“How the time we gave wrong directions to that bus of nuns and sent them to a lesbian bar?”, Randall
From the time of the masterful and advanced in its time the Abbey of Crime to works like the New York Crimes / Yesterday of Pendulo Studios, if something has been clear is that in Spain there is plenty of talent for the genre of Graphic Adventure. And as a most recent case, here we have Randal’s Monday, which given the referential cocktail of popular culture and times that come together in it, we could call it Randal’s Manic Monday in reference to the popular eighties song from The Bangles.
Work of the new Nexus Game Studios, this indie and tiny Spanish developer has bundled the blanket to the head, throwing more than 4 years to the vision that they had in mind from the beginning. And instead of subscribing to the more modern and less traditional side of the Graphic Adventure, which authors like David Cage and companies like Telltale choose for their works, Nexus dives into the genre and goes to the traditional. But to the traditional, traditional, to the Point & Click and the difficulty of puzzles without guides of how to solve it and a giant inventory full of absurd things that try to combine out of desperation. So we are going right now to get into this maniac Monday, even though today is Tuesday.
Meet Randal
* Hicks! *
And is that before entering into the situation and explain the why of history we have to present your protagonist, friend Randal, someone so, in a smooth, we could describe affectionately as a sociopath, a kleptomaniac, miserly and creepy human, geek of degree 50 and … a b
astard, but so with all his letters. Because this guy is like that, your friend from school to the grave, but as you give him your hand you take the arm, the other arm and half leg. It all starts when Randal is drinking with his friends Matt and Sally, who are engaged and are getting married. Matt teaches Randal the wedding ring,
perhaps the most valuable jewel Humanity has seen and that only cost him a Dorito. After becoming blind to the point of watering the alley of vomit, the ring ends up in the hands of Randal, who, by a series of circumstances, and because he is the quick-witted scoundrel that he is, pawns him. But this is just the starting point of a plot that you have no idea how it will end.
And even here it should be counted, since to reveal more is to do a disservice to its writers. What we can say is that the ‘poor’ Randal will be immersed in a constant revisitation of the same day again and again, clearly noticing the influence of that comedy masterpiece that is
Trapped in Time / Groundhog Day, sadly deceased Harold Ramis and in which Bill Murray must live the day of the marmot over and over and over again. This, and the idea of changing the reality in which we move while at the same time we try to change what happened,
leads the writers to take us on a delirious journey of constant geek references, drama in more or less measure, acid humor and actions politically equal of ‘correct’ that South Park or Family Father sometimes. In fact, altering what happened is our mission,
We must emphasize a very important component such as the vast number of constant popular references, or said in a simpler way: Its huge part geek, or geek / nerd using American terms. As soon as he starts, the Spanish voice of Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings begins to
recite with that same tone phrases taken from The Simpsons and mentions to Gafapastas. And the references start very fast – that Duff sign on the outside of the bar.
Because gentlemen, this game has references geeks / geeks / nerds to tutiple, in a demonstration of current and classic popular culture of the 80-90 with which many will feel identified.
