Who Whacked Jimmy Piñata?

The syrup rain drifts down as a heavy mist, making sticky the just and the unjust alike. It is nighttime. But then, it's always nighttime in Sugar City.

You play as Private Eye Bubble Gumshoe, tasked with solving the murder of Jimmy Piñata, a- you guessed it- piñata found in a garage at the outskirts of the city, bashed open and hanging from the ceiling.

But first…
Who Whacked Jimmy Piñata? (WWJP) was the first game I decided to play for this year’s IFComp because I recognized it immediately. It is the third installment of a series that started with Who Shot Gum E. Bear? (WSGEB) back in 2022.

As someone who enjoyed but felt frustrated by the first game, WWJP was a treat to play because it showed clear improvement and dimension. WSGEB featured a lot of seemingly important details that ultimately had little to no function. This included (Spoiler - click to show) visiting the VIP room, buying a newspaper, and utilizing the pack of candy cigarettes. So, imagine my delight when I saw these details being given a purpose in WWJP!

As a fan of WSGEB, I was happy to run around visiting recognizable characters, re-reading the books in the bookstore, seeing if someone was still doing candy in the bathroom stall (blue crystal this time instead of sherbet), and exploring the expanded map*. It also feels a bit edgier and more cynical, heightening the mystery.

And… Easter Eggs! I loved finding subtle references to the previous two games. The walkthrough even has a section dedicated to it.

(*I think it’s neat that you can overlap the map for all three games. Some locations may be inaccessible depending on the game, but the fact that it’s the same landscape builds an established setting.)

Gameplay
Like many detective stories, the game has the player explore the city, gather evidence, and interview people of interest before making your accusation. Relevant topics, objects, characters, and scenery are shown in bold, something I did not see in the previous two games. It made gameplay much smoother.

In comparison to WSGEB, WWJP is stronger in every way, especially with the ACCUSE command, a central mechanic. A complaint I had with WSGEB (spoilers!) was (Spoiler - click to show) that you could accuse anyone and solve the mystery by randomly guessing without any investigation. That’s not the case with WWJP. You want to accuse someone? You need to present evidence to back up your claims.

Plus, WWJP is generally more well-rounded. The map is larger, the streets have names, characters are more responsive, you can dance (as long as no one is watching), and additional verbs are added.

However, for a while, WWJP was cruising at 5 stars, but lost traction following (Spoiler - click to show) our rescue by Battenberg. She’s not the issue, though I do wish she was more responsive to your questions. It has to do with the remaining puzzles. Specifically, INSERT [object]. The game needs to be clearer when inserting objects has any relevance.

This tripped me up twice: (Spoiler - click to show) trapping Father Wafer and getting the keys to the boat. The boat especially was difficult. I knew where the keys were but there were no scenery clues about inserting items. And licking the taffy to make it softer didn’t occur to me, despite me tasting everything in sight just for fun. These were the only two cases where I needed outside help.

There is room for improvement, but the foundation is there, the story is catchy, and the characters are a lot of fun. It is easily the strongest game in the Bubble Gumshoe series.

Story
The author does a great job at combining the grittiness of an urban landscape with the cheerful innocence of different types of candy, all while incorporating themes about poverty, murder, drugs, sex, and crime without being too explicit. You may laugh at the idea of a piñata being a murder victim, but for the characters of Sugar City, this is serious business.

There is plenty of world-building if you know where to look. Occasionally, examining scenery- like businesses at the docks- provides exposition on Sugar City. Especially regarding the highly influential taffy factory that now lies derelict. Even though it’s not a focus in this game, its presence is still heavily felt. So much to see! And taste. And smell.

I won’t spoil who the mastermind is. I am, however, curious about why the game allows us to (Spoiler - click to show) decide if police arrest [name redacted] or not. It’s a yes or no decision that you make right at the end. Both lead to the same outcome of victory but I suppose it lets you pick the flavor of justice.

Characters
Sugar City’s inhabitants are creatively designed, and Bubble Gumshoe is as awesome as ever. Some are recognizable, others are new.

Speaking of new characters, the coolest part of the game for me is this heartwarming scene outside Gumshoe’s 1973 Fudge Challenger:

Also, I know this is besides the point, but Jawbreaker is such an underrated character.

You hold the roll of cash up for Jawbreaker to see.

"That's a roll of cash," says Jawbreaker. He stares at you dimly. "Did I get it? Did I do a evidence?"

The way he says this made me laugh. He brings a lot of unexpected humor.

Conclusion
To wrap this up, WWJP is a delicious story with a light-hearted yet gritty world and a likable female protagonist. Some parts were sweeter than others due to implementation but is otherwise a strong game that shows a lot of refinement. Plus, the author provides a generous walkthrough/hint (available separately) guide, even if its Jolly Rancher imagery made my mouth water.

I hope this isn't the last we see of Private Eye Bubble Gumshoe.

(edit: grammar fix I missed)

One of our species’ best qualities is also its worst, which is our ability to get used to just about anything given enough time. It’s responsible for inspiring tales of perseverance in the face of unimaginable privation, as well as mule-like inertia in the face of unjust and intolerable situations. And it’s the reason why, three installments into the Bubble Gumshoe casefiles, I no longer register the premise – of a hard-boiled private detective trying to solve brutal murders, except everyone and everything is made out of candy – as especially comedic. Sure, the rain comes down as syrup, and the cop losing his guts at a gory crime scene is puking up raisins, but save for these superficialities Sugar City could be any other post-industrial hellscape with rising unemployment and sinking life expectancy: the jobs are gone, drugs are flooding the street, even the priests are in bed with the mob, and even when an honest private dick fights like hell to close a case, justice invariably comes too late for the innocent. That’s just how life goes in Shotown.

