Kickstarter detected for Investi-Gator and the Case of the Big Crime

Written by Jack Allin — February 25, 2019 at 11:59

Most detective mysteries boil down to players doing the legwork while the hero makes the deductions and solves the actual crimes. Not so in Games By Bees' Investi-Gator and the Case of the Big Crime, a collection of comedic episodic adventures that is currently seeking crowdfunding through Kickstarter. 

The titular Investi-Gator never has a shortage of sleuthing to do thanks to his mischievous brother Insti-Gator. The problem is, the protagonist is a most forgetful sort. In fact, the anthropomorphic reptile is "a decidedly bad detective, but he tries his best!" What this means is that "in a complete role reversal from most classic adventure games, the crimes are usually incredibly easy to figure out, and getting your inept player character to understand what happened is most of the challenge."

Presented in cartoony 3D art and "loosely inspired by the humor and style of Humongous Entertainment games," Investi-Gator and the Case of the Big Crime is a collection of three distinct mysteries to crack. This short trilogy should provide over an hour of "nonstop curated comedy," with the main obstacle being "trying to get your very, very dumb detective to figure out very, very obvious clues" along the way.

The first episode was originally created in two weeks for a 2016 game jam, and is free to play in your browser. Since that time, the small Massachusetts studio has completed a follow-up and is nearly finished a third installment, which promises to be "over twice the length and quality of the other two combined." In order to release all three in "one big goofy trilogy," the team has turned to Kickstarter, seeking a modest $1,000 (US) by March 27th. If successful, we should see Investi-Gator and the Case of the Big Crime released for Windows PC sometime this spring.