Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist - A comedy short in game form

Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist
by Crows, Crows, Crows

Comedy, Meta, Walking Simulator
15 minutes - 1 hour of playtime

It’s the hottest summer on record, and all across Europe, valuable objects are disappearing.

Museum curators unlock cabinets and find precious artefacts stolen. Wealthy mansion owners wake up to see their priceless paintings have vanished from the walls.

One thing’s clear: a master thief is touring the continent and the police are left scratching their heads.

In this 15 minute game by Crows Crows Crows, a team led by William Pugh (The Stanley Parable), slip into the soft-soled shoes of the mastermind responsible…

… silently cross the darkened lawn of the mansion…

… hold tight to the tranquiliser gun in your pocket, and commit the most audacious heis--

oh god I can’t do this any more, i’m joining the strike. i didn’t want to - i honestly didn’t want to, but it’s gone too far

i’m supposed to be writing the steam store description and that’s it, that’s my job, but because of the understaffing i’ve been told i need to work in the lighting department too and it’s only a matter of time before i’m re-assigned to wildlife preparation

and everybody knows that working for wildlife preparation is mostly about trying very hard not to be eaten by the tiger

so that’s it, i’m joining the picket. if they want somebody else to finish the description, that’s their problem

i’m out.

- tina

Why I played it: It was made by the same people who made The Stanley Parable

Review
This afternoon I had the pleasure of playing through Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist, a free to play game on Steam which will probably consume about an hour of your time if you poke at everything, and much less if you simply go through it as quickly as possible.

So why am I talking about it here? It is, in essence, a short story with an unusual interface. It is probably not a "game" at all, at least not in the sense of something like DOOM or Portal. There aren't any puzzles to be solved. No mechanical challenges to overcome. It is just you and the person who spends the whole game talking to you, making your way through a series of small areas according to his directions.

If this sounds like The Stanley Parable, this game was made by the same person who made that game - but takes a rather different approach, and is strictly linear, more similar to the demo for The Stanley Parable - but while it shares perhaps the same spirit of humor, the person you're interacting with is not a narrator but an in-game (if unseen) character, and it changes the character of the game in important ways. It also is strictly linear, unlike the surprisingly non-linear (and yet still somehow linear) Stanley Parable.

Saying anything more about the game would be a spoiler, as a great deal of what the "game" does is play with the player's expectations - not to mention ruin several good jokes. A lot of the comedy comes not only from its nature as a game, but also making the player think things will happen which won't; there's a great deal of anticlimax here, all played for laughs.

But I can say that the game is a so-called walking simulator, and that if you played The Stanley Parable (or its demo) and they weren't your thing, you probably won't like this. Likewise, if you are hoping for intense gameplay action, this is... not that kind of game.

But if you've got an hour or so to burn this weekend and want to laugh, Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist might be worth your time to check out.

Recommendation: Recommended

Note: The demo for The Stanley Parable is free to download as well (press the Download Demo button on the right-hand side of the screen), is a stand-alone story, and is also very silly - if you haven't taken a look at it, it might be worth poking at as well, even if you've played the main game of The Stanley Parable, as it is actually stand-alone from the game and has its own unique content.

Comments

[FloydienSlip]

Plus it has Justin Roiland voice acting!

[Ponka]

I'll probably pick this up sometime, looks pretty good

[journcy]

Yeah, Dr. Langeskov is neat. Though The Stanley Parable is just in a whole other tier of thing, that game is amazing.

[Titanium Dragon]

4204316
Yeah, it is.

[Nali]

Seconded. A fascinating little trip through the lives of the poor bastards who make your video games come to life for you.

No, not the developers.

[Titanium Dragon]

4204503
This was probably my favorite review:

Exciting heist game! There are multiple approaches to entering the mansion, in my playthrough I chose the roof. Taking down the snipers with the tranquilizer gun was fun, at least until the chimney I was climbing collapsed. Not sure if that was scripted or a trap?

It brought me right to a garden level where there was a cool chase sequence involving a tiger. After that it was back in the mansion and on to the vault.

The patrolling guards' narrative was amusing with a couple of in-jokes, although their AI needs a little work. I crouched right by one and they didn't see me. The game has good weather effects though, which actually distracted them so I could get to the elevator leading down.

Some weird dialogue in the elevator made me think I was missing something, but anyway after that it was straight to the vault and the emerald. The game seemed to glitch a little on picking up the emerald but I guess that's why it's free... all in all a good game experience!

The good:
-thrilling stealth gameplay
-exciting chase sequence
-funny narrative

The bad:
-long load times
-weird muffled dialogue throughout
-some audio and visual glitches making me think the game crashed where it didn't.

[Oh hi there]

I actually went and got this because you recommend it. I'm very glad you did because I had pause because I was laughing so hard.

[Titanium Dragon]

4205577
Glad to hear it. Guess my blog post was a success, then.

[Nali]

4204520

Yeah, that's pretty much pitch perfect.

I'd legitimately love to play the other side of the game, but it'd be a tremendous undertaking to pull off right, with all sorts of potential failure scenarios predefined and chosen randomly for a given playthrough. Something like Payday, but more detailed and more meta.

[Skywriter]

Man, it's like Noises Off in video game format. This is a good thing.