Reviews by cgasquid

Pokey the Penguin is/was a webcomic so bizarre that it may well be outsider art.
Various identical-looking characters and their weirdo friends do nonsensical things. Entire sections of the comic are clumsily crossed out. The comic is either ironically or bizarrely bigoted against Italians. It makes absolutely no sense.

Prodly the Puffin is another webcomic that is either a parody or an homage to Pokey. It makes slightly more sense than Pokey, but the characters are even worse people; Prodly is kind of like the Family Guy to Pokey's Liquid Television.

This is a game based on Prodly. It fully displays the crudity, pointlessness, and idiocy of the comic ... which in this case is a good thing. This is one of the few IF games worth playing that allows you to play as a vicious, murderous piece of garbage who torments and tortures his friends.

Whether you find it funny is up to you. There's a strong early-2000s "humor is cruel" vibe to it, and I mean, when it was the early 2000s, that kind of humor had a cruel audience. Does Prodly the Puffin have a place in this more-enlightened-until-it-abruptly-all-went-septic age? I think so, even if only as a time capsule.

a very short treasure hunt in which you, the angel Gabriel, must return to heaven but cannot until you have collected the seven colors of the rainbow. you are assisted by Demeter, your (presumably?) mortal lover. (it is clearly not the Greek goddess Demeter.)

the writing is snappy and the relationship depicted is sweet. Gabriel is an adorable nebbishy type and Demeter -- you know, i mean i could describe the character, but looking at the author's name and the apparent resulting self-insert, i'm not comfortable describing a real person i don't know.

if this were a longer piece, perhaps spreading the colors out further or adding more tasks, i'd feel better about it ... but it's only two rooms, and while the colors are kind of hidden, they're not hard to find and the game is over in less than ten minutes. i don't have enough time to really understand the characters.

aside from its length, which is auctorial choice even if i don't agree with it, i had three problems with this game, all spoilers:

1. blue. (Spoiler - click to show)while i have seen pants that are the kind of bright, pure blue called for by the scepter, i've never seen a pair of jeans that were that kind of Platonic blue -- manufacturers tend to go for a light blue or a very dark one. i'd very much assumed my jeans were an "off" color like the burgundy furniture, and found they worked while looking for an Easter egg.

2. indigo. (Spoiler - click to show)the sky can appear indigo at sunset at high altitudes under very specific conditions. there's nothing in the game to indicate that those conditions are present. the clue is "what would you color with a blue-violet crayon," which i'd think would vary by child. also, you're supposed to have to touch the object, and the indigo light is scattering in the upper atmosphere.

3. (Spoiler - click to show)the game cannot be completed without getting at least two suggestions from Demeter -- both yellow and violet involve items that are only gained by asking him. under normal circumstances this would be good ... BUT talking to Demeter is presented as the game's hint system. it does not make me happy when a game is only solvable with hints.

but overall it's sweet and sappy and adorable, and being this length and this easy makes it a kind of like a Christmas card to send to someone you love.