PLATFORM: PC | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Macario Macabro is working his regular shift at Rancho Muerto pizzeria when the phone rings and someone places an order for a delivery to Tagomago’s Mansion in Beluga’s Galaxy. Macario hops onto his moped and whizzes through outer space, but when he arrives at the mansion he quickly discovers that these particular customers are actually planning to eat him rather than the pizza…
From solo developer Jacob Jazz – the creator of the utterly insane Baobabs Mausoleum and its equally ludicrous spinoff, Mezmeratu – Tamarindos Freaking Dinner is a 90s-inspired mascot-horror escape room game, which certainly isn’t a sentence that anyone gets to write very often. Heavily influenced by retro cartoons, cheesy sitcoms, cult TV, sci-fi / horror movies and classic games from the Gamecube / PS2 era (most notably Luigi’s Mansion and Gregory Horror Show) along with a huge helping of good old-fashioned punk rock, Tamarindos – much like its predecessors – is one of those games that really needs to be seen to be believed.
Stuck in a one-hour time loop, you’ll guide Macario through the mansion over and over again until you figure out how to escape. The solution is a simple matter of killing all seven of the mansion’s inhabitants before leaving through the front door, but of course it isn’t as straightforward as that. Each character has a route that they follow throughout the hour, and the idea is that in each run, you follow them around to identify the most opportune moment to bump them off. Their movements – after they’ve been observed – are added to your schedule to help you keep track of things, but you’ll still need to complete all manner of wacky tasks to help the more friendly NPCs around the mansion who will often reward you with useful items (the most important of which, thankfully, stay in your inventory and don’t have to be regained in every single run) that might give clues about what to do next or help you to access new areas. Eventually, you’ll work out where, when and how to eliminate everybody, leading to a mad dash through the mansion in a final attempt to complete the game.
The mansion itself is fairly compact and doesn’t take too long to get around, but its twisting corridors and cluttered rooms mean that – even when checking the in-game map – it’s easy to get lost and confused, especially when you’re racing against the clock. An in-game hour only lasts for around 12 real world minutes, so you really don’t have long to get things done, and if you’re still running around when the dinner bell goes, it’s a grisly game over for you. Depending on what you do during each run, you may well encounter one of almost 30 possible endings – only one of them is the “good” ending, with all the others resulting in a variety of comical cartoonish deaths. The current plan for the game suggests that additional rooms within the mansion will open every now and again, bringing new visitors, unique endings, an expanded soundtrack and who knows what other weird and wonderful additions. With its bizarre imagery, obtuse gameplay and barely-translated and borderline nonsensical dialogue, Tamarindos Freaking Dinner won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but those with a fondness for unhinged and demented lunacy will have an absolute riot!
