GIG ECONOMY
Everyone’s a comedian in stand-up adventure game DE TRES AL CUARTO
Comedians Bonachera and Garza are partners, onstage and off. It’s a recipe for tension that De Tres al Cuarto duly delivers on – and if you’re wondering what the title means, it’s a Spanish phrase referring to something of low value. The game is partly a hands-off adventure game where you learn about their relationship, and watch it unfold over several nights, but it’s also a series of interactive comedy gigs.
Playing as Garza, the younger and newer half of the double act, your job is to supply the punchlines to Bonachera’s setups, building up his routines or delivering knockout follow-ups as the game allows. You’re restricted by cards, which are dealt out during every gag, and for your every response you’re given three cards to choose from, including Poor, Punch and Build.
Why would you choose a Poor response? Or even the Blank card, which makes you flub the line? Well, sometimes you get three Poor cards, or two Poors and a Blank, for example. It’s a card game, so it’s down to the luck of the draw.
There is a basic deckbuilding element. Cash earned from shows
can be used to remove bad cards, upgrade them, or buy additional ones. Eventually, over the dozen evenings that comprise the game, you’ll go from sucking to sucking slightly less at the double act. Or you will if you’re
me, anyway.
DOUBLE TROUBLE
It may be intentional that Garza and Bonachera are not actually that funny, but I wouldn’t have been able to tell the Poor responses from the Punch (better) ones if they hadn’t been labelled as such, and if the crowd hadn’t clapped slightly more for the Punch cards. The sound design badly mangles the shows, emphasising the soundtrack and the ambient sounds of the Menorcan shore over the audience’s applause, and not creating the atmosphere of a comedy gig as a result. I didn’t mind playing through the comedy sections – but I was doing it to reach the aftershow.
After every performance, we spend some time with the duo, picking what activity they get up to that evening. It might be heading to a bar, going back to their hotel room, or taking a walk, and it’s refreshing to see a game explore a gay, established relationship in a mature way. These are vividly drawn characters that feel like believable human beings, although this is as much due to what they don’t say as what they do.
In a story about the unsaid, this narration feels essential, giving their relationship huge emotional weight. This is a fresh, original interactive story, and also somehow a basic deckbuilding game. You’ll put up with the lesser comedy sections
– the payoff is worth it.
Your job is to supply the punchlines to Bonachera’s setups
VERDICT
An insightful game about 78 relationships and a novel deckbuilder. The former is more accomplished than the latter.