Weird Park Trilogy

Weird Park Trilogy.  Ugh… another triple pack from Alawar, first one was Twisted Lands for me. Should have called this one “Weird Circus Trilogy” but whatever. If you remember “Twisted Lands” first part was bad two others are alright. Well so far first part of Weird Park is bad just like first part of Twisted Lands. 

Okay, as usual we start with a plot. Tragedy happened at Fairy Gate circus. Local clown/equilibrist Louis Gauche was performing his usual routine when bored crowd started to thrown vegetables at him. I don’t know what they didn’t like dude was riding a unicycle on a rope while juggling. If this is not entertaining then I don’t know what is entertaining. Well back to the plot. One of the projectiles landed on Louis, he fell down and died. After that series of tragic incident happened one after and another resulting in death of several people. After person disappeared someone hires us (private detective) to investigate this case. We need to find a journalist named John Flatter. 

So we arrive and find weird tiny doll that kept running away from us. We also constantly encountered ghost of Louis Gauche. Soon we find John’s driver license, so we make a conclusion that he definitely was here. We also found a newspaper that informed us that Louis Gauche kidnapped several people before his death. Maybe people threw stuff at him for another reason. Sometime later we find a book that had information on that tiny jester doll running around. Looks like it is Loki’s avatar in this world. 

While we were investigating we also collected pieces of vinyl record. And that record is a main catalyst for the portal into nightmare world and in personal dimension of Louis Gauche. There we found several dolls who were victims of Louis Gauche . Also Loki hinted that the vinyl record that we used to make a portal is also an effective weapon against Louis Gauche. And that’s how we defeated him. But we lost the record and Loki took it for himself. 

Okay, us usual instead of gameplay we discus if it is bad or good HOG. Well I’ve already said that it was bad. Why? 

1. You are punished for misclicking in the hidden objects scenes.
2. There is no map or fast travel.
3. Hidden object scenes are overused.
4. Names of the objects are sometimes vague or misleading.
5. Puzzles are tedious. I skipped around 3 of this in this game.

So while the scenery as usual beautiful enough and plot is good enough the essential HOG elements are bad enough to consider a skip. Oh right, just like Twisted land trilogy it is delisted from Steam. 

Let’s move to the second game. Weird Park: Scary Tales. This one is as bad if not worse than the previous game. But that’s in regard of game design as usual with Alawar’s HOGs. Story is good enough though.

Anyway: Plot Time. No idea who we are, seems like we just an ordinary dude who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. So we just driving on a road avoiding hedgehogs when ghost girl appears next to us. Car is crashed but we are alive. Let’s just pretend for the sake of plot that we actually a detective who investigate disappearance of a girl. Our car crashed in some backwater bumfeckwhere village. As usual our source of information is a newspaper. In the first one we read about is little Diana Evance who got lost at Fairy Gate Park. Weird, I thought we already dealt with Louis. Oh well, ghost girl helps us around… occasionally. Oh hey that’s Louis’s house. More newspapers. Mr. Chimley the animal trainer of Fairy Gate Circus disappeared too. I don’t think he ever appeared in the game before. Letter from Silver Globe circus to our boy Louis… bla-bla-bla sorry to inform you but we’ll not hire you because your boss gave you bad recommendation letter. Oh! Mr. Greed, right he was a prick and he died for that. Another newspaper. Fairy gate’s dam got damaged which resulted in flooding of local library. Not very interesting, another paper. “Nine children have disappeared at Fairy gate Park in the last three months”. Now that’s interesting I bet our ghost girl is one of them. But I remember from the last time that Louis didn’t kill every victim he turned some of them into dolls. Right, next page. Police looking for mental hospital patient. Hugo Leman escaped out of his cell from the looney bin. He looks suspiciously similar to our boy Louis. 

After that we investigated the flooded library and found Louis’s diary. On first page he mentioned Chamley the animal trainer. Looks like Louis were bullied by him, that’s explains the previous paper. Next page, Director Greed wanted Louis to make his performance more complex so more people would visit his circus. But he wanted hardcore stuff so no safety net. That’s where our boy decided to apply for Silver Globe Circus. But we already know that spiteful boss ruined his chance so Louis would be unable to get clown’s career anywhere else. Next page, Louis is complaining about one kid who threw an ice cream at him. Hmm that also explain why Louis targeted children. Next page… OH! On this page Louis told us that he bought an antique vinyl record with circus music. He’ll use it for his performance act. Louis wants to open his own circus. Well… that is not bad, wouldn’t be bad if we didn’t know that Louis was in mental hospital and most likely kidnaped children before. I’m not 100% sure on the timeline. Well that’s his diary. Now we know why Louis resurrected as a spirit, Loki did it when Louis unsealed him by playing the cursed record. 

