to we are saying Double Crocodile-style! – button mashing, the door puzzle is “solved”. So Cowcat Video games’ playing cards go straight onto the desk: Brok the InvestiGator is a point-and-click, however generally you simply punch stuff to smithereens. However does it have an ace up its sleeve?
Brok is the second recreation to be developed and self-published by indie store Cowcat Video games. The primary was Demetrios, one other point-and-click journey, first launched six years earlier in 2016, which arrived on Swap in 2018. Based mostly in a small city within the south of France, the corporate is a one-person operation, making this second recreation below their belt all of the extra spectacular.
![BROK the InvestiGator Review - Screenshot 2 of 5](https://images.nintendolife.com/screenshots/133320/900x.jpg)
The sport tells the story of its PI alligator protagonist, his teenage cat stepson Graff, and numerous different animal associates. It takes place in a dystopian future, the place “slumers” are second-class residents, banished to reside within the run-down wreckage of previous cities, whereas “drumers” are the privileged few, dwelling in a pristine bubble run and guarded by robots. Affected by guilt after a traumatic occasion, Brok is making an attempt to get his life on monitor whereas elevating Graff. Graff is navigating his teenagers and the college exams that may earn him the standing of “drumer”. Kicking off – like so many a superb gumshoe yarn – with a mysterious cellphone name, Brok takes on a case that results in the unravelling of one thing a lot greater.
The early puzzles are pretty shallow, to say the least. A number of the objects within the recreation – like a distant management that works on cameras, or a tool that detects “good intents” – really feel so contrived that they may as nicely be known as issues like “Resolution to puzzle quantity 14” or “Opener for that specific door”. Nonetheless, this does enhance as the sport will get going.
One puzzle sequence that takes place in a holding cell feels virtually Day of the Tentacle-esque. We have been reminded of discovering and manipulating the quirks of the Edison home and its inhabitants, simply on a smaller scale. There’s one thing inherently amusing about studying the patterns of characters’ behaviour, then treating them as cogs in a puzzle machine, making them repeat their actions endlessly till you’ve cracked it. Right here, the jail guard’s essentially infinite persistence on this affair, whereas having their time repeatedly wasted by their very own prisoner, is hilarious.
![BROK the InvestiGator Review - Screenshot 3 of 5](https://images.nintendolife.com/screenshots/133317/900x.jpg)
In the identical scene, there’s one other similarity to Day of the Tentacle: you possibly can management a number of characters and change between them. Not like that LucasArts basic of the ’90s, nevertheless, this isn’t leveraged for puzzle design. On our playthrough, we utterly solved Brok’s stepson Graff’s facet of the chapter with out enjoying Brok’s half in any respect. The cut up situations of the characters simply present a change of scene when you get caught, fairly than some type of four-dimensional Tetris.
Speaking of getting caught, the trace system in Brok is kind of uncommon. Straight-up textual content hints will be allotted through the in-game menu: issues like “Discuss to so-and-so” or “Return to such-and-such location”. Nonetheless, these hints are solely dished out at the price of an “advert” – a small collectible promoting flyer hidden someplace across the recreation world. Amassing these advertisements requires shut examination and thorough interplay, changing into a trackable achievement in its personal proper. In principle, you would possibly clear up a puzzle for your self as a facet impact of trying to find an advert to get a touch. In follow, nevertheless, we all the time had loads of advertisements, in order a touch system, it’s not probably the most elegant, however as a lift to replayability it really works. Very similar to the sport itself, it’s mixing two issues that don’t essentially play off each other very intuitively – however finally ends up being enjoyable.
![BROK the InvestiGator Review - Screenshot 4 of 5](https://images.nintendolife.com/screenshots/133322/900x.jpg)
The writing feels a bit ropey at first. Maybe because of translation into English, it lacks an edge, as do the overly-earnest characters at the beginning of the sport. Nonetheless, regardless of some proofreading errors within the on-screen textual content, it does discover its ft. At occasions, the sport veers in direction of visible novel territory, with prolonged conversations between characters with onscreen portraits and even the prospect to place clues collectively in a means harking back to Ace Lawyer or Hercule Poirot: The First Circumstances. It took us some time to heat to the characters sufficient to tolerate the longer speaking sections, however when the writing is briefer and serving the gameplay it’s no less than completely practical.
One spectacular feat is the implementation of various routes by way of the sport. Many puzzles have a number of options – normally characterised by considering or preventing – however these are couched within the choices of the characters. It feels significant when you determine to rise to provocation from a college bully or to cease your hot-headedness from getting the higher of you.
And there are generally penalties to taking the tough method which can be greater than superficial. Once we missed our son’s science honest as a result of we obtained slammed up within the slammer for slamming a number of too many robots, it slammed our heartstrings. Too usually, branching story paths can simply be an administrative burden of making an attempt to tick off all of the methods the story might have gone. Right here, it feels mysterious with out being obtuse and was the factor that lastly made us care in regards to the characters – albeit a good few hours into the sport.
![BROK the InvestiGator Review - Screenshot 5 of 5](https://images.nintendolife.com/screenshots/133318/900x.jpg)
Till now, the pairing of branching paths and fist-fights in a graphic journey has been timelessly related to the bleepy-bloopy, mouse-and-keyboard-rattling skirmishes of LucasArts’ 1992 title Indiana Jones and the Destiny of Atlantis. It’s honest to say that, 30 years later, Cowcat Video games has discovered a greater method to pull off that specific area of interest combo.
Conclusion
Brok the Investigator is a real unique. It’s a hodge-podge of point-and-click, side-scrolling beat-‘em-up, visible novel, and find-the-object. More often than not, these disparate concepts sit barely awkwardly alongside each other, however regardless of a gradual begin we did finally really feel a little bit spark and the entire thing turned greater than the sum of its elements. It is all of the extra spectacular provided that it is simply the second recreation from a one-person studio. Graphic journey followers ought to completely contemplate thoughtfully pointing and clicking it onto their wishlist – or simply drop-kicking the heck out of the purchase button.