Credit Roll Chronicles : Down in the Dumps

Do you know that feeling when a game from your childhood lingers in your memory? You’re pretty sure it was good, because you remember having a ton of fun. But when you go back, reality hits. That “awesome” game turns out to be clunky, frustrating, and far from what you pictured. That happened to me when I revisited Down in the Dumps (available on GoG.com). Let me explain.

Down in the Dumps was made by the French developer Haiku Studios and published by Philips Media. If you’ve never heard of Haiku, that’s no surprise. The studio went bankrupt not long after the release of this game. Some irony there.

The Blubs

It’s a point-and-click adventure about an alien family called the Blubs. Their spaceship crashes on Earth after colliding with another vessel. To escape the planet, they need to recover the missing parts so Grandpa Blub can repair the ship.

That sounds straightforward, but the ship they collided with was crewed by alien thugs. They also crash and, for no clear reason other than spite, do everything they can to stop you. The story unfolds over five episodes, with each chapter putting you in control of a different nameless Blub. Settings range from your own spaceship to a lice-ridden town built on top of a bum. Yes, the Blubs are tiny. The problem is that the narrative never quite comes together. Large plot holes and jumps between episodes left me confused, and I lost interest by the second chapter.

Stuck in the scenery

The gameplay doesn’t do much to save it. The point-and-click interface is bare bones. Hotspots let you perform actions, but many are hard to spot. Items you can pick up are easy to recognize, but paths to new areas often blend into the background. In the final chapter, I spent 20 minutes stuck before noticing the exit was part of the scenery.

Puzzles don’t fare much better. Most involve combining items, yet the game throws in lots of filler objects you’ll never use. That makes problem-solving messy and often frustrating. Mini-games pop up here and there, like a snowman-building contest that depends entirely on luck. Those sections felt like padding and did nothing for me.

Pre-rendered dump

Visually, the game has not aged well. Pre-rendered environments look flat. Characters often feel out of place in their own world. Pathfinding is poor, with Blubs getting stuck unless you click again. The same clunky behavior happens when adding items to your inventory or trying to combine them.

Is there anything positive? The voice acting is serviceable, and the soundtrack has its moments. But that’s about it. I can’t say I enjoyed my return to Down in the Dumps.

Check out Rob’s other credit roll articles!