The rest of the game happened in the Louis’s personal dimension where he created his own circus. He commanded his Loki doll which he named “Mr. Dudley” to kidnap kids to be visitors at his circus. Those who complained and cried got turned into dolls. He offered us a deal, we find the dolls and he will let us go. But he lied of course. No big deal we didn’t plan to play by his rules anyway. We outsmarted his jester doll and stole his magical key that opens portal door to his dimension. We escaped it, locked the door behind us and destroyed the key. That’s how the children were saved. 

Let’s go back to the gameplay part. This game is no different than first game.  Same pluses and minuses as in the previous game. No map, no fast travel, bullshit puzzles, punishment for missclicking too much, homonymies in the hidden objects, hidden objects are hidden to annoyingly, bullshit logics in some solutions etc. Visual are good as usual. So you can skip this one too and just watch a playthrough instead. 

The final game. Weird Park: The Final Show. I don’t understand, there seems to be a mistake in the timeline and reboot of a character. While it’s up to the standards of good HOG game design wise the story seems to be borked in this game.

Plot section, that’s where I tell what, happened in this game. So once again we are a journalist but this time we investigating a paranormal situation and a disappearance. Seven years old Patrick Audley disappeared from his home and at the same time evil toys started to attack anyone who approached the house. BUT! Police has the tape from the Patrick’s room. On that video we see how little boy enters a glowing gateway and disappears. We arrive at the scene but as soon as we manage to break in we are sent into magic world. Here we see one important detail, which we need to remember for the bonus chapter. We see posters with an advertisement for Louis’s show. Here is the important part the date on that poster says “August, 3 1988”. With that knowledge we can assume that first and second game happened somewhere around 1990 maybe a little bit later. Just keep in mind that date. Alright, next while we’re in that magical world which is turned out to be a flashback section. We impersonate some critic to get to the Louis’s performance. There we see a different version or just a story mess up. Anyway we see the scene where Louis juggles while riding a unicycle on a tight rope. But this time nobody throws vegetables at him and he falls on his own. And it looks like that clown was also holding a playing gramophone. That’s how Loki was released from the cursed vinyl record, it shattered on the impact. That’s already a difference and I don’t know what to do with it. But anyway, we then see how Loki enslaves Louis’s soul and forces him to make evil dolls which he’s planning to use to wage war at humanity. Yes sounds weird and dorky.

Right Loki also wants to use Patrick’s body as his vessel to go into our world… even though we know that he can run around in his jester doll form. We also learn that Louis befriended Patrick and that’s why he’s no longer evil/angry??? I just want to remind you that in the first game we found a newspaper that stated that Police found evidence in Louis’s belongings that he was kidnaping people BEFORE THE TRAGIC INCIDENT. We also found out that Louis Gauche is just the stage name and clown is most likely an escaped mental ward patient. We then find Louis sealed, he asks for our help and since we can’t do anything else we help him to escape. Then we help Louis to remember his face by giving him a mirror. After that we save Patrick from becoming a doll and we seal Loki in his own trap. Louis finishes his performance at the circus which cuts his bind to this world and sets his soul free. Happy end… BUT THEN! There is a bonus chapter which I didn’t skip this time. 

The bonus chapter is set somewhere in 1610. In this chapter we help circus director to get rid of a dwarf which is Loki obviously. Loki murdered the audience of the show and offered director a deal. If he can guess his name Loki will grant him warlock’s powers. So we learn the name, learn how to properly draw the magic circle and we seal Loki in the vinyl record. That record is 85 years later is sold to LOUIS GAUCHE!!! How?  Even 85 years later it still would be 1695 and not 1988. So that’s definitely a mess up in the story. Not to mention how 3rd game just casually brushes off Louis’s past activity before Loki took his soul. 

Anyway gameplay and design part. Now this game is a great improvement compared to the first two. There is a map, fast travel, no abuse of HOG scenes, no punishment for missclicking. But some puzzles and solutions are still shite though. But there are also achievements and some customizable parts of UI which you buy with candy canes. You know in my final verdict I’d like to say. Either play first two games for decent story. Or play last one for happy ending and ignore first two. Well that’s about it, I’m finally done with this trilogy. HOGs never again… well maybe but no anytime soon.