Comedy games are a rare commodity these days so one tries to grab whatever they can get hands on. Especially if it is free! That was my thought going into the Point and click game, ‘A Living Room’; but as I went deeper and deeper into the disjointed and often confusing story, I came to a conclusion: It is just not funny!
Which is quite a statement to make for a game filled with wise-cracking living furniture.
Point and click and Drag
A Living Room is a simple point and click adventure game that gives you about an hour of gameplay. The idea is, as any other game of the genre, to poke around, clicking on objects and trying to get items to progress. The entire play area is a small room with a two tables, two sofas, and a TV. The old man never leaves the room and your attempts to get him out only lead to more uninspiring jokes.
At points when you feel that the gameplay might take an approach toward some challenge, it reverts to comedy bits, hoping to be funny again, and hope is all one can say about this game’s attempts at humour.
Point and click and NOT FUNNY
You play as an old man named, in what I can assume was an attempt at humour, ‘Yourself.’ Taking Yourself, you are never quite sure what the main goal is in this Point and click game. Instead we waddle around completing task after task till the very end.
As I said earlier, the furniture and almost everything else in the room is alive and interactable. Each with their own personalities and voice-acted dialogue, yet, sadly, they seem to be trying too hard to be funny. Never really getting me to smile or laugh.
The old man’s dry and aged humour, which could have been the saving grace, also fails to deliver the punch. It seems that the creators felt held back from saying anything too wild and failed add any flavour to our protagonist making him feel just shallow and boring.
The goal of the game is to talk with these (animate) inanimate objects and get tasks done.
For example, you need to find the remote which happens to be under the couch cushions. The couch, knowing this, refuses to give them up and told us to buzz off.
The solution was to find a talking knife that calls you, “papa,” and threaten the couch. Even though this sounds like it would be funny, the execution of the scene and how the characters talk, still somehow made everything feel bland.
Going forward with the game, you will have more interactions and more tasks just like this one.
In the end, after all the tasks done, the Point and click game ends unceremoniously in a puff of smoke. There is a little more to it but I wish to not spoil.
No Funny?
There were points that showed some sign of being just a little on the funny side. For example, there was a bowl of lemons, and if you used the knife to cut one, it prompted another lemon to get angry and challenge you to find a better quote than, “When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.” While not a knee-slapper, this sure did give me a chuckle.
Point and click and A POTENTIAL THAT MISSES ITS MARK
Looking at the images and reading the game’s description made me think that this was going to be a comedy game with dry humour; it sounded like a blast. But sadly, the jokes fell flat and gameplay left me more bored than amused.
Sure, there were a couple of moments that brought a smile to our faces, but overall, the humour didn’t quite stick the landing.
In the end, this hour-long Point and click game fell short of my expectations.
