Ben There, Dan That! was first adventure title released by Size Five Games (previously Zombie Cow Studios) back in 2009. It’s full of crude humour and rude words, and is likely to get you giggling mischievously like a teenage boy.
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Zombie Cow Studios was founded by part-time indie developer Dan Marshall in 2008 and their first release was Ben There, Dan That! It was widely praised in the adventure gaming community and downloaded 50,000 times, but didn’t bring much money in for its developers due to its donation model. Marshall is quoted as later saying: “I didn’t think people would really pay money for it… I think that was a bit naïve, in retrospect. It’s well worth a couple of quid and I do regret not charging for it initially. You can always move the price down, you can’t really move it up.”
Thankfully, the studio changed their name to Size Five Games in 2011 and the title is now available from the both the official website (for a minimum donation of £2.00) or coupled with its sequel Time Gentlemen, Please! from Steam. I grabbed it during the 2013 summer sale knowing that the follow-up is on our 1001 list; but as I can never play a game before I’ve played its prequel, I thought I’d make a start by spending some time with Ben There, Dan That!
The title opens with a prologue, where our protagonists are stuck in a Peruvian jungle with Ben trying to figure out how to resurrect Dan’s lifeless body. After gathering a huge amount of seemingly-useless items, all that’s left to do is stick a firework up his bum and short him over a bottomless gorge using a rope and a rubber-chicken-with-a-pulley-in-the-middle and into a shack full of corpse-reanimating equipment. Still with me so far?
Upon returning to London, Ben and the recently-resurrected Dan are hoping to settle down with an episode of Magnum, PI but unfortunately the television was broken during their previous adventure. They set about trying to build a makeshift antenna but the hapless pair are transported aboard an alien ship of doorways to parallel universes. In order to return home, they must venture into these alternate worlds and find the two pieces of a yin-yang which will open the portal back to their flat.
As you can probably tell from that description, the story won’t win any major awards – it’s downright silly – but it’s an amusing love letter to classic adventures from the early 1990s. The game’s humour and design draw inspiration from titles such as The Secret of Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle (review coming soon), and there are many direct references to LucasArts’ franchises. The protagonists drop quotes that will stick in the minds of many old-school gamers, who are bound to appreciate their takes on the immortal ‘You fight like a cow’ insult.
Players control Ben as the primary character while Dan follows you around in Sam & Max Hit the Road (review coming soon) style. It’s pretty much your standard point-and-click layout: left-click on items to interact with them and right-click to cycle through the actions of look, use, talk, walk and ‘Dan’. Using your friend on something will ask him to interact with it or to give his opinion on the current situation. In most cases, each action triggers its own unique set of lines for hotspots and the protagonists’ responses make it worthwhile trying illogical things (use Dan on himself to see what I mean).
You must guide our heroes through seven alternate dimensions, from a London cursed by a zombie apocalypse to a world where Britain has become America’s 51st state. Puzzles are inventory-based and although several objects get used in ridiculous ways, Ben There, Dan That! doesn’t stray into that realm of illogical Monkey Island thinking; but a crude sense of humour will really help! For example, while trying to get into a room to see his undead son, a priest comments that the only religious artefact he has on him is his crucifix because he left his bible upstairs – before Ben walks up to him, shouts ‘Hey bible-basher, bash this!’ and smacks him over the head with the book.
Sadly, the actual gameplay does little to advance the plot and this is instead told through some interjected cutscenes. It’s rare that anything concerning the story will be discovered whilst exploring or solving puzzles, and during these times the title can become somewhat formulaic. You’ll probably find that the comedy is enough to pull you through to the end of the game although players that don’t appreciate the indecent jokes may get bored easily.
When I first opened Ben There, Dan That! I was a bit disappointed at its graphics; they reminded me of the Saturday morning cartoons I used to watch as a kid, with rough edges and standard colour palette. But after a while the poor visuals started to lend the game some charm, and they’re forgivable considering how small the studio was when it was made (the protagonists even make a joke about their choppy walking animations at one point). There’s no voice-acting here, a design choice I’m assuming was made in honour of classic adventures, but there’s pleasant enough background music for each dimension and a sprinkling of sound-effects.
The best thing about this title is definitely the humour: it’s all wickedly fun and very tongue-in-cheek. Its dark side is evident throughout but because everything is played for laughs, it’s surprisingly difficult to become offended by Ben and Dan. It took me less than three hours to complete so don’t expect a long and sprawling experience, and I can’t say that I’ll be having second go straight away; but some players may want to go back to the parallel universes in order to find the jokes and easter eggs previously missed, so I guess there’s a small amount of replay value.
Ben There, Dan That! May not be the most challenging title or even the longest for that matter, but it definitely amused me for the afternoon and is worth its small fee. Whether it’s a reference to Gordon Freeman and his crowbar or a world where everyone is blessed with not-so-special super powers, there’s always something to smile at and a reason to see the game through to its ending-with-a-twist.
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