Wry

Well, this is a funny one – funny odd and funny ha-ha. The premise of this one-room-parser game is, uh, slightly novel: as an insurance agent making a sales call at the castle of an eligible Baroness, you’re ushered into a waiting room where you’re encouraged to poke around – a slightly-askew portrait is the clearest jumping-off point, but you’ve got several avenues open to you, most of them leading to escalating farce.

(Oh, I just got why it’s named Wry. Clever!)

Certain actions, some of them non-obvious, will increase your score. Most such actions also serve to increase the protagonist’s libido, again sometimes in non-obvious ways – for example, trying to leave the waiting room to explore the castle will provoke a daydream of wandering into the Baroness’s boudoir, winning you two points. After a decent interval passes, the game ends, and depending on your score you get one of three endings, ranging from a minimally-successful one where you land the insurance deal all the way up to one where the Baroness responds positively to your erotic revenues and you wind up staying for breakfast.

Per the author’s note this is in some way inspired by a sketch or sketches by a German comedian, but without direct experience of any antecedents I have to say this is a pretty bizarre setup. And while things are kept PG-13, it can also veer into slightly uncomfortable territory; part of the joke is that the protagonist is a ridiculous horndog, but it’s still a bit icky to see him drool over nude paparazzi snaps of the Baroness (on a third hand, she’s presumably the one who left these magazines in the waiting room, so I suppose we’re meant to see her as inviting the attention. And in the ending where she’s not into the protagonist, that’s the end of it; sexy-times only commence when she opens the door).

With those caveats, though, I’d say that if you’re able to buy into the premise, Wry is an energetic good time. The writing is enthusiastic and happily goes off the rails before bringing things back to earth – here’s the aforementioned finding-the-Baroness’s bedroom daydream:

"You’d love to have a look at the chateau… What if you happen to find the Baroness Valerie’s bedchamber? She may be in the process of changing clothes? Or she is still lying in her bed? Naked?!? And then she says, “Oh Jon, I’ve been waiting for you all this time! Won’t you keep me company?” with a suggestive smile on her lips. Then the fantasy is gone."

There’s also some nicely-choregraphed physical comedy if you take the game’s invitation to fiddle with the out-of-true painting. Things escalate nicely, and every action you take to try to recover the situation is both reasonable, nicely clued, and inevitably makes things even worse. My only complaint is that the game ends just as things are reaching a fever pitch – I wouldn’t have minded a few more turns for further chaos to be unleashed. Pacing is always a challenge in this kind of game, but the author handles it well here, and every time the game ended I was eager to try again until I got the last ending. Blessedly, you also don’t need to wring out every last point to see it; if you complete the main thread and also discover a few bonus interactions, you’re able to see the protagonist make his breakfast date, so it’s up to the player whether they’re inclined to revisit the game to try out more abstruse interactions.

“You’ll like this thing if it’s the sort of thing that you like” is the mealy-mouthiest of critical verdicts, but that’s pretty much where I’m at with Wry – I can understand why some folks might find it hard to get into. If you’re able to get over that hump (er), though, the game can very much be a treat: personally I enjoyed it, and it’s definitely a well-designed and entertainingly-written piece of work, even if it might make me look askance at the next insurance salesman I meet.