The first type of game my parents let me get my grubby, little hands on were point-and-click adventures. Specifically, those made for children. I spent hours and hours playing games like Pajama Sam or Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? As I matured, my taste in point-and-click games matured as well. Grim Fandango, a point-and-click classic, is one of my favorite games on the PC. It’s safe to say that there is a special place in my heart for the zany characters and questionable logic associated with the genre. With this mindset, I delved into The Wardrobe.

Developer – C.I.N.I.C. GAMES

Publisher – Adventure Productions

6 Hours Played // Provided by Publisher // Price – $12.74

After playing The Wardrobe for a couple of hours, it became clear that the folks at C.I.N.I.C. Games have a similar fondness for point-and-click games. It’s clear that they put love into this wacky adventure. That is not to say this is a perfect game. Rather, it is far from it. But, if you are a fan of point-and-click adventures, it is definitely worth a try.

Death & Plums

The story of The Wardrobe starts with two friends, Skinny and Ronald, at a picnic. Everything seems lovely, until tragedy strikes. Ronald gives Skinny a plum, not knowing that Skinny is deathly allergic. In a cruel twist of fate, one boy is left dead and the other is too scarred to talk. Though this sounds dark, in actuality, the game keeps a light tone throughout. Skinny gets resurrected as a skeleton, who proceeds to watch over Ronald from his wardrobe, becoming a literal skeleton in Ronald’s closet. From there, Skinny goes on a quest to save Ronald’s soul from eternal damnation in classic point-and-click style.

This is Skinny, our wacky main character

Excellent Characters

The story itself is purposely pretty thin. The Wardrobe puts the most effort into its humor because it is what drives this game. This intentionally curated comedy is a mixed bag. Some jokes fall flat while others left me chuckling. Skinny and the side characters drive the best humor of the game.

Skinny is very witty and I wanted him to react to everything, just to hear his sarcastic replies. He even gets funnier when he bounces off of the zany side characters that inhabit this world. These characters include a dust monster who wants to take over the world and an Ogre who has converted to a fruitarian. These characters share a lot of DNA with classic point-and-click characters and left me with a smile on my face as I interacted with them.

The Bear is in love with the Rubber Duck. I’m not joking.

Reference Bombardment

While the original humor of the characters is funny on its own, the humor that is most pervasive is the meta-jokes and pop culture references. These jokes are decidedly less funny. The route taken is that of Deadpool, shattering the fourth wall until there is no fourth wall left to be broken. Skinny talks to the player and makes references to your bad gameplay constantly. As one could expect, this gets old real fast. He also makes jokes about all the pop culture references that fill the game’s surroundings. The first thing I noticed in The Wardrobe was how many references decorate the scenery. An Easter Egg or two with a funny quip could have been hilarious, but the fun of commenting on references gets old when a single room can have upwards of twenty references in it.

Yet another room full of pop culture memorabilia. How many can you spot?

Logic Loopholes

While I did say I had a special place in my heart for the questionable logic of point-and-click games, I feel as though The Wardrobe takes it to extremes. The gameplay, like most point-and-clicks, involves interacting with the environment using items from your inventory to advance the plot. Although games in this genre usually have an interaction or two that leaves you scratching your head, this game left my head hurting with frustration. Multiple times during my playthrough, I had to consult an internet guide because it felt like my character was at a dead end. More often than not, I was left randomly using my inventory on everything rather than using my head to solve puzzles, which left this game feeling less interactive than it should.

Beautifully Designed

Even though I got stuck quite a bit, the game soothed me with its beautiful design. There were plenty of interesting, diverse, and beautifully hand-drawn locations. It’s a throwback to a different era, yet it still has a distinct style of its own. Yet I can’t help but wish each area was filled with more original creations to interact with instead of pop culture relics, like Flowey from Undertale. However, this may be a personal preference, as I bet many gamers would get giddy seeing Jesus in the same house as Morpheus. Either way, each scene is a pleasure to look at because of The Wardrobe’s fantastic art direction.

The details in locations like this make the game gorgeous to look at.

Wonky Controls

The last thing I have to address in the Switch version is the controls. This is the first time I have played a point and click adventure on a console. I feel that something is lost during this transition. Moving your cursor around the screen is painstakingly slow. There is a button to speed up the cursor, but it just makes the cursor too fast. The touch controls are better, but still feel worse than the traditional mouse and keyboard. I would suggest getting this point-and-click adventure on your PC, rather than Switch, if you have the opportunity.

The Wardrobe pays great homage to the great point-and-click adventures of yesteryear. It has beautiful hand-drawn visuals like Old Man’s Journey and is full of wacky characters brimming with personality like Knights of Pen and Paper. If you grew up on point-and-click adventures and want a modern incarnation, this game works. But without a love for the genre, the lack of logic and repetitiveness of its humor can detract greatly from your experience.