Crabmeat
Developer: Nicholas McDonnell, Mitchell Pasmans
Publisher: Searching Interactive
Released on: PC
Like spiders, crabs have an icky, spindly leg thing going on that can send a chill down your spine. Unlike our eight-legged friends, however, crabs don't seem quite as feared or hated. Playing this game from Australian publisher Searching Interactive might change your perspective on the armoured crustaceans.
Your unnamed protagonist is in a spot of bother, having forgotten to pay a bill or two. Only, rather than a stern letter from the bank, this poor person lives in a grim, futuristic feudostate where 'criminals' are forced to work off their debt, or risk passing it on to their relatives.
At the beginning of Crabmeat, you are sitting on a bed as a loyal servant of the state injects you with… something. After a debriefing and some paperwork, it's off to your boat, a stark, Soviet-style vessel equipped with crabbing traps, winches and a spear gun for reeling the traps in. Oh, and there's a shotgun. Hmmmm.
From the bridge, the player controls their ship: there's a throttle with three speeds and reverse, a limited-use boost for extra speed, and rudder control. The map to the left reveals the best areas to drop your traps (signified by large green circles), and you can switch the view to cameras located around the ship. Question marks also dot the map, traps left over from previous expeditions.
Down below, there's your cabin, where you can drink turgid-looking coffee, collect bandages and maintain the engine. Careless piloting often results in holes in the hull; promptly addressing the resulting leaks with a spot of welding is critical if you don't want an ice-cold demise.
Deploying traps is simple: bait the cage, reel it in with the magnetic winch, then swing it out and drop it into the choppy waves. Unfortunately, the spear gun for dragging them back is on the other side of the vessel, so you'll need to manoeuvre before you can gather the crabs. This action triggers a hopper mini-game, in which the player guides the 'patriotic' crabs into the ship's tank while disposing of the runts, weirdos, and errant fish. Once you've fulfilled your quota, it's back to base for some well-earned freedom—in theory.
I admit that when I first played the demo, I wasn't enthused by Crabmeat's point-and-click controls. Many were asking for WASD controls to be implemented, including me. Being a considered, open-minded individual, however, I reserved judgment until the final game, and I'm glad I did, as once you get over the initial awkwardness, the control scheme works very well. The dev has clearly made allowances for the style, and aside from some minor quibbles, I rarely encountered any frustration moving around the ship or operating its machinery.
Crab fishing is a satisfying exercise, too. But it isn't long before their bigger relatives are taking umbrage at your harvesting, huge mutated crabs clambering on board and attacking both your ship and you. Ah, so that's what the shotgun's for…
Locating and killing invading crabs is fun, but it's Crabmeat's atmosphere that scores the biggest points. Navigating the mysterious and turbulent seas alone is a fantastically unnerving experience, capped with a spine-tingling stop in a tight inlet stuffed with the wreckage of erstwhile crabbers. Uncovering the notes and stories of these unfortunates and finding the keys to open the locked areas of your ship are compelling side-missions, found by investigating the question marks on the map.
Crabmeat is a short game, with around three to four hours of total play. While its conclusion won't come as a particular surprise to most, it does neatly encapsulate the game's forbidding and dystopian future, a horrific world in which the poorest and most unfortunate are treated as servants to a self-serving elite. Thank goodness we're nowhere near that today, eh?
