Bucket Detective

Developer: the whale husband | Publisher: the whale husband | Release Date: 16 February 2017 | Genre: Adventure / Psychological / Horror | Website: Official Website | Purchase: Steam

Bucket Detective is one of those games where describing the premise accurately somehow makes it sound like we are making it up.

You play as David Davids, an aspiring author who desperately wants to finish his terrible novel, Bucket Detective. Rather than dealing with writer’s block in the conventional way, David approaches a mysterious cult which promises him divine inspiration in exchange for helping them complete a ritual. Predictably, this turns out to involve considerably more than attending a meeting and filling out some paperwork.

What follows is a very short first-person horror comedy that sends players through the cult’s headquarters, following increasingly bizarre instructions while deciding just how far they are prepared to go for David’s literary ambitions.

Almost immediately, the game establishes a strange mixture of crude humour, unsettling imagery and genuine horror that never really settles into one comfortable tone. One moment you’re are laughing at some ridiculous piece of dialogue or environmental joke, and the next you’re are standing in front of something genuinely disturbing wondering what exactly you have gotten yourself involved with. That unpredictability is easily one of the game’s strongest qualities.

Mechanically, Bucket Detective is mostly a first-person walking simulator with a small number of interactions and extremely easy puzzles. Players explore rooms, examine objects, listen to instructions, locate items and occasionally perform whatever deeply questionable task the cult currently requires. Standard WASD movement and mouse controls are joined by a simple interaction key, so there is very little mechanical complexity to learn.

The puzzles are similarly basic. There are only a handful of them, and none should keep players stuck for particularly long. One early sequence involves working out a telephone-related puzzle, while another later section revolves around performing the “Believer’s Waltz” by responding correctly to musical cues. They provide some welcome interaction beyond simply walking through corridors, but anybody approaching Bucket Detective expecting a substantial puzzle game will be disappointed.

The puzzles are really there to maintain pacing rather than challenge players. That is probably for the best considering how short the whole thing is. A first playthrough takes around 40–45 minutes, and seeing the remaining endings only adds another twenty minutes or so once you know where the important decisions occur. The story is therefore doing most of the heavy lifting. The cult’s headquarters is filled with strange artwork, handwritten instructions, and increasingly unpleasant evidence of what its members have been doing. The game does not rely particularly heavily on conventional jump scares. Instead, much of the discomfort comes from wandering deeper into somewhere you clearly should not be while calmly being asked to participate in things that become increasingly awful.

Some of those elements are genuinely disturbing. There is gore, bodily mutilation, sexual imagery, abuse and some particularly unpleasant material surrounding the cult’s ritual. Bucket Detective frequently presents horrible things alongside deliberately stupid jokes, creating a strange tonal clash that will either make the game more memorable or make it extremely difficult to enjoy.

There are several moments where we found ourselves thinking: “What the hell are we doing?” Which is almost certainly the intended response. The protagonist does not exactly help matters. David is selfish, unpleasant and so desperate to become a successful writer that he is willing to cooperate with almost anything if he believes there might be something in it for him. Rather than playing a heroic outsider investigating a dangerous cult, players are effectively controlling somebody stupid enough to willingly walk into one because he hopes it might fix his book.

That makes the decisions surprisingly interesting. Players can simply obey every instruction, but are not required to. At several points, it is possible to leave instead of continuing. Other decisions allow players to disobey the cult at important moments, and these choices ultimately determine which of the game’s five main endings players receive. Some endings also have slight variations depending on exactly what was done  beforehand. This gives a game that barely lasts an hour considerably more replay value than we initially expected.

After finishing once, players can load directly into earlier sections rather than replaying everything from the beginning, making it quick to experiment with different choices and discover the remaining endings. That is especially useful because seeing multiple endings is genuinely worthwhile. They are not simply different coloured versions of the same conclusion. Each provides its own short epilogue explaining what ultimately became of David and his wonderful literary career, often with predictably ridiculous or unpleasant consequences.

There is also nearly an hour of optional developer commentary included in the game, which is actually longer than a normal playthrough. It provides behind-the-scenes discussion about the game’s development and gives completionists another reason to go through the environments after seeing the story.

Visually, Bucket Detective has a deliberately ugly and unsettling presentation. The environments are simple 3D interiors filled with strange furniture, shrines and repeated artwork, while the more elaborate illustrations use a cartoonish style that clashes wonderfully with some of the horrific things being depicted. Several paintings are deliberately reused throughout the building, even receiving an in-universe joke explaining the repetition. It was  funny the first time we noticed it, although the limited environmental variety does become obvious fairly quickly. This is definitely not a game we would describe as technically impressive. But attractive graphics would probably make it less effective.

The cheap-looking interiors, bizarre drawings and awkward character models contribute to the feeling that we have wandered into some deeply questionable place that should not exist. It reminds us somewhat of The Stanley Parable in the way a familiar first-person walking format is used to explore player choice and absurdity, although Bucket Detective is much darker, much smaller and considerably more interested in making us uncomfortable.

The soundtrack and sound design are stronger than the visuals. Music is used sparingly, which makes the stranger audio moments stand out considerably more. The Believer’s Waltz is particularly memorable because player actions trigger musical cues as part of the sequence, turning a simple interaction into one of the game’s more distinctive moments. There is also a well-delivered audio tour guiding players through parts of the cult’s headquarters. Combined with the strange voices, ambient sounds and sudden audio changes, it gives the otherwise basic environments considerably more personality.

There is no conventional combat system and very little actual danger, yet the game can still make players uncomfortable simply through atmosphere and implication. That makes the disturbing moments considerably more effective when they finally arrive. The biggest weakness is simply how little game there actually is. The puzzles are very easy, the environments are limited, and a single playthrough ends almost immediately. Even seeing all five endings and collecting every achievement will not turn Bucket Detective into a substantial experience.But its brevity also prevents the strange humour and grotesque imagery from becoming exhausting.