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With a title like that and its Saturday morning cartoon-inspired art style, it wouldn’t be much of a shock for people to believe Brok the InvestiGator would be a punny and lighthearted adventure that doesn’t take itself seriously. Frankly, most adventure titles in a similar style tend to be satirical on the comedic side, so it’s a rather good assumption. This crowdfunded adventure by COWCAT is rather light on the laughs, opting for a more serious adventure that handles plenty of touchy subjects such as past regrets, an overreliance on technology, and the potential familial bonds that can happen between two non-blood related people.

Brok the InvestiGator merges two genres that you’d never expect to see together: a point-and-click adventure and side-scrolling beat ‘em ups. I happen to be a fan of both so I was very curious to see how these genres would meld together. While I would say the combination of the genres is very ambitious, I feel it ended up working out because the genres themselves stayed in a comfortable spot. Both the beat 'em up sections and the adventure segments don’t try to innovate or advance the genre, and keeping them simple worked more in its favor than it didn’t.

The point-and-click sections play like any other. You click around the area playing as either Brok or Graff, interacting with the environment, talking to people, and acquiring items. Puzzles are usually solved by chatting with specific characters or using items to interact with the environment. But diplomacy and smarts aren’t the only way to solve puzzles. With a simple press of a button or key, a player can swap between action and adventure mode. Action mode lets your fist do the talking! Instead of trying to figure out the password to a gate, just smash it down instead! You can even use this method against other people, but like in real life, solving most of your problems with violence won’t lead you to a happy ending.

What surprised me is how smoothly Brok the InvestiGator transitions two playstyles. Many games can’t even handle a smooth transition between weapon types, and yet Brok manages it without a single issue. It made me realize that every level in every chapter is designed in the mind of a beat ‘em up while working in the context of a point-and-click. Maybe these genres have more in common than I previously assumed.

The story of Brok the InvestiGator takes place in the 3030s when human beings have long since passed, and anthropomorphic creatures have become the dominant species of what I assume is Earth. Brok is either an alligator or a crocodile (he’s not sure himself) and his stepson Graff is a cat. The wife Nia was killed in a freak accident years prior to the events of the game. Her death has an effect on Brok and Graff. Brok became an unofficial private investigator in order to find out the truth behind Nia’s death, and Graff became more secluded in his hobbies, diving into the sciences in order to escape the Slums. The Slums are where the improvised people live. Graff dreams of living in the Drums, where technology flourishes and everyone is living a Utopian lifestyle. The narrative mainly focuses on the fractured relationship between Brok and Graff as Brok constantly withholds information from Graff. Brok doesn’t spend much time with Graff as he does everything he can to make ends meet, legal or otherwise. This accidental emotional neglect makes Graff feel unwanted and eager to reach 16 years old, the age when the people of this world are considered adults.

I enjoyed the voice acting of Brok the InvestiGator as every line (there are over 23,000 of them) is voiced. Brok and Graff are obviously the most voiced characters and I would say they are the best of the bunch. Brok has a gruff voice with both traits of softness and aggression, hinting towards his caring current self and his sketchy past filled with trauma and violent events. Brok is also old-fashioned in thinking and doesn’t care much for the huge technological advances society has made such as instant processed food in a tube or automatic purchases based on body scanning. Graff is an emotional teenager with bouts of anger and striving for independence in a confusing part of his life. He also has an aversion to touch due to possible traumatic past events when he was younger. The emotion the voice actors bring out of their characters compels you to continue forward in anticipation to see what happens to them next. There are many other supporting characters besides Brok and Graff that they interact with, giving more insight and worldbuilding. And of course, there is an ongoing investigation happening where Brok and/or Graff will have to deal with the police, gangs of rat people, and a strange haze that makes the improvised citizens of the Slums sick.

The art style of Brok the InvestiGator is very reminiscent of the late 80s and 90s era of cartoons, leaning more towards the Disney look than others. The portraits of characters are the most detailed with about a half-dozen or more expressions for each character. Their mouths move with every word and the expressions do a fantastic job of portraying the tone of the scene. The art and animation of when characters move around in the world aren’t as expressive but are still very good—even if a little stiff with a couple of models. The bright color pallete and expressive faces will linger in my mind for a long time.

As the beat ‘em up sections aren’t the main focus of Brok the InvestiGator, they are still important to explain. If you were expecting the game to have similarities to some of the more modern beat ‘em ups to come out within the past five years, you might be left disappointed. Even with the update that overhauled many combat mechanics, the beat 'em-up parts are still ancient mechanically. They take way more influence from the classic quarter-munching experiences than the modern ones made specifically for consoles. Brok and Graff have a pretty basic four-to-five-hit-combo depending on what button you press for the last hit. They have a move that acts as a form of crowd control to disperse enemies at the cost of some health. Both fighters can also access weapons or food from their inventory to aid in battle. It’s a pretty simple system overall, taking all the strengths—as well as flaws from the classics. Due to this, Brok the InvestiGator adopted the money-grubbing methods of the arcade experience such as one-hit kills from pitfalls or traps, and unfair enemy placement.

