KOCHI: In the game Harold Halibut, I play as Harold, the handyman on board the Fedora. When it crash-landed during its mission, the spaceship Fedora, stayed in stasis for years, caught in the waters of an alien planet. It left Earth during the height of the cold war, and now, generations have passed. Hardly any of the inmates remember why they left their comfortable planet in the first place. As you can imagine, there is a very real feeling of cabin fever on board. It can’t help when a strange message from Earth throws them off the edge. They want to get out of this alien planet, and rush back home.
Harold is an ideal character to play here — we see the entire spaceship through his eyes. As a humble, carefree man in his twenties, people on the ship perceive him as a non-threat. A lackey they can send around to do their errands. That’s actually the whole game — Harold running around doing chores. Cleaning up store rooms, wiping graffiti off walls, transporting equipment. Kids see him as one of their own, he’s a simple and easy-going guy. The grown-ups talk down to him, and trust him with information because they don’t think he can do all that much with it. He listens, and mostly helps.
This much you can take for granted. If you introduce me to an indie game like this with cute characters like Harold, which can best be described as a ‘visual novel’, I will buy it. Reckless, sure, but they’re usually a good way to spend the time. These are walking simulators. No puzzles, no boss fights. I walk from one room to another in the spaceship, talking to people. When I am not sitting through a long dialogue cutscene, I am reading through pages of diaries or letters. The mystery and intrigue of the story is often enough to ignore the lack of a gameplay mechanic.
What’s more is that Harold Halibut also provides a truly unique visual experience. The developers spent 12 years making this game — creating elaborate clay models of all the characters, customising dollhouse sized sets, filled with miniature items, and it all shows. All of this is why I was a bit surprised when the experience of playing “Harold Halibut” didn’t work for me.