Beyond familiarity, though, part of the reason I was able to sink so seamlessly back into this world is the immersiveness of the implementation, a clear step up from the prior two installments. Those earlier cases were solid fun, but were smaller affairs that didn’t take full advantage of all Inform’s affordances – JP is a clear step up in ambition. Most obviously, it’s physically larger, inasmuch as its map encompasses locations from both of the prior games plus more beside, with many returning characters as well as a bunch of new ones. There’s more depth too, with a variety of puzzle types, an action set-piece in the middle, and an accusation system that requires you to use evidence to try to establish a suspect’s motive, means, and opportunity. Keyword bolding also highlights key nouns, so the player doesn’t get lost in this larger playground; it makes for a slick package, with the only places I noticed a slight lack of polish being some missing synonyms (CAUSE not counting for CAUSE OF DEATH, or CHIMNEY for CHIMNEYS).

The mystery is also well-put together this time out, with some red herrings and side-plots, but ultimately feeling like it plays fair – I’d guessed the culprit a bit before getting the last set of clues, which was a satisfying way for the pacing to wind up. It also rewards attention to detail: while there’s a critical path with clearly-highlighted clues, examining sub-components of important objects can give you circumstantial evidence that can move your investigation forward too, and logical deduction will take you far.

There are places where the more traditional puzzles could use a bit of smoothing-out, though – there’s one involving a church confessional that I struggled with for a bit despite having basically the right idea, because I was picturing the confessional’s door-handles incorrectly, and it’s good that there’s increasingly-obvious clueing in that action sequence since I wouldn’t have hit on the solution otherwise (though it was grimly badass when I did execute it). There’s also a riddle-type challenge that requires pretty deep out-of-game knowledge, either of baking or a particular TV show, unless you opt to get a hint via reprehensible means.

For each of these wonkier challenges, though, there’s a solid if not inspired one – a multi-step puzzle to get some keys out from behind a window feels intuitive while having you jump through some a Rube Goldberg-esque hoops, and figuring out the adult bookstore password is sublimely dumb. And there’s a big hint file with maps, subtle prods, and complete solutions available if you do get hung up. The one place where I did hit a bit of a wall was the very end, though, due to the lack of much of a denouement – you see, after I accused a suspect and presented the evidence I thought should convict them, I got a message that I’d ended the game with one false accusation. Figuring that I must have gotten things wrong, I started going down my list of suspects and seeing if I could get the crime to stick to anyone else, getting increasingly desperate as my options got more and more marginal. Turns out I’d gotten it right the first time – or technically second, as I’d accused someone else just prior to fingering my prime suspect, just to see how the mechanic worked and try showing some evidence to them (you’re only allowed to SHOW stuff to characters after you levy an accusation). So the false accusation was just referring to that test case, and I’d gotten things right after all – a little bit of a cleaner outro might have helped me be a little less dumb, though in retrospect most of the blame lies with me.

I’ve been treating JP as a serious mystery game, because it very much works on those terms and the core of the story is pretty downbeat. But as I close I should acknowledge that there are still some really good jokes! I liked how Sugar City’s money has portraits of George Noshington, or that its desperate and destitute gather to pray at the Church of the Immaculate Confection. And it’s not all candy puns: if you try to wear a hat when you’ve already got your trusty fedora on, the parser shakes its head at you, as that “would literally be putting a hat on a hat.” So yeah, there are some chuckles here, but they’re the hard, cynical chuckles of a flatfoot who’s seen too much, and knows she can only accomplish so much – it’s all she can do to stay sweet.

Before I played this game, someone told me that it had significantly improved on the last two games, which I thought was pretty neat. After playing, I do agree that it's the strongest of the three.

This is part of a series of three games involving hard-bitten detectives, drug rings, exotic dancers and organized crime--except, everything is candy or sweets: the people, the blood, the drugs, the river. Each game has a murder that you investigate, then track down the murderer and accuse them. I don't completely recall everything from the other two games, but all the locations and many people this time seemed familiar. There's a lot of new stuff, though.

The main features of this game are Jimmy Pinata, the strung-up, disemboweled victim (very normal for a pinata, but not normal for a sentient being); and blue rock candy, an ultra-pure drug that's flooded the markets. You have to track these both down.

Gameplay is a mix of classic parser take/drop/lock/unlock and ask/tell/show conversation. The topics available are pretty robust, with most labelled in bold but allowing you to learn of a topic in one conversation and use it in another.

In the past, I associated these gumshoe games with having an incredible setting, a solid story, compelling characters, and kind of shaky implementation. The implementation has gotten substantially better over time, but I found myself fighting over synonyms for a lot of the game. I did try playing without the walkthrough (as opposed to my early ifcomp days where I'd use a walkthrough from the beginning to power through as many games as possible), and got really far, but there were a few times where I was foiled by lack of synonyms or alternative solutions not working (or, just being dumb!). I didn't identify any bugs, though, and I'm sending a transcript to the author, so I suspect if you're reading this from the mildly distant future that you may not have as much trouble as me (which, again, wasn't really that bad. This is among my most enjoyed games this comp so far).

This gimmick is almost infinitely exploitable; you can put any hardboiled old story in here and make it work. You could branch out and do a candy version of the movie Vertigo, or modernize it and do a candy Bourne Ultimatum. This is essentially the IF version of the muppets, where you can do a take on any story and make it funnier, so I hope it continues.