Dropsy

It’s difficult to describe how one feels about Dropsy after having played through it: is it the same unease I feel after the various dream sequences in the game, or the empathy I feel for a deeply-troubled yet sympathetic main character? Maybe it’s more important to consider that I’m writing all of this to talk about a game that is essentially about a clown spreading joy with the power of warm, damp hugs…

Dropsy is a creative point-and-click adventure that makes one question what it takes to be a great hero figure of this genre. Dropsy, an odd, creepy, yet endearing clown, is the protagonist of the game, who stumbles upon an unfolding conspiracy surrounding a certain traumatic event, which resulted in the death of several townspeople and Dropsy’s mother. Along the way, you’ll find collectible tapes and statue pieces, gain animal companions with various abilities that can be used to solve puzzles and otherwise progress through the game and, of course, hug everything and everyone that can or wants to be hugged.

Through more than just the delightfully funny hugging mechanic, the gameplay also presents unique qualities in that it does not contain any written dialogue or signage to explain anything to the player. Even the UI is completely handled without use of language; options are explained with use of pictures in a concise and effective matter and NPCs communicate with speech shown through pictographic bubbles. This is a wonderful way to set the game apart and encourages a great amount of inductive thinking on the part of the player, as well as encouraging the player to investigate and examine everything in the environment. However, the sometimes vague nature of the storytelling exacerbates common issues with point-and-click adventure games, mainly a disconnect between the reasoning the developer intends and the reasoning of the player. There are moments where I was expected to do something either contradictory or otherwise counter-intuitive to formula of gameplay I had come to understand. For instance, there is a situation where Dropsy is supposed to hug a character twice, despite the fact that the hug was not well-received the first time and there being no indication that simply hugging someone again is enough to change their mind without any action done to change the expected outcome of the second hug. There is also the regular pitfall of some unclear reasoning needed to solve a few of the puzzles in this game, which leads to the classic "try everything with everyone and everything else" approach in a desperate search for a solution. That being said, I found myself completely stuck in only two instances, unable to understand the way in which the developer intended me to arrive at their conclusion to the problem. The rest of the game is structured quite well, with the more challenging puzzles of the game being quite rewarding to accomplish.

The atmosphere in Dropsy is as interesting as it is difficult to describe to people who have not experienced it and is perhaps the game's greatest strength. The initial cut scene of the game has Dropsy in a dream sequence, in which he re-lives a traumatic moment of his life (a major plot point that drives the rest of the game), that is both disturbing and jarring; a complete contrast to the playful and carefree world I expected diving into the game. It works as a nice foreshadowing to the underlying conflict that lurks in the world of Dropsy and it’s exactly this that makes the world of Dropsy unique; a sweetness on the surface shadowed by a looming evil, of which Dropsy thinks to be all but behind him. The great and joyful artwork of the background is often accented with corporate advertisements from large pharmaceutical companies promising longer life and the down-trodden faces of the depressed citizens of the town and the surrounding area. The score of the game serves this feeling as well, personifying the childlike wonder with which Dropsy sees his world, although there is enough time between the reminders of Dropsy’s past and the new, truly endearing moments the player creates by solving the problems around the rather expansive map of the town for the player to lose themselves in the joy of this weird clown’s world; from junkyards to back alleys, calm beach fronts to secret alien crash sites, the pixelated world is as varied as it is detailed.

Despite some shortcomings, Dropsy is still a thoroughly enjoyable point-and-click adventure that has a thought-provoking story to tell and is dripping with charm; but like an adorable runny-nosed kid, some of that dripping might have some players who aren’t big fans of the genre keeping it at arms-length. Overall, Dropsy is a great game for the price, and a great game for adventure fans in search of a very different, yet enthralling story.