Review of:
Bad Beer by Vivienne Dunstan
(IFDB)
If you’d like to see the other games reviewed this year, or understand my approach, head to the main page.
A pub with bad beer is worse than one with no beer. No beer is just the state of things - perhaps celebrating too much, or miscalculation of stock. Bad beer is worse. Sinister. There was fine beer and it was ruined.
I was primed for a mystery most foul, and ready to give someone their comeuppance once I read Bad Beer’s straightforward prologue:
The landlord at the local pub has been having trouble with the beer for a while. First one drink occasionally tasted bad, then another, until now he’s almost scared to pull a pint. He’s called you in for advice. Can you figure out what’s going wrong?
My little prediction to myself was there would be a corpse found in the kegs. A bitter Midsummer murder. A hoppy horror. A foamy fatality. Okay, I’ll stop there.
Bad Beer has much simpler aspirations. Small pub, small mystery. You are given free rein to explore the pub and its surrounds, which pleases my parser brain greatly. You can talk to the barman, the women in the kitchen and generally poke around.
My expectations of a line of potential murderers, some evidence of a foul deed, that all evaporated once I explored the small pub. So there isn’t a grand conspiracy or a grisly murder. There is something a little more local, more historic. A little more spooky.
Bad Beer hits on a bunch of effective spooky tropes: lights flickering, doors banging, chill spots, faces in windows… There is definitely some sort of ghost, but in classic form, you don’t immediately know if it is malevolent or just stuck in this mortal realm.
Unfortunately at this bit I got stuck, having not found the hidden item, and I was worried there was a secret “follow the invisible ghost” puzzle. There isn’t but once you find the thing, the rest of the game plays out pretty steadily.
I even got a good ending! The end puzzle could have done with some more environmental cues, but it was fine. I was hoping for a bit more indulgence in the story and setting, but Bad Beer does what it should and ends. The denouement was quick because the rest of the game was.
To use an Australian measuring system, Bad Beer is a schooner of a game. Smaller than a pint of beer, bigger than the glasses in a tasting flight of beer. Not something to nestle in on by itself for too long, but definitely refreshing. As a beer itself, it has a good head, nothing too complex or extreme in the choices of malts or hops. Just a honest draw, no beer foam logos or anything fancy like that. Not really a session beer, but a light beer for regulars to relax over.