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0 I recently took a dive into uncharted waters to take a closer look at Harold Halibut, a narrative-driven story game released on the 16th of April on all platforms. It’s also available on Xbox Game pass to download for anyone with a membership.
The developer, Slow Bros, has gone above and beyond crafting this game using a mix of Claymation and digital effects. Take an underwater journey with me as I see what’s under the surface of this interesting-looking game.
A QUIRKY GAME WITH HEART AND SOLE
Nothing beats a cozy, chill story game with an abundance of great narrative and interesting characters. There are so many out there too and over the years I’ve spent many an hour getting lost in them.
What are your favourite narrative adventures and what draws you to them? This game excels at balancing the story well where you feel you flow with the main character through the story. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Gameplay
It’s story time! Get comfy as this quirky and charming game takes you on an adventure like no other. Harold Halibut is our main protagonist. He’s a bit of a dreamer and often gets lost in his own head. Quite relatable.
He lives aboard a sub-aquatic facility on a distant planet. The community there has been there for a while and life revolves around water and the aquatic life surrounding them.
Harold’s job is maintenance and armed with his trusty tools he aids everyone from scientists to vendors throughout the community. You get busy with your tasks, fixing this and cleaning that, around the many interesting locations.
For the most part, the game is very mundane, from its slow conversation style to its monotonous tasks. This game seems to thrive on this and expects the gamer to focus more on the journey of Harold.
His interactions however mundane allow you to focus on the finer details. You go about your jobs in the facility. As you interact with the other inhabitants you learn of their stories. More often than not you become a part of them.
The main character you interact with is lead scientist Jeanne Mareaux. Jeanne works tirelessly to find a way for the ship to leave the planet and find a new, dryer home. Others are dotted around by a rebellious kid who shows Harold unseen areas, other scientists, and even the postman.
The Mystery Deepens
Through all of these interactions you build up more of an understanding about the past, present, and future of the community. I particularly found the time spent with the postman going through old letters. Each letter fits like a loose jigsaw piece to give a bigger picture to the entire world.
Time spent with the energy scientist gives you work operating the scientific machinery in a kind of arcade-like game.
What at first seemed like a mundane playthrough, gradually evolves into a story-rich adventure where you look forward to each discovery As you get lost in eating up the little morsels of story you also start to notice not all is as it seems.
As you progress things crop up to hint at some uneasiness around the facility from graffiti, posts that you come across, and conversations you overhear. Not all are as carefree as you are led to believe. Just like the discovery of personal stories, the journey of discovering this dark underbelly of the community becomes addictive.
Soon enough Harold Halibut gets exploring areas I hadn’t visited much in search of every hint at the bigger picture. It isn’t until a few hours into the game you come across the part alien, part fish-like creature you see in the promotional images and video. From thereon, the game takes an even stranger yet compelling turn.
Graphics & Audio
Due to its Claymation look, I was brought back to childhood shows such as Thomas the Tank Engine, Bagpuss, Morph, and many more. The attention to detail given to the games is jaw-dropping but when you find out it was all hand-crafted and digitally scanned just blows your mind. Each scene, character, item, and more were meticulously molded by hand to create the game.
The facial expressions and everything finer in detail were digitally altered to suit the stop-motion style. I wouldn’t mind seeing more games of this art style as every new area is a feast for the eyes.
The music is just as quirky as its unusual scenes and characters and suits it very well. Most of the time however it is the environment that you hear most of the time giving the impression of being in an underwater world. Every sound effect is also given a lot of detail. The character’s footsteps sound like they really connect giving an even more tactile feel to the Claymation design.
The voice acting throughout is amazing too. The scientist’s voice-over shows skill in quickly speaking out complex scientific terminology. The voices of other characters from the quirkier ones to the more subdued ones adequately draw you in with their performance.
Longevity
I spent around four hours playing through the first half of the game and foresaw many hours to come having not even scratched the surface of the overall story and only just getting to more interesting discoveries.
The average time to cover it all is around nine hours overall. It’s a slow-burning game but, if given enough time, it will slowly flower into a story-rich, entertaining, and interesting detective mystery.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I enjoyed diving feet-first into this quirky and interesting narrative-driven mystery. While some may be deterred due to short attention spans or needing that quirk and fast-paced content this game will reward you for your time spent fishing for clues and unspooling the mystery.
I’d encourage anyone looking to venture into this sub-aquatic adventure to devote some time to it allowing the game to grow. There’s nothing out there at the moment to rival its quirky setting, it’s out of the ordinary story and unique characters.
I award Harold Halibut the Thumb Culture Gold Award!
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