Review of:
The Bat by Chandler Groover
(IFDB)
If you’d like to see the other games reviewed this year, or understand my approach, head to the main page.
The difference between a butler and a valet is a butler looks after the household staff and general operations, whereas (traditionally) the valet focusses solely on serving and assisting the male head of the household. In The Bat, you are the valet to Master Bryce Wyatt. The distinction is made quite clear as almost all the other staff have quit in digust and you are left to tend to the very rich, very eccentric fuckup just as a large fundraiser is about to kick off in the Wyatt mansion.
And it gets worse from there.
The Bat is a skillfully made disaster game. It is separated into parts, the first being you preparing the house for the party. The place is already a mess, but this first part introduces both the crazy antics of the Master and orients you geographically. You’ll need it once the guests start arriving and chaos befalls the house like an avalanche of pudding.
The Bat uses a simplified version of parser mechanics: apart from moving and examining things, the only other verb is, appropriately, ATTEND. Oh, and THINK which just gives you the current laundry list of calamities to attend to. You need a simple interface because of all the complexity and randomness in the night itself. About my only issue with this is if you choose your object incorrectly (ATTEND TRAY rather than ATTEND DRINKS) it puts the tray down rather than contextually filling the tray with drinks. But it’s not that big a deal. I wonder if it would have done equally as well as a Twine game, but perhaps the interface would look too daunting.
While chaos gathers like sedimentary layers on the house, and you’re trying to please all the guests (with a running total of their donations as a pseudo-score), the mounting pressure is mostly just narrative. I don’t think you can actually fail for being too tardy, but as the valet, you feel honour-bound to keep on your toes. So while there’s pressure it doesn’t ultimately matter. There is a much harder game idea here akin to Sugarlawn where you’re trying to optimize your movement and pick the bigger disaster to avert, but The Bat does well to stick to presenting a funny maelstrom of story rather than a giant combinatorial problem. And so focussing on the story allows for tight inventory limits - you only have two hands to hold things but unlimited pocket space for small trinkets - without feeling like an arbitrary restriction. Of course you have to dump the drinks tray, you’ve got a flaming curtain to throw in the pond!
All the characters are great, and while recognizable as Batman villains it doesn’t matter if you don’t get it. Master Bruce Wayne, I mean, Bryce Wyatt being a beastly bat-man (or man-bat) throughout was a nice way to keep the chaos going, as well as remove the most competent man from the proceedings, leaving you to that title. My favourite little character detail was the Countess Orlofsky turning into Detective Gunderson by merely donning a deer-stalker hat. It happens just when you’ve drained your ability to be exasperated or bewildered at the goings-on, so the comedic timing is spot on.
Despite being a very stressful game in the moment, this game does very well in pretty much all regards. The writing is hilarious, the characters are great, there is a whole armoury of Chekhov’s guns that go off and the final moment is chef’s kiss… Some of the interludes were neither here nor there for, but I appreciated them as a pressure valve release from the chaos. The finale on the roof was slightly confusing to me, despite all the hints the characters were dropping. I did enjoy the many opportunities to use the Master as a battering ram.
I’ve regularly wondered about a similar game, but purely emergent with AI guests doing their own things and the chaos unfolding systematically. I think The Bat does it better with a tight grip on the story and pacing, and being able to craft beautiful contrivances that make good use of the characters and setting.
I think The Bat is definitely a front-runner for IF Comp winner. And maybe even XYZZY for Most alarming use of a Moose head.