Draknek and Friends’ The Electrifying Incident: A Monster Mini-Expedition lives up to its name as a bite-sized thinky game. While it strikes the sweet spot of puzzle solving without giving too much away, it may be seen as too difficult. Don’t give up, though – it’s worth it for the hour-or-so it’ll take to reach the end.
Part of what makes Draknek and Friends’ games so dang captivating is their simplicity. They’re good, ol-fashioned thinky games done right.
The Electrifying Incident: A Monster Mini-Expedition is a very simple game. There are very few controls – most of the time I’m grabbing a battery and moving around with it. The rest of its mechanics are presented to the player with discovery in mind, be it through trial and error or brute forcing things until the path opens up.
Draknek and Friends’ game is all about controlling a little robot and using its grappling hook of a hand to move boxes around. There’s not much to it – pick up a box, walk around a room, and place the box in a new position. If you place the box in the wrong place and get fatally zapped, a single button press undoes the previous move.
Got it? Good. Go fix the malfunctioning reactor!
In fellow Chump Andrew’s preview of The Electrifying Incident, he praised its minimalistic style, simple controls, and emphasis on spatial puzzles. Just about all of the puzzles in The Electrifying Incident involve using the space in smart ways to unlock new doors and paths. I, too, can be a dumb-dumb, so the learning curve matters in figuring out how to get to the end.
The Electrifying Incident hits the thinky game sweet spot of solving a puzzle without hints. This can mean that there occasionally are moments where I wished there were hints, but the lack of hints make it so that once I figure out what I’ve done correct…I know how to keep doing correct mechanics and moves. When things are right, they’re very right, so there’s no confusion as to what got me to the new room.
If you’re curious about why this review is shorter than most reviews I’ve conducted, this is intentional. The Electrifying Incident is a short, but sweet, thinky game that can be finished in naught more than 2 hours. I’m sure that most thinky game pros could finish this game in less than an hour, but who’s counting? It’s not nor shouldn’t be a race for who gets to the end credits first.
I love The Electrifying Incident because of how it ends on such a delightful note. It doesn’t bury the lede behind hours of repetitious fluff or excessive white space. Each of its bite-sized rooms contains a single unique puzzle.
The only issue with The Electrifying Incident lies with its presentation. Unfamiliar players who rarely tread into the thinky game territory may find themselves frustrated with how to proceed and get to the end. Puzzle games are a niche genre because some folks don’t want to be challenged when they play video games. That’s okay, though – beyond the potential difficulty, The Electrifying Incident is great for a nice break on a lazy Sunday.
Draknek and Friends’ The Electrifying Incident: A Monster Mini-Expedition lives up to its name as a bite-sized thinky game. While it strikes the sweet spot of puzzle solving without giving too much away, it may be seen as too difficult. Don’t give up, though – it’s worth it for the hour-or-so it’ll take to reach the end.
