Ahh, it's great to be back in the comforting embrace of the traditional point-and-click genre, after some earlier tangential dalliances this year with the likes of The Wolf Among Us and those HOPAs I've been experimenting with. I have plans for plenty more of these this year, between Indie Game of the Week and the upcoming return of May Maturity, and Bear With Me is a fine game to start us off. A parodic noir game that nonetheless manages to effectively balance its off-kilter, oft meta humor and occasional bouts of dramatic tension - sort of the same combination that Discworld Noir had, though with a different sort of energy - Bear With Me concerns a girl, her teddy bear private detective partner, a cardboard city full of anthropomorphic toys, and an insidious "red man" who is causing mayhem wherever he goes.

The entire game is depicted in black and white, with the sole exceptions of Ted's Max Payne-style comic panel noir monologues, and the various traces of the red man's influence or presence (which are, of course, red). The actual character art and backdrops is fairly perfunctory, so the added layer of style really helps the game establish itself and its mood when compared to the many other Indie adventure games jostling for the limelight. Bear With Me also has some half-decent voice-acting (the intonations can be a little off) and an equally solid script, and goes out of its way to give every minor, inconsequential hotspot - like the many lamps and paintings on the walls of the explorable part of Amber's house that comprises the first episode - a little joke or non-sequitur to go with it. One memorable instance involved examining a wall lamp like any other only to be met with a panicked call for a help from one of the team's designers, before he is summarily knocked out and dragged away in an uncomfortably long foley-based sound clip - the duo of playable characters shrug it off, and the description for the achievement you get from it tells you not to bring it up again. Small touches like that can really elevate the moment-to-moment exploration in an adventure game, between when you encounter a new zone and after you complete the one or two objectives you have there before moving on.

Beyond that, there's nothing really that sets Bear With Me apart from the crowd. A lot of adventure games take upon themselves hooks or distinctive features to give themselves an edge: switching between multiple protagonists with different skillsets, for instance, or having to complete Layton-style brainteasers in order to progress. For better or worse, Bear With Me eschews the bells and whistles for as traditional an experience as you can get from this genre, and while I can't speak for the other two episodes - I do intend on picking them up together someday, so maybe that'll be a sequel entry for IGotW - I don't see Bear With Me changing its mind on this approach. As long as the rest of the game has the same focus on maintaining the dialogue and plotting and incidental humor, I can't say I disagree with the choices it's made.

For the sake of disclosure, this first episode of Bear With Me was a gift from former mod and fellow adventure game enthusiast @sparky_buzzsaw, and by a complete coincidence - I actually plan these Indie Game of the Week entries weeks in advance, despite all evidence to the contrary - that same first episode was yesterday made free for everybody to celebrate the complete collection becoming available on Steam. My timing could've been better, but I suppose that means that there's less of an excuse now to check that first episode out (hint, hint, @vinny). I think it's definitely a promising start if you like your point-and-click games on the classic side and, while some of its puzzles are a little obtuse, it does the contemporary adventure game thing of reducing the number of hotspots and areas to explore to minimize the frustration of not knowing what to do or where to go next. (Though, considering Indie games and their limited budgets for art assets and environments, there's probably a little bit of serendipity at play too.) I'd have recommended the first episode back when it was still being offered for a small price; presently, it's a steal.

Rating: 4 out of 5. (So far.)