The Adventures of Bertram Fiddle: Episode 1: A Dreadly Business is part 1 of a point and click adventure game from indie Rumpus Animation and publisher Chorus Worldwide with an interesting art style, funny dialogue and a mystery to solve. Learn more about it in our The Adventures of Bertram Fiddle: Episode 1: A Dreadly Business review!

 

Rumpus Animation took The Adventures of Bertram Fiddle to Kickstarter back in 2015 to secure the funds needed to complete the second episode in the two episode series – The Adventures of Bertram Fiddle: Episode 2: A Bleaker Predicklement. The studio managed to reach its funding goal, and three years later we now have the first episode ready to go on Nintendo Switch.

In The Adventures of Bertram Fiddle: Episode 1: A Dreadly Business you take control of the titular Bertram Fiddle, explorer extraordinaire who, after a most interesting exploration adventuring session, finds himself back home, with nothing to do. Along with his trusty Peruvian Cyclops assistant, Gavin, the two will set out on a journey to… take a dog to the groomer. At least that’s what he was set out to do when, unfortunately, he ends up running into Geoff the Murderer who after, well, like I said, running into Bertram, mistakenly takes the dog’s cage and runs away. This setup allows you to control Bertram to not only find the dog, but also try to catch the genuinely dangerous Geoff the Murderer before it is too late.

The gameplay for the game very much pays homage to the classic point and click releases of ages past, so you will be pointing and clicking to interact with each location, the NPC in them and the objects that you’ll be able to add to your inventory to later use them (on their own or after being combined with other objects) to solve the many puzzles in this release. In fact, in order to move the story along during the first handful of minutes in the game, you will need to solve a short puzzle to find what is needed to literally open the way to be on with your adventure – this puzzle will show you how all puzzles in the game make a lot of sense.

The one thing that makes this very different to genre classics is that backtracking is kept to a minimum since you’ll only be taking on a specific set of locations to explore for each chapter in the game. Every place you visit is gorgeous and has several things you can click on to have Bertram or his companion talk a bit about what it is, usually with a pun thrown in for good measure. The voice acting in the game is great and really fits with the overall Victorian London setting, bringing the characters to life.

This is a short experience that you will probably complete in a couple of hours and change, which is not a bad thing since, other than a couple of running sequences that feel a tad out of place in a point and click adventure game (but that last only a few minutes), the game is all killer and no filler. The witty dialogue, charming characters and logically sound puzzles make for an entertaining experience.

I had a lot of fun with The Adventures of Bertram Fiddle: Episode 1: A Dreadly Business. The game is short and to the point, a very unique, colorful and charming art style, funny writing, and puzzles that won’t leave you scratching your head since every single one of them is logically sound. I had a chat with Seb Burnett from Rumpus Animation about the second (and so far final) episode making its way to Nintendo Switch, and he basically said it depends on how this first one does on the console, so be sure to go and download it today so that we can soon get the full experience!

Disclaimer
This The Adventures of Bertram Fiddle: Episode 1: A Dreadly Business review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Chorus Worldwide.