There’s no information when you start the game, and you don’t even know that you’re supposed to go to the local news office or Cliff’s garage. Once you find the place, you grab the camera and start following Cliff around town in search of interesting stories.
The town is a decent size, but there’s no reason to explore because there are no secrets. While it is nice and colorful, with a design choice that makes everything look pixelated, which cannot be turned off, there are some small things that might bother you. Notably, there are objects you can pass through as if they were made of air, as well as invisible walls that prevent you from walking through open doors or even checking out people’s backyards.
Cliff will run off somewhere, and you’re supposed to find him by following a compass that you need to turn on. When you stand on the marked spot, Cliff will start talking and interviewing people. The stories are amusing, and conversations are presented through text similar to a visual novel, so you don’t have to wait for people to finish speaking and can skip through dialogue by repeatedly pressing the button.
However, doing so will earn you only one star because your job is to film important moments. This is done either by moving the camera over objects or people who are talking, or by zooming in. Both requirements are marked with different colors, and you have to try to do a good job by capturing them all.
There’s something highlighted for each line of conversation between Cliff and the person or people he is talking to, so if you mash the button and skip the text, you won’t capture anything. You also need to be quick because the highlight disappears after a short time. If you manage to catch at least some of them, you’ll gain a few more subscribers, represented by a thumbs up icon.
At the end of the day, though, doing a good job doesn’t matter. You can look in the opposite direction, click through the text, and still move the story forward and successfully complete the day. The game takes place over several days, and sometimes you are taken to locations outside the town, but the experience never changes. All you do is run around the area to trigger new conversations or news segments.
The story is what the game is all about. Fortunately, it is both great and interesting. It starts with giant vegetables and leads Cliff, who is not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, to stumble upon a cult that has gathered almost everyone in town. Only a small group remains around Cliff, and they begin to suspect that something strange is going on. There are also zombies and a giant gelatinous cube.
You can either focus on the main objective or engage in small talk with people around the area. They are not marked on the compass, but they do have arrows above them. Although you can often choose your responses, those choices do not matter. The characters are wacky and entertaining, and their portraits complement the game’s low poly graphics. While visually appealing, the art style is not particularly unique, as many other games use a similar look.
In simple terms, the whole experience is essentially a visual novel with large amounts of text separated by short running sections between objectives. Gameplay is minimal, and the only stage that breaks the formula takes place in a mansion, where you search for items and enter a couple of codes. It is all fairly easy, except for a few sections near the end where you fight a boss through a series of somewhat annoying mini games. There’s also one missable achievement in day 2, so you won’t have to replay the entire game again to get it.
