Contradiction - Spot the Liar!

Baggy Cat - 2015 - PC/iOS

If you've been reading these reviews for a while now, you've likely realized that I'm a bit of a video game music nerd. I stumbled across this game when I learned that one of my all-time favorite composers, Tim Follin, had returned to the video games industry since "retiring" from it in 2005 after his amazing talents had been wasted on mostly unknown or poorly received games. It was quite to my surprise that Follin was returning to the industry to work on a game not only as a composer, but as a designer and writer as well. So how does a game made by someone with no design experience who's been absent from the industry for 10 years play? It plays about how you'd expect, for better or for worse. It's not all bad though, Contradiction is charming in a unique way that I think can only be accomplished by a first-time designer who, as far as I can tell, has been isolated from the popular design trends, progressions and philosophies that have developed in the last decade or two.

Contradiction is a full FMV murder mystery game straight out of the 90s which I admit would have been way more eye-rolling if I hadn't just played the excellent "Her Story". You play as Fredrick Jenks, a British detective who is tasked with investigating a murder in a small fictional village. All locations in the village are essentially still frames, even though some are animated, and you can move between the frames by clicking on UI arrows displayed on the screen which always triggers a short movie of Jenks strolling to where you guided him. While interviewing suspects, Jenks has a list of topics he can ask about which when selected, loads an an FMV scene where Jenks grills the suspect about whatever you selected which often then reveals more topics to ask about. The main gameplay mechanic in Contradiction is to find pieces of the suspect's story that don't quite add up or are downright contradictions, hence the title. Most of the contradictions are pretty logical, but some are a little more of a stretch or are otherwise debatable. Thankfully, this game is pretty generous with hints and gives them to you in a way that doesn't make you feel stupid or like you're cheating. Jenks can go to the phone booth and call his chief who will generally point you in the correct direction to progress the game or also may hint at contradictions suspects have made.

Follin, whose composing career work dates all the way back to the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum days, also composed the music in Contradiction. It's not quite as in-your-face as some of my other favorites of his like this or this or this. It's more appropriately subtle and blends in perfectly as Jenks traverses the village looking for clues and interviewing suspects. Aside from the music, the extremely cheesy acting is another standout in Contradiction, especially with the actor portraying Jenks who loves to smirk at his suspects with his trademark goofy deductive grin. In fact, Jenks is so excitably overanimated and the acting in general is so cheesy that it makes me wonder if it was an intentional directorial choice or if Follin actually thought his actors were delivering believable performances. In any case, I'm happy about it. The delightfully cheesy acting seems to fit the style of this game perfectly as does the music.

But in addition to the cheesy acting, there are several other strange design choices and signs of low budget production you should be at least aware of before playing this game, especially if that sort of thing bothers you. I've heard this game was riddled with UI problems at launch that have since been corrected, but one holdover is the strange combination of topics Jenks can ask about with the physical items he's carrying into one functional grouping. Your items and your topics appear together, but you can't use a topic like an item and most items you can't bring up in conversation, making this a puzzling design choice. I've also encountered a bug a few times where none of the suspect's answers were selectable as contradictions and I had to leave and re-enter the scene in order to fix it. (Minor spoilers ahead). The budgetary constraints this game was made were apparent in the poor sound quality in the FMV scenes but especially obvious in the ending to this game. The latter half of the game really seems as though its building up to something as the plot starts sprinkling in elements of the occult and mysticism. But it's all thrown away at the last second when the murderer is revealed and the game just ends quickly and unceremoniously - but not before strangely setting itself up for a sequel. I later read that this abrupt ending was apparently due to financial constraints and a sequel would only be possible with enough support of the first game

Summary
It has design problems, bugs, obvious budget problems and wonderfully cheesy acting but I really enjoyed Contradiction in spite of itself. It was a flashback to the old puzzle games I played as a kid. All things considered, Contradiction is a pretty good first attempt at making a game for someone who has no experience doing this sort of thing. At the very least, I'm glad Follin is back doing things in the games industry and I hope he gets the funding and support to make a sequel so we can see what lessons were learned and what improvements can be made