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Foo Foo

by Buster Hudson profile

(based on 64 ratings)
8 reviews76 members have played this game. It's on 80 wishlists.

About the Story

Someone's been bopping the field mice on the head, and only Good Fairy, Senior Detective can find out who.

A parser-driven noir adventure based on the interactive fiction of Ryan Veeder.

Awards

Nominee, Best Game; Winner, Best Story; Nominee, Best Setting; Winner, Best NPCs; Nominee, Best Individual NPC; Nominee, Best Individual PC - 2016 XYZZY Awards

1st Place - First Quadrennial Ryan Veeder Exposition for Good Interactive Fiction

46th Place - Interactive Fiction Top 50 of All Time (2019 edition)

Entrant, Back Garden - Spring Thing 2016

Ratings and Reviews

5 star:
(29)
4 star:
(29)
3 star:
(6)
2 star:
(0)
1 star:
(0)
Average Rating: based on 64 ratings
Number of Reviews Written by IFDB Members: 8

3 Most Helpful Member Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
A brilliant take on noir, April 3, 2021*
by Chin Kee Yong (Singapore)

This is the kind of game that lures you in with twee storybook trappings before bopping you on the head and leaving you out cold in a dark alley. It's a magnificently competent parser game with far more worldbuilding chops and emotional weight than it has any right to have.

You play Good Fairy, Senior Detective, in a brilliant noir plot about corruption, cheese-dealing, and cutthroat economic pressures. There's a gunfight. There's a femme fatale. The prose is good; the drama meaty. That the author has turned a story about fairies and talking animals into a piece of gripping crime fiction is, I think, a truly commendable effort.

The puzzles were straightforward and signposted well, and I enjoyed the diegetic hint system in the form of Murphy (although I didn't use it very often). I very much enjoyed the multiple plot twists and the moral choices that Good Fairy was called upon to make.

Overall 9/10 game. Short, sweet, and wonderfully sharp, like a meringue you could cut someone with.

* This review was last edited on April 10, 2021
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Foo Foo: cuddly genius, October 7, 2020

This is a serious 9/10 -- 10/10 game.

Some isolated thoughts:

I don't know if I can get enough of the concept of small cuddly stuffed animals being embroiled in a hardboiled noir story. A few of my favorite quotes for the sake of cuteness (minor spoilers):

(Spoiler - click to show)Lions, tigers, and bears, all beautifully crafted, lifelike. Malice flashes in their beady plastic eyes. They reach into their own stuffing and withdraw a handgun each.

(Spoiler - click to show)
You hold Doohickey up in front of your face and get licked softly and dryly, because his tongue is made of felt.
>pet doohickey
Doohickey wags his tail.


The worldbuilding is great, the action is thrilling, the twists are spectacular, and the ending broke my heart a little bit.

My only complaint is (major spoiler) (Spoiler - click to show)when Sabado tells you to get anything "with wish powder on it" out of the area, I thought he was referring to any stuffed animals that were still 'alive', and so didn't realize that he was also referring to the pouch of wish powder. Other than that, everything's quite clear and well-laid-out.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Sharp-witted noir under a fluffy covering, March 30, 2018
by verityvirtue (London)
Related reviews: sanguine

If you like Jasper Fforde’s Jack Sprat series, a novel series giving a noir spin to nursery rhymes, you’ll probably enjoy this. All the field mice have been leaving town; someone’s been bopping heads - and it’s up to you, Fairy Detective, to find out why.

Hudson’s writing is extremely readable, and while the characters may be talking fluffy animals, there is sharpness underneath. The forces working in the town are the familiar push and pull of racism and the search for better opportunities, anthropomorphism or not.

Foo Foo is directed enough that I could figure most things out with just a little guidance and some in-game hints. Overall a well-written murder mystery, with an intriguing setting that I enjoyed.

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Game Details

Foo Foo on IFDB

Recommended Lists

Foo Foo appears in the following Recommended Lists:

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The following polls include votes for Foo Foo:

For your consideration: XYZZY-eligible stories of 2016 by MathBrush
This is for suggesting games released in 2016 which you think might be worth considering for Best Story in the XYZZY awards. This is not a zeroth-round nomination. The category will still be text-entry, and games not mentioned here will...

For your consideration: XYZZY-eligible individual PCs of 2016 by MathBrush
This is for suggesting games released in 2016 which you think might be worth considering for Best Individual PC in the XYZZY awards. This is not a zeroth-round nomination. The category will still be text-entry, and games not mentioned...

The Best Games of 1st Half of 2016 by Anya Johanna DeNiro
Sometimes by the end of the year and after the Comp it's hard to keep front-and-center the games that appeared earlier in the year! Here is a place to list what has tickled your fancy so far. One vote per game only please.

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