Indie Game of the Week 416: Later Alligator

Crocodilia is an order well-represented in games between Indies like Lil Gator Game or major releases like the beloved (by someone, presumably, if they thought to remaster it) 3D platformer series Croc. Something about those long snouts or their crafty smiles evokes the idea of them being little stinkers with a rich inner life of silly thoughts and goofing around when they're not clamping down on unexpecting prey and dragging them underwater to slowly drown in a combination of panic, fear, and pain. They're just a bunch of fun guys! Later Alligator also taps into the inherent comedic potential of these prehistoric freshwater predators by creating an alternative New York City populated by a collection of eccentric characters, most of whom are related somehow, that the player is tasked to interrogate as they investigate a possible "hit" sent out on the paranoid scaredy-gator Pat. As Pat's mysterious pinstripe-suited new friend, it's your job to locate Pat's family members who are all participating in "the event" later that evening and dig up whatever dirt you can on what said event might entail.

Really, the story's an excuse to set up a series of dialogue jokes and mini-games, both of varying quality. As you talk to each family member they'll invariably need your help with something, bringing you to a small puzzle or action mini-game that will lead to a hint about the event should you successfully complete it. Some are based on hoary pre-existing mini-game formats like Flappy Bird, Tower of Hanoi, Old Maid, Those Sliding Block Puzzles No-one Seems to Like (that the game offers to auto-solve for you), the fly-swatting game from Mario Paint, and more in that vein. Others homage contemporary games, like one where you help a tall triangular gator repair his smartphone in a somewhat invasive manner similar to A Normal Lost Phone or one where you take a proxy version of Like a Dragon's Goro Majima out on a date Tokimeki Memorial style (which, well, I guess it beats pigeons). I'll applaud the variety but given Later Alligator's unserious and humorous nature these mini-games frequently tend to feel as tossed off as the gags.

Visually, the game's riffing on film noir in your role as tireless gumshoe so it's mostly a combination of monochrome urban backdrops juxtaposed by its largely green-tinted cast. Not only is this an aesthetic choice but the color also helps emphasize what you can interact with as you travel across the city looking for wayward relatives. The music, too, nails the particular era it's going for—though it ought to be said that no attempt is made to stay accurate to its 1930s setting, given the number of mini-games revolving around smartphones—with some equally appropriate jams applicable to whatever joke the game is telling at the moment. The animation perhaps warrants the most attention, as it's buttery smooth and assists in establishing the distinct personalities of its many characters, such as the hyperactive kid Diamond Alice or the jittery Pat. I will also say on the whole that the dialogue is very well-written for the most part, with some sharp wit and amusing non-sequiturs

However, this game is also annoying as hell. Yep, time to get snappy about an alligator game, how germane. For one, the game has a time limit that occasionally forces you back to Pat's hotel room to complete some compulsory mini-game or other, interrupting whatever you were out in the city doing. Eventually, some time after 6pm, you're required to then finish the game and see this "event" for yourself: there's little chance of visiting every relative before then though, so the game introduces a new game plus mode that carries over your progress so you can see the rest. There's no real reason this time limit exists, then, other to cause FOMO anxiety and make you jump through a bunch of extra and unnecessary hoops (as well as complete at least one of those Pat mini-games more than once across subsequent runs). The mini-games themselves are real hit-and-miss, more so than the jokes anyway, and some are downright unpleasant either due to their half-assed construction (which, fair, since there's a lot of them and presumably only a few devs working on them all) or, well, you heard me mention Tower of Hanoi and sliding block puzzles earlier. I can understand wanting to give your jokey adventure game a Layton-esque flair for a bit of extra substance but given the overall quality level of these mini-games perhaps this is a case of "less is more". Those mini-games also made the achievements, some of which demanded a high level of competency for a few of the more irksome mini-games while others required you beat certain related groups of mini-games in a single run, far more irritating than it needed to be. I know most reviews gloss over achievements (largely since most developers do that too) but I'm the type to review games holistically—it's also why I tend to walk away from open-world games with many moving parts with some degree of dissatisfaction, since so much of them tend to feel like gratuitous bloat—and so I'll probably remember this game less for its cute little jokes about alligators and more for that horrendous approximation of pinball I was required (in invisible air quotes) to earn 15,000 points on despite some extremely questionable physics.

Some part of me wants to rep Later Alligator for being a wholesomely silly game about asking around about some jumpy kid's obvious surprise birthday party and encountering a number of unexpected surprises and random acts of frivolity with funny writing, and that its cuteness and earnestness should save it from anything too harsh by way of a critique, but... man. Maybe I just haven't been getting enough sleep lately (in fact, I know I heaven't: I stayed up overnight to meet a 9am appointment with the guy installing the new router, though on the plus side I now have internet speeds appropriate for the 21st century) but I just found myself regularly enervated by the gameplay's fangsome foibles. Between playing through the game a third time because I just missed winning over the entire extended family of this one gator and getting the true ending—which meant killing a lot of hours riding around on trams on the third run until it was finally time to once again complete the very long and boring dark maze that leads you to the story's conclusion—and gunning for those achievements like an OCD fool, I can't say my overall impression was a strongly positive one. Playing this casually and unseriously, though? You'll probably be just peachy.

Rating: 3 out of 5.