Richard and Alice

Winter is here

If I had to use only two words to describe Richard and Alice, I would say this:

Well written.

This is a compact, riveting little point a click adventure game. This is a game that transcends its graphics with a minimalist approach that is also very engaging.

One of the reasons I enjoy point and click adventure games so much is that they are almost pure story driven narrative experiences, though definitely more interactive than say, Japanese Visual Novels.

I don’t play them for the often wonky puzzles, though sometimes those can be amusing. I play them for dialogue and story. When you get those two right, you don’t need state of the art graphics or fantastic visuals or even voice acting.

Richard and Alice has none of those things and I can honestly say that it doesn’t need them.

The game is a little bit slow to play, however. The characters walk around at a very stately, leisurely pace and some of the outdoor areas take a while to explore. This is alright though as the music is well done and sets the tone of the story.

The writers did put in custom replies from the characters for almost every item combination in the game which is particularly enjoyable for me. Very rarely do you encounter the same response for attempting to do things.

I can’t talk very much about the story of the game, because the game can be completed in less than three hours. It doesn’t cost very much either. I think I bought it for less than three dollars, but it is well worth it.

So what can I tell you?

The setting is as harsh and unforgiving as the story itself. Imagine a world where instead of global warming, the exact opposite has happened. Their world is pounded by endless, merciless snowfall, burying everything under a blanket of frigid, crystallized ice.

By the time the story begins, the snow has been falling for years.

Things start off slowly with Richard, an inmate in an underground prison, watching a boring nature documentary on a large, flat screen TV. His accommodations seem pretty nice. He’s got a sort of living room, albeit with a barred cell door, with a couch and a TV. His bedroom has a computer and a nightstand a wardrobe and he even has a private bathroom, though it is rather Spartan.

I got the impression that he was never allowed to leave his little three room living area. Apparently the prison is an experiment of sorts, where the government houses prisoners in facilities that it eventually plans on using for the greater population. An underground complex, free from the billowing snowfall above. There’s even environmental control technology, though whoever left the control boxes sitting within view of the cells, though out of reach of the prisoners, probably should have been fired and replaced with someone who isn’t an idiot.

Either give them total control over the temperature in their living areas or don’t, but don’t taunt them with it. All that does is foster resentment, which is probably a bad idea in a prison full of hardened criminals.

Anyway, things get going when Richard discovers that the cell opposite his becomes occupied, something which hasn’t happened in the entire time he’s been there.

Enter Alice, a red haired woman who seems dejected and resigned. The two get to talking, having pretty much nothing else to do, and throughout the course of the game we hear about what happened to Alice.

It’s...not so good.

The majority of the game revolves around these flashback sequences where you control Alice as she attempts to survive out in the snow with her five year old son, Barney. The narrative is interrupted by present day intervals during which Richard tries to make things better for Alice and himself in the prison.

Eventually, the two of them become friends...well, sort of.

The story started out pretty straightforward and then...and then it wasn’t. Events are tangled in on themselves in a horrifying, tragic fashion. Pay close attention when you play. Collect and read everything. It’s all significant.

Alice is a sympathetic, tragic figure. Her conversations with Richard, who seems like a bumbling, good-hearted individual, are often witty and sometimes condescending on her part. She does apologize for it as in her own words she has, ‘spent the last year talking to a five year old.’

This is a powerful, personal drama. It was hard not to feel for everyone involved in it. I still have many questions, but there are a few different endings. I’ll check them out and decide how I ultimately feel about how things shook out.

Would I recommend it?

Oh hell yes.

I greatly appreciate a well crafted, well written story, even one that’s as short as this one is.

There’s not much else to say about it without totally spoiling the main plot points and this time, I’m not going to do that.

If you’re interested, you should check it out.