8Bit/Digi

Tempus Fugit

Time travel can be a great mechanic for video games, but it’s rarely done well, and I guess the same could be said for alcoholism. This game is about a man who can abuse time through the use of spirits, the liquid sorts, or at least, that’s the implication. His nemesis points out that Hank doesn’t actually understand how his incredible powers work at one point, and frankly, that feels on brand for a character like this. Hank: Drowning On Dry Land isn’t here to explain things. It just wants to capture a brief moment and solidify some vibes, while taking a short amount of time to accomplish this.

The opening image to this game mimics the famous Nighthawks painting, which immediately pulled me in. It begins in a bar where our hero is having one last drink for the road, unfortunately, that one was poisoned. How could our normal bartender do this? Oh, wait, that’s actually Hank’s arch-nemesis, The Unraveler, a well-dressed man in a mysterious mask with a hate-boner for our main protagonist. Now he’s put us in an old church, kidnapped one of our friends, and set a bomb to go off, taking us all up in smoke, if we don’t use our powers and flip some switches. It’s a solid setup.

Drowning on Dry Land will most likely be remembered for its visual style, 2.5D with an isometric view, wrapped up in an incredible comic book-style world. The aesthetics are heavy, dark shadows with cooler fluorescent tones and solid colors meeting bold strokes and swirls. I love the deep purples and greens, similar to Mike Mignola from Hellboy, with a little of Todd McFarlane’s Spawn mixed in. Environmentally, it’s like a bad dream, a worse trip, or maybe it’s just the poison playing with our mind, but it’s easy to love this surreal and dangerous place.  

Like Batman, But Always Drunk

Developed by My Next Games, Hank’s gameplay asks us to keep moving, interact with objects, dodge enemies, and complete tasks in a certain amount of time. Thankfully, we have some pretty kickass powers to help with that, but don’t think there aren’t consequences for messing around with such forces. Whenever we use a time portal, it makes another copy of us, and if we run into our past self, this creates a paradox and ends that run. Watch Time Cop, it’s a perfect example. If that first run was erratic, and the player was darting all over the place like a chicken with its head cut off, congrats, that just made it harder for the next part. Fret not, however, because we can simply rewind back to the beginning and do things better, play smarter, and give ourselves a few more precious seconds. That’s a commodity we have a lot of here, even though the clock wants to disagree.

It’s easy to mess up here while trying to feel things out and see how they work. Sometimes it isn’t that we made the wrong decision, but that we acted at all. Hank’s real power is trial and error, discerning the order of things, memorizing, and gathering clues on what works. Sometimes the solutions aren’t obvious, as we try to figure out what to press or how to set other events off, while the real tough part seems to be navigating a conversational maze with a bad guy who is more determined to quote poetry and monologue about his victory, even though this explosion is killing him too.

The game is very dark, in art and in tone. Drowning on Dry Land is quirky, yet charming, as evidenced by the rollercoaster portion. It’s like an adult animated adventure, as the co-creator says, it was inspired by Batman cartoons. The Unraveler is the Composer of Chaos, Hank’s version of Joker. He has this wonderful demonic-looking hellhound named Gilgamesh, but where did it come from, and why does Unraveler hate Hank so much? Is it really just because Hank isn’t using his incredible powers the way his nemesis thinks he should? These characters are odd, sure, but they’re also quite charismatic, and the strong voice acting gives them a ton of life. I wanted to know more about them.

You Always Use Too Many Words

This brings us to the thing that will deter some people. Drowning on Dry Land is quite short (and cheap), beatable in about 30-45 minutes if the mechanics and conversation puzzle don’t trip the player up. It feels like the intro to a much bigger game, but that’s it, and we aren’t even guaranteed the good ending. It can feel a bit less than satisfying, especially for someone like me who wanted to know more about the world and people who inhabit it, so much so that I went and watched a playthrough of Hank: Straightjacket, a previous (free) game from the company, also short and starring the same characters.

It turns out the developers have been working on these for six years, and I’m not knocking that at all, but I have to wonder if maybe there was a way to add more to this and expand on the experience. With it being so short, I also wonder if people will simply refund the game after beating it, which would suck. I’m a fan of all the ideas here, even if it was a little frustrating toward the end. I want more experimental adventures like this that are trying to do something neat. Hank’s games say what they need to and get out, without padding or hollow attempts to force replay value.

The demo they released is almost as long as the whole game, which will be damning in the eyes of some, but there is obviously a higher ceiling here, made by people with some ambition. I hope we see more, and time isn’t too much of a factor. Hank seems like he lives in an intriguing world. I don’t think he’s quite alcoholic Batman (he doesn’t punch enough people), but he could certainly be something, maybe a character of his own. He depresses me a little bit, makes me feel like I need a drink, but I’ll risk hanging out with a moody superhero if everything surrounding him is so interesting. Hank: Drowning on Dry Land isn’t going to be considered ‘good,’ or even seem worth the time for most players, but I hope everyone can appreciate what it says, what people can do, and the potential for smaller creative games.

Disclaimer: The publisher through a PR representative provided the game used for this review.

This review is the critique and thoughts of one writer. If you want to see how other critics felt, then check it out on OpenCritic.

8Bit/Digi is an independent media outlet that provides an insight into the gamer community of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Hank: Drowning On Dry Land (PC)

7

Good

7.0/10

Pros

• Glorious comic book style visuals.
• Entertaining voice acting and sound effects.
• Thought-provoking gameplay.
• An engaging story.

Cons

• Can be mildly frustrating, especially the paradoxes.
• Quite short, could use some expansion.
• Some solutions are confusing, not thinking the way the game wants.