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Review
Adapted from a Review-A-Thon 26 Review
Style: Choice-Select
Played: 7/17/26
Playtime: 30 min, solved in 16 days
If there is one thing I fail at pretty consistently, it is resisting the urge to invoke comparisons in reviews: either between works in an author’s ouvre’ or among games with similar concerns and conceits. If there are TWO things I fail at consistently it is the above AND metering my clumsy attempts at empathy with humility. If there are THREE things… you know what? This feels like a bottomless pit yawning before me, let’s get back to number one.
I have declared myself thoroughly IN THE BAG for Damon Wakes's Bubble Gumshoe games - a noir-detective series set in a world of sentient candy. Almost immediately with KC I felt those same endorphins coursing. Here, you are a noir-detective solving a Christmas Crime at the North Pole. This one makes use of its choice-select UI by styling the choices as an Advent Calendar: a holiday tradition of daily surprises, opened throughout December until the Big Day. There are 25 days to check, but oh no, its already the 5th, so you must deliberately find the six clues in twenty days to solve it in time! The conceit doesn’t QUITE work, as it would be unthinkable to consult a real advent calendar out of order - civilizations have fallen for such transgressions. It’s fine, the conceit’s narrative load bearing responsibilities are dispensed with pretty quickly.
I will confess to some reservations initially. A mystery to solve with 25 different possible interactions and few signposts. Was this just a random walk problem? I need not have worried. Divorced from the calendar conceit, the game responds to thoughtful investigative approaches: (Spoiler - click to show)interview likely witnesses/suspects, develop background, investigate important scenes, test hypotheses. Leads develop, informing subsequent calendar choices in satisfying and humorous ways. All of it undergirded with completely committed-to-the-bit Christmas mythos clowning. It is not Bubble Gumshoe, but it tweaks all the same pleasure centers of investigation and deeply-committed, over-the-top absurdity.
It ALSO mines the inherent contradictions of ridiculous pastel fairy tale and hard-boiled, cynical misanthropy to great effect. The 90s were kind of famous for “grim and gritty” takes on childish fantasy. A self-serious take on this contrast (only with tongue firmly OUT of cheek), whose main aim was to strip-mine dramatic impact by sullying, polluting and dismissing the charms of their settings. Like strip mining, exhausting its frisson pretty quickly, leaving only ugly destruction in its wake. Both Bubble Gumshoe and this work tack to the Roger Rabbit tradition of moving that tongue 90 degrees to the right - of using their settings’ bright optimism to expose the hollow center of edge-lord nihilism. And also have a few good laughs at its expense.
I mean, a few really good laughs. I’m only giving you two, though I could easily quadruple this essay with more examples.
"And a child’s belief is a powerful thing… which is why they must never play with satanic toys like Dungeons & Dragons or the Ouija board.”
(To the tune of Jingle Bells)
"Pooping log, pooping log, time for you to go
CENSORED-CENSORED from your bowels, right here in the snow — oh!
Pooping log, pooping log, gee, I hope this works
Oh what fun it is to deny Krampus — he’s a jerk!"
Beyond tone, the work really ups the ante with its omnivorous engagement with diverse cultural Holiday oddities, all of them surprising and delightful. Then stitching them into a patchwork mystery that ultimately works, albeit according to its own logic. Actually, the word ‘albeit’ seems to suggest some necessary forgiveness and compromise. No, it works BECAUSE OF its bonkers internal logic.
My biggest regret… well, is not investing in NVIDIA a few years ago. My biggest regret HERE is playing this in the middle of a national heatwave, nearly as far from Christmas as the calendar gets. This game is CRYING for a holiday playthrough, and that is my recommendation. If you are reading this review to determine if you want to play The Krampus Case, December only please. But December DEFINITELY.
