Backbone Review

Backbone is a ‘…post-noir roleplaying detective adventure…’ that puts players in the shoes (and fur) of racoon protagonist, Howard Lotor, a private investigator who’s down on his luck and solves small cases to make ends meet. Howard meets with a woman who believes that her husband may be cheating on her and is tasked with finding the man and get any evidence he can for the wife to use in a divorce court, what starts off as a small easy pay soon becomes more that the PI can probably handle.

Backbone is the first game created by indie game studio, EggNut, a studio made up of only 17 remote developers from around the world. The game uses Unreal Engine 4 but has an old school pixel art style that fits the games overall tone, from interior details to beautiful cityscapes, Backbone is a wonderful game to look at and is backed by great writing and an amazing soundtrack. In fact, the soundtrack alone is worth checking out the world, there’s a chance that players will find moments when they’ll want to just stop and listen to the music and soak in the atmosphere.

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The Look  and Sound of The World

The pixel art is used to great affect, nothing feels uncanny or cartoony, no matter how close or far the camera gets Backbone looks great and makes exploring the world fun to run around in and try to go inside every door you can. Character details look great and characters actually look different enough even when the same species are standing next to each other, you can still tell them apart, they even have their own personalities and goals.

One of the best scenes to speak about with the art is easily the jazz club called, ‘The Bite’, a mostly canine/carnivore club owned by an albino bear crime boss named, Clarissa Bloodworth. The scene is absolutely gorgeous and the atmosphere is only amplified by the ‘live’ performance that the game allows players to sit through, the ambiance of people chattering away and glasses clinking together made me wish there were more levels like it.

The game mixes 3D with the pixel art and it works for the most part, the biggest jarring moment comes with scenes that deals with water, it just looks vastly different from everything else that you can help but notice it. The rain looks great but it’s when Howard is walking through deep water that really messes up the immersion as the water looks like it’s from a completely different game and doesn’t blend well with Howard’s pixelated body, but it’s nothing that will ruin the game, it just stands out far too much.

The music is brilliant and will make you want to get the soundtrack (which you can by either streaming services or purchasing it), composed by Danshin and Arooj Aftab, every track wears its noir heart on its sleeves and leaves nothing unturned, from the dark sounds of rain soaked streets to lavish clubs filled with the delicate touch of smooth jazz and magnificent vocals from Siberian artist Anna Bo. The soundtracks itself could sell the story and creates tense scenes out of even the quietest story moments, the haunting track ‘The Fall of Man’ creeps into the mind and leaves a bleak cold feeling that adds to Howard’s ever declining mental state.

What To Say What to Do?

Gameplay is rather simple and it’s very obvious that it wasn’t meant to be the biggest focus, players will move Howard left or right to make his way through small sections of multilayered levels as he talks to multiple characters and solve simple puzzles, the game doesn’t force players to overthink jigsaws or light patterns to pad out the runtime, every puzzle has a simple solution so players can quickly move on with the story and not get frustrated and stuck. The puzzles are environment elements and even includes talking to characters to get certain items or to access previously locked areas, this was a smart and brilliant decision as it allows the game to be accessible to everybody and blends in with the noir inspired caricatures.

In a game like Backbone the writing takes center stage, but before we get into that it’s important to know that the game’s biggest gameplay mechanic is the dialogue. The game is text heavy and has no voice overs, on his journey, Howard, will meet and learn about multiple characters that has some connections to his case. One woman has a daughter that is involved with The Bite, while another man knows somebody who has gone missing that has a connection with the aforementioned daughter, these people will offer Howard clues and backstories about people of interest and his case.

The writing for a dialogue heavy game like this (it’s nowhere as heavy as, say, a JRPG) needs to be strong and thankfully Backbone delivers on that end as much as it does on the art and music, each character has something to say and it never drags on to the point of exhaustion. From the background characters who has nothing to do with Howard’s case to side characters that are meant to cleverly build the world and give players lore that they can even question about and learn more if they choose to.

Prepare for people to fawn over Renee Wilson, a investigative journalist fox that teams up with Howard to expose the truth and discover what Clarissa is up to and what happened to those that goes missing within her club, while she mostly disappear throughout Howard’s adventure, she is a great character for the brief moments players get with her and she can definitely carry a game if given the opportunity.

In The End

The biggest fault in the writing section is the ending, admittedly it falls flat and feels rushed, the game adds in a sci-fi twist that starts to get interesting and then the game just ends. This felt especially jarring with how the story continued to set up story lines instead of tying things up, as if it was trying way too hard to sequel bait, or the team ran out of time and scrapped so many story lines that they couldn’t find a satisfactory way to end the game. Backbone will take around five hours to complete and starts to loose steam around act 5 but it definitely leaves you wanting more, it’s just too bad it’s for the wrong reasons, maybe a director’s cut is in the future?

Despite the lackluster and disappointing ending Backbone is a well written and beautiful looking game with an amazing soundtrack and great characters, if you’re looking for a good story with interesting characters, great atmosphere and a lovely soundtrack, then Backbone will definitely suffice and keep you interested throughout the story’s twists and turns. EggNut has already express interest in continuing stories within the backbone universe, if their next game is as passionate and well crafted as this first try then EggNut may become the next indie developers to keep an eye on.

This review is based on a key provided by the publisher