The Wardrobe

Developer: C.I.N.I.C. Games | Publisher: Adventure Productions | Release Date: 2017 | Genre: Adventure | Website: Official Website | Purchase: Steam

The last thing that Skinny expected when he goes on a picnic with his best friend Ronald is that he would end up dead. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happens when Ronald gives Skinny a plumb, which sends him into anaphylactic shock. While a terrified Ronald flees the scene, Skinny mysteriously turns into a skeleton. In another unexpected twist of fate, Skinny ends up living in Ronald’s wardrobe and watching over him. It turns out that Ronald hasn’t spoken a word since the accident and is unaware of the skeleton that is quite literally in his closet. Skinny discovers that in order to save his friend’s soul from eternal damnation he must get Ronald to confess what happened to someone. The only problem is that Ronald’s family has decided to move and it seems like Skinny, along with the wardrobe, has stayed behind. It is up to players to help Skinny figure out how to get his wardrobe to the new house and help save his best friend.

The Wardrobe, from C.I.N.I.C. Games, doesn’t make any attempt to hid the fact that it is a love-letter to point & click adventure games from the nineties. With its hand illustrated backgrounds and 2D art, it definitely brings back memories of an era when Sierra and Lucasarts ruled the roost. This doesn’t mean that The Wardrobe feels dated in any way. Visually the game is bursting with color and detail, while each scene is packed to the gills with references to pop culture and homages to other games. In fact, most of the backgrounds are so littered with these references that at times The Wardrobe feels like a pop culture hidden object game. This could easily have resulted in a game where players had to pixel hunt for usable objects, but the game sidesteps this annoyance with a button that highlights all the hotspots on the screen. You also only have four actions for each hotspot, which includes looking at it, picking it up, using it or talking to it. These are all accessible by right-clicking on something and then selecting the action you want to perform. In true point and click adventure tradition, Skinny also carries around a large amount of inventory items with him. To free up screen space, these are all displayed inside his rib-cage, which is revealed with a flick of the mouse scroll wheel. Skinny does walk a little slow, but eventually you gain access to a map to fast travel between locations. You still have to walk to the individual screens of these locations, but it is better than nothing.

The Wardrobe takes place during the course of a single day and, fortunately for Skinny, that day just happens to be Halloween. This means that after figuring out a way to escape the house while avoiding the movers, he is pretty much free to roam the streets without drawing too much attention.

The game also features some nice locations, including a house party, the sewers, a graveyard and museum. In order to transport his wardrobe from the local junkyard to where it needs to go, Skinny will have to do everything from operating heavy machinery to playing cupid and even traveling in time. The game definitely doesn’t take itself too seriously and Skinny also has a penchant for frequently breaking the fourth wall to inform players when they are being stupid.

Despite only being able to really interact with a few hotspots per scene, The Wardrobe is anything but easy. Unlike early adventure games, especially those from Sierra, you cannot waste items or get yourself killed, but don’t expect a free ride to the end. Some of the puzzles in this game requires a lot of lateral thinking and it is very easy to overlook something or fail to make the leap of logic required for some solutions. We were stuck for ages because we didn’t talk to a character again when something new was revealed and hit another wall due to not realizing that an item we already used can be interacted with again. It is these type of scenarios that will probably frustrate players who are not experienced with how challenging old-school adventure games could be.

The Wardrobe features a large cast of wacky characters and all of them feature full voice acting. Surprisingly enough, most of the actors actually do a pretty decent job with the way they give life to their characters. Considering how bizarre some of the characters are this is quite impressive. The biggest compliment that we can give to the soundtrack is that it sounds exactly like something out of a classic point & click adventure. None of the tunes are annoying and all of them feels like a good fit for the scenes where they are played. The sound effects are many and varied, although at times it can feel like there are too many of them crammed into some scenes. The area at the top of the stairs at the house party in particular is a cacophony due to a rambling parrot, nauseous person and DJ. Overall though, the audio is very good and definitely makes the gameworld feel more alive.

There are some great point & click adventure titles, most notably from Wadjet Eye Games, that reproduce the look of early titles perfectly. On the other hand, The Wardrobe captures the essence of those early titles, but isn’t afraid to give it a high definition coat of pixels. It is a thoroughly entertaining adventure, but keep in mind that you will get stuck at some point due to the high difficulty level of the puzzles. If this is something that you can live with then by all means give The Wardrobe a chance.