Indie Corner: Dropsy

Now that the horror clown hype is over, it’s time to sparkle up the clown love again. A perfect method for that is playing the lovely, cutes point-and-click game Dropsy. You play as Dropsy the clown in his quest of making everyone happy again by helping and hugging them.

So as you already know your name is Dropsy and you are a circus clown. Together with your parents and your little dog you perform in the circus. But one day, tragedy strikes and the circus burns down. Dropsy gets all the blame and must now look for evidence and clues to clear his name.

The premise of the game is the nicest you have ever heard. You have to stroll around town and look for objects that you can, later on, be used to make people happy. Once you have helped them you can give them a hug. For instance, you can help a bird by giving it food or you can help the homeless people.

Behind all these people are some pretty tragic stories. That is why they are sad. Some people have lost their mom or their wife. Some are unhappy because of the sociological situation they are in. And their sadness shows itself in different ways. Some are frustrated while others are just indifferent. But everyone has their reasons.

For instance, one guy is really mean to you, but he does that because he lost his wife and he is frustrated. You can only feel sorry for him. So in the game, you can help him and finally offer some comfort by hugging him. But this game makes you think about your actions and the words your parents probably told you when you were little. Things like: be nice to people, don’t be mean, don’t lie, that kind of stuff.

The music in the game is made by Chris Schlarb. And I honestly really like the music. The music is weird though in this game. It makes you feel a bit fuzzy and cozy. But at the same time, it makes you sad. It is because you know why people are sad and how it affects them and the music just strengthens that feeling. When you play the game you will know what I mean by this. The music just makes you feel in a way I can’t really explain or clarify, you will have to see for yourself.

Also in between your scenes you have dream sequences, which can be very graphical. Dropsy dreams about the past and the circus fire mainly.

A nice addition to the game is Dropsy’s walk cycle. Normally you can hear squeaks every step he takes. It is fun for a while. Lucky enough you can turn it off. This is not really special but it shows with how much commitment the developers made this. With a good eye for details.

Another nice addition to the game is the fact that it is completely different at night. Some persons don’t appear at night or are at another place. Which can be very frustrating because the day/night cycle is not very good in my opinion. By this,I mean that every time you change locations, your time changes quite drastically. So when you are at a place and you want a certain time you will need to walk in and out of the location. But I don’t know how they could have done it otherwise.

If you can’t find a solution to the problem, maybe you will need help from your little friends. Dropsy is accompanied by a little dog and, further in the game, more animals. Hence Dropsy can only talk to animals. That’s why there is no dialog in the game. This dog is so cute. But maybe I only think that because he looks like mine.

I love this game. I don’t get how you can’t love clowns after this. Dropsy, just like other clowns, is a person that tries to fit in the world by helping as many people as he can. Just like normal clowns do. They can be frightening, just like Dropsy actually is, but they just try to do well. I just love how beautifully naïve and sweet Dropsy is. Dropsy just stayed in the pre-puberty stage. A stage where you didn’t know what racism was, a time where you thought everyone was nice and a time where the concept of “bad people” was only a thing your mom warned you about but you never encountered before.

Score 4 out of 5: