The Supper — A Deceitful, Yet Fulfilling Game
I’ve already talked about my usual ventures through Itch.io and Gamejolt to find great demos and short games for my Youtube channel on my first post, about Peridium. But this time, it’s about a different horror game. I hope you’re feeling hungry, because The Supper is ready to be served.
The Supper is a very short point-and-click adventure game, made by Octavi Navarro, developer of games such as Midnight Scenes and The Librarian. The premise of the game is that “Ms. Appleton (the character you play as, an old, green lady donning some sturdy peg legs) was always a wellspring of kindness, until The Voice started talking to her. It won’t leave her alone. It commands her to serve a very special meal to some distinguished customers.” And the motif of the game, as said by the developer, is “the darkest side of the human soul”.
Let’s talk about the great things that this game has. First things first, the atmosphere. Putting things short (like the playtime of this game), The Supper is pretty much Cooking Mama. If Ms. Appleton was a character from Courage, the Cowardly Dog and her diner were set in Nowhere, Kansas. The art style varies from the very picturesque old tavern look of the diner to the somber looks of the pier, this game nails it down perfectly. The recipes are ludicrous, the way to acquire each ingredient is hilarious, and the customers are guaranteed to get the best meal, to the point that they won’t have anything bad to say about — or anything to say, at all.
And the main character is portrayed in a very comical way, one of the greatest examples is at the ship’s trapdoor, which Ms. Appleton has to go through. As she squeezes herself through it, her fat and skin get caught on, revealing her bare bones as she goes down, and after she manages to pass through the door, a loud ‘pop’ noise can be heard as everything returns to its rightful places. I couldn’t help but get a hearty laugh at this.
The true story of this game is brilliant. Like a supernova, it shines the brightest at the end of its life. It’s very deceitful, through most of the playthrough, it is implied that the game is all about a macabre diner and its customers, however, it’s possible to get a peek through the blinders, but in a very vague and succinct way, so that the pieces only click together in the end, such as the Customers’ Chest dialogue. The Voice tells you to be patient, but never is explained why, and when the end comes, it is shown why, and then there’s that feeling of “Oh, so that’s why she had to be patient. It all makes sense now.” A great example of ‘show, don’t tell’.
The game’s logic is very old-school point-and-click style. ‘Do you need pepper? Let’s find one. Oh, you found pepper seedling, it looks very parched. Let’s get something for it to drink. Found it? Give it to them. It’s a pepper now.’ For new players, it might sound confusing, but that’s the essence of the genre in the 90s, something present in a lot of Puzzle RPGs, and I find it very endearing.
Now let’s get to the few things I think should be looked upon, which are few, and peppered with fine print. First thing, I stumbled upon a visual bug. The second recipe requires you to chop the tail of the Swordfish you have in the wall. If you go back there after the start of the third dish and interact with the fish, its tail springs back to existence. I got some giggles out of it from my recorded playthrough, but I don’t believe it was the intended effect — However, that would be nitpicking on my part. But what wouldn’t pass as just nitpicking is the third dish itself. I don’t think I’ve been the only one that struggled to understand that, the hand of the ‘Hand and Tongue Dish’ which specifically said that it had to be a ‘Human Hand’ was actually meant to be a Wax Hand instead. I’m a measly tick that barely knows what goes through game development, but still aspire to one day cobble my own small team — but, I believe there’s a simple fix to this situation — Mr. Navarro already highlights it for the player to check the Jail from the events transpired right after the serving of the second dish, in a very clever way. A non-intrusive solution would be for The Voice to hint about the finding right after, similarly to the pepper seedling, which was a little more obvious than the former. Other than that, my only complaint is: The game is too short (It’s just a joke, but I only feel that way when I wanted to play more of the game).
Overall, the game is fantastic, can’t help but admire it, and for sure, I’ll be playing Mr. Navarro’s other games — and posting reviews here in the future. I recommend anyone that had their spark lit from this review to try this game, it’s on https://octavinavarro.itch.io/the-supper, it’s a ‘Name Your Own Price’ game, and it can be acquired for free, but you get the supplementary artwork PDF by paying $1,99 or more, make sure to support the developer if you can so that he can make incredible games like these in the future.
