Odot Tamat On
Private eye Nalle Karhu, he needs to save the world and with some help from
you, thus the story is told. All the townsfolk are acting strange, they lost a
personal trait, you shall not hesitate or wait, ‘t is all for you to change.
Odot Tamat On , the chopped word for “unexpected” in Finnish, inspired by
the film Hirtt amattomat (1971), is an AGS adventure game that won the April
2007 MAGS competition. The theme was “unexpected” and games needed to start
with a reference to a vegetable, a confusing console/menu screen, an abstract
inventory item, a conversation that makes no sense to the player, and a
confusing and unexpected ending.
The player controls private eye bear Nalle Karhu who needs to find out who
stole personal traits from the other animals in town. The game is short, with
easy puzzles, and shown from a third-person perspective. The graphics are
bright, with black outlines. To comply with the MAGS guidelines, the control
system is a little confusing. There are four actions: exit (shown when
hovering the pointer over an area), pick up/use (click and drag the Nalle
Karhu’s hand over an item), examine (click and drag the bear’s eye over an
object or use the second mouse button) and a similar routine (using the mouth)
to talk to other characters.
The entire game, especially the conversations, are told in rhyme. All the
town’s inhabitants are animals, such as a turtle, a mouse, a cat, a monkey, a
sloth, an elephant, a duck and two rabbits ( “Something doesn’t seem to fit,
you and Mrs are usually at it.” ). Locations include a castle, a laboratory,
a roller-coaster, a shed, a labratory and a few houses. The inventory is shown
as a cloud in the top left corner of the screen.
Odot Tamat On