Wildwood Down Review – WhoDONUTit?

Wildwood Down is a point-and-click comedy thriller game by Crashable Studios with a protagonist like no other. We play as Dan, inspired and voiced by the developer’s childhood friend, Dan, who has Down Syndrome. When Dan, his sister, Becca, and two friends visit the boardwalk of Wildwood for Senior Week to have the party of their lives, Becca goes missing, and Dan uncovers a body on the beach while searching for her. Rumour has it that a serial killer called The Butcher is on the loose, which means Becca could be next unless Dan finds her first.

It’s easy to see that Wildwood Down is made with a lot of love, for both game development and video games in general, and also for real-life Dan. Dan has a lot of character to him, often guided (or attempted to be) by his inner conscience, who tries to steer him away from the chaos he unleashes upon Wildwood during his investigation. From blown-up donut stands to a bar fight, a humorous wake of destruction is left in Dan’s path. Wildwood Down is a wacky game that doesn’t take itself too seriously at all, which is absolutely perfect for its theatrical whodunnit plot. While the plot itself didn’t pull me in (it didn’t need to), its characters and humour definitely did.

The gameplay consists of Dan needing to overcome several obstacles in order to collect clues on Becca’s disappearance and the identity of The Butcher, and also progress into new areas. Wildwood Down’s lack of seriousness translates into its gameplay, where one of the puzzle solutions consists of giving a seagull the runs with a bad hot dog and then leading it to fly over some hecklers. Because of this, you have to really think outside of the box with a lot of the puzzles, and it certainly gets challenging at times. But there’s also entertainment in seeing what wild solutions Dan will come up with to get answers, with some really creative and hilarious ideas coming up. 

But also because of this, the puzzles can be often frustrating. This is especially the case when the game usually wants you to complete each puzzle in a very specific way, so sometimes when you have a good gist of what you need to do, you keep failing because you’re not getting the specifics of it correct. This is further accentuated by the out-of-the-box solutions usually coming in place of a scenario that could have been solved in a much more simple way, having you cycle through ideas until you eventually figure out what you need to do.

There is a hint system to help you out, and while a lot of the hints give the best hint style of pointing you in the right direction rather than straight up telling you the answer, usually getting more specific the more you click on the hint button, this is inconsistent as some of them do just tell you what to do. A lot of puzzle fans wouldn’t appreciate this, as it takes away the satisfaction of still being able to solve it themselves. I did find myself relying on the hint system a lot, and this was usually because I had the right idea but wasn’t executing it in the way that the game wanted me to. But I did find that a lot of the time, the hint system wasn’t specific enough to help out with this, so I would end up eventually figuring it out myself anyway. 

There was also a point where I felt like the game was going on for too long. I completed it in nearly ten hours, and think it could have shaved off an hour or two by skipping the wrestling segment. Although this was a fun segment plot-wise, it did get really tedious in terms of gameplay, especially since it was near the end of the game and put the plot on hold, which had been about to wrap up.

Wildwood Down also has a few options in terms of accessibility. Not only does it allow the player to turn off timed segments to focus solely on the point-and-click gameplay, but there is also a third person stealth section which the game allows you to skip if you suffer from motion sickness, which I’m sure a lot of players will appreciate if they suffer from motion sickness and picked this one up specifically because it’s a point-and-click game.

I did encounter one frustrating bug that carried on even after rebooting the game. I was given a whistle to use for a certain puzzle, but after receiving this item, anytime I opened and closed the inventory, Dan wouldn’t be able to move until I opened up the inventory again, equipped the whistle, and used it. It was a really strange bug which actually humoured me quite a bit, but the whistling did get annoying after a while. Luckily, it stopped once I hit a certain story point where this item was removed from my inventory.

Created using 2D and 3D graphics, Wildwood Down looks really gorgeous. Its characters are in a hand-drawn 2D pixel style, whereas the environments are 3D, which gives it a unique, popping look and also opens up wider options in terms of cinematic camera movements in cutscenes, which it takes full advantage of. It has a great and vivid use of lighting and colour, really helping to bring the ‘summer break’ vibes to the setting.

Similarly, the ‘surf rock noir’ soundtrack created using live instruments also suits the game really well. There was enough variety in there for each scene to feel unique, but some tracks did get a bit repetitive during the longer segments (the wrestling tournament being a big one). The voice acting is also really great. While Dan is voiced by the real-life Dan, bringing authenticity to its representation of Down Syndrome, the other characters are also voiced by a brilliant cast, each one sounding unique and matching Wildwood Down’s quirky vibes perfectly.

Wildwood Down is a fun and unique point-and-click game that has a wacky storyline, a quirky cast of characters, and a ridiculous plot that doesn’t take itself too seriously at all. While it does have its flaws in its gameplay, it’s otherwise great fun, and I recommend it to fans of the genre.

Jess reviewed Wildwood Down on PC with a provided review copy.