If ‘old school’ point and click adventures are your bag, and you’ve either played or watched anything in the past 10-20 years, then Randal’s Monday may well be for you. Brought to us by Daedalic Entertainment and Nexus Game Studios, Randal’s Monday focuses on pop culture references, stabs at humour and the eternal plight of Mondays. Garfield would be proud.
First things first, Randal’s a bit of a dick, he’s a titular sociopathic kleptomaniac who’s more interested in someone getting the drinks in, than supporting his friends’ upcoming marriage. After the tutorial, consisting of the game letting you wander about in a small area and talking nonsense to your mates for a bit, the story begins to unfold. And, as how every good Monday unfurls, there’s an angry landlord demanding rent at your door.
After spending some time meandering about the flat, marvelling at each and every reference up to, and including Resident Evil herbs, you’ll inevitably acquire classically unfathomable items to combine and use in traditionally ‘unique’ scenarios. Picking out what you can select and what’s just a not so subtle nod to another franchise can be initially tricky, thankfully there’s a key assigned to highlight all the potentially interactive items on screen. After missing a vital component in one of the first areas and being forced to backtrack through each and every stage in true scavenging mode, this soon becomes second nature. As ever, for those who are beyond stuck and have already ripped their hair out, there’s a hint system in place to relieve the woes. With its typical, tongue in cheek style, the game will recommend you to reconsider using the system until such a point where you’re that stuck, you’d quite happily sacrifice a kitten in order to progress. A fact the game repeatedly reminds you of before allowing you to proceed.
Utilising typical ‘point and click logic’ may be the joy of the game in some people’s eyes, whereas instead, it can and most likely will be, the bane for others. Incongruent puzzles require solutions that are simply not intuitive to the naked eye; no matter how well you half-solve the puzzle, finding the specific way in which the game wants you to progress can be an inevitable head shaking trauma.
On paper the game sounds fantastic, a typical point and click adventure with brilliantly cartoon-esque graphics, a swathe of pop culture references, and a smattering dab of humour. Combine this with the fairly interesting plot, even if it is all too reminiscent of Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day, and you should be onto a winner. With each subsequent ‘reset’ giving the developers opportunity to create new and interesting passes, it feels a little like a waste of potential at times. Instead of testing your cerebral lump, it instead feels quite content with setting up ridiculous and ‘wacky’ scenarios; all the while Randal throws cringe worthy insults at everyone he comes across. To say he’s crass and just plain unlikeable would honestly be a compliment.
The general artistic flair is pleasing, and will resonate with those who enjoy familiar stylised cartoons. Voice acting is also above par, with recognisable cameos that not only aren’t embarrassing, but are in fact welcome after so much of Randal’s script. The time to work your way through Randal’s Monday will be high; sinking in up to 20 hours is highly feasible. Potentially higher if you can manage not to succumb to the step by step walkthrough offered by the hint system, which of course will be fairly unlikely given the logic behind some of the puzzles.
By all extensive purposes, this isn’t one of Daedalic’s best projects; Randal’s Monday will just be a small blip on their incredibly stellar record. If you can get past Randal’s character and don’t mind the incessant illogical puzzles then, as ever, you can get a lot of fun out it. The production values alone are worth checking out and if you’re into pop culture references, you’ll have a field day reading signposts, shop names and subway stations. Basically every (non)interactive item on the game is a nod to another game; leading you to think that perhaps they could’ve spent more time making this one something to reference instead?