There are three difficulty levels at the start with the easiest one allowing you to skip all the beat ‘em sections entirely, and the highest one at the start (hardcore) having very aggressive enemy AI that attacks you relentlessly. I’ve played many kinds of beat ‘em ups and even the hardcore difficulty managed to give me some trouble. There is one unlockable difficulty after you beat the game called Mania, but I would recommend against trying it out as it is comically unbalanced in favor of the enemy featuring damage sponge foes and Brok/Graff being made out of wet paper.

There are also a ton of accessibility features to the point where a blind person can playthrough the whole experience with little to no issue. There are options for larger text, easier puzzles, special highlighted characters or objects, and extra narration. You can even use your own text-to-speech program with the game if you’re not too fond of the default. Accessibility features are a trend that I hope sticks around for a long time as everyone who wants to play video games should be able to.

One other thing that surprised and impressed me about Brok the InvestiGator is that the choices and decisions made throughout the six chapters are constantly being tracked, leading to one of eleven different endings. I’d even say that Brok the InvestiGator handled role-playing mechanics better than most RPGs as the way you act gives you an appropriate ending. If you happened to focus on mending the relationship between Brok and Graff, they will get a happy ending, but the investigation is left unsolved. I appreciate all of the endings, even some of the wacky ones. All except one dubbed the “canonical” ending.

I have no issue with true endings as a concept, but not only did I feel that the canonical ending didn’t fit or conclude the main themes of the story, it also feels like wish fulfillment combined with trying to have your cake and eat it too. It was like the developers didn’t want to commit to the bittersweet ending they set up for the true path and gave Brok a free way to undo most, if not all of the mistakes he committed throughout the story. The last two scenes that accompany this true ending after obtaining all the other endings are blatant sequel bait when it was totally unnecessary. The narrative had enough loose ends untied that a sequel (or prequel or interquel game) easily could have tackled those subjects. Mainly, I’m upset about the bittersweet ending that leans toward the sweet. At least there are ten other endings, and I felt at least three of said endings work as better conclusions.

Because of the nature of adventure games with choices, morality can vary greatly. Violence is mostly of the beat ‘up variety with enemies blinking away when defeated. Some choices in the adventure can lead to characters dying, sometimes with an accompanying sound of a neck snapping or a fatal smash portrayed by a bright red screen. There’s never any blood or gore so it never gets too graphic. Language is mostly clean. No typical swears, but some informal language such as “crap” and “pee” are used frequently. As Brok isn’t an official private investigator, he tends to rebel against certain police and security authorities as well as partake in certain illegal activities such as stealing or underground virtual fight betting. In chapter four, there is also a very brief discussion of In vitro fertilization. There are also mentions of a fictional religion by a couple of characters and they worship some figure called the Untail. Brok and Graff claim they are non-believers, but the fictional religion doesn't seem to be based on any real-life one from my knowledge. The Untail deity could possibly represent a human or humanity as humans are referenced in the museum section as an extinct species.

The path to reach the “fall” ending is where the worst aspects surface. While the narrative always talks about subjects such as trauma, the path to reach said ending is where Brok is at his most despicable. Usually, I tend to avoid spoilers in my reviews, but obtaining this ending is a lot harder to obtain than it sounds and I feel the subject matter is a bit too important to only vaguely state. It requires the player to obtain an 80% or more violence ratio, which has you fight most of the cast while making specific decisions in specific chapters. This path deals with very heavy subject matter such as murder, PTSD, child abuse, and suicide. Brok goes from being near traumatized by (accidentally) killing someone to basically becoming desensitized toward the end of this path. Almost like a person dying is simply an inconvenience for him. Brok’s aggressive and violent attitude eventually reaches a point of no return as he savagely beats Graff to near death. Horrified by his actions and realizing he permanently damaged every relationship he had, Brok feels the only thing he can do at that point is take his own life.

Don’t let the seemingly harmless kid-friendly visuals fool you, Brok the InvestiGator is a ten to twenty-hour emotional journey about flawed people trying the best they can. It's about the mistakes of your past, the relationships of the present, and how to make the future a better place. In terms of appreciation, fans of both beat ‘em ups and point-and-clicks will like it the most while diehard beat ‘em up fans who don’t care much about a narrative will appreciate it the least. Whichever section you belong to, there are enough features in accessibility to tailor the experience to your liking. As with most adventure games with choices, morality can vary greatly with the worst ending (The Fall) representing heavy topics so proceed with caution before you have Brok and Graff act like total scumbags. Keep in mind that my morality scores for adventure games tend to represent the experience at its most immoral. If you want to, you can play as a pacifist who only partakes in two total acts of violence through the whole experience. Look out for future updates that will add things such as local co-op.