Looking back, many late 80s games and late 90s pre-rendered CG can have a rather unsettling feeling to them, especially when it comes to PC titles, seldomly aiming towards children and thus not really caring to keep things light. Take MacVenture entries for example: you can tell the artists were set on creating the most gruesome scenes they could, no matter the graphics limitations at hand. Not even Edutainment games could escape this fate, naturally leading to modern reinterpretations such as Baldi’s Basics.
And speaking of disturbing, as you may already know from Junji Ito’s mangas, Hideo Nakata’s movies or just overall urban legends, Japan is an horror media powerhouse, which leads us to Garage, a Windows and Mac OS adventure point and click released in 1999 exclusively in Japan. Just a couple of years ago, the game has finally seen a western release, through Steam and Google Play Store, Garage: Bad Dream Adventure.
Garage may not necessarily be considered an horror game, but the inner workings of a subconscious-fired world where humanoid male robots fish and feed sewer frogs to the female by suggestive cavities so they can ferment them into fuel and share it through hoses aren’t a walk in the park. Believe it or not, I’m not making this up. Despite Garage’s art being transparent on what to expect, it’s the writing that best represents Tomomi Sakuba’s twisted creativity, for if you search for his artworks over the internet, you’ll notice they tend to be much more explicit and distressing than anything you get to see ingame.
Gameplay-wise, Garage Bad Dream Adventure focuses on fishing, exploring, and resource management. The more you advance through the story and spend currency on new parts for your robotic body, the easier it becomes to wander around — slightly similar to Love-de-Likes’ gameplay loop. Later on, some important spots are very far from fueling stations and your first forays into them will prove risky.
It’s definitely an unique game, somewhat existential and may provide food for thought. But is it worthwhile? Yes and no. I’d say it depends on how patient you are and what you seek when playing an adventure point and click. If what draws you into the genre is humor — which is usually present even on more serious takes such as I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream — or entertaining puzzles, you’re likely going to be disappointed. But if it is art and atmospheric story that you’re after, you’re certainly going to find something memorable, even if not exactly fun.
One of the game’s main issues lie on the changes introduced by the 2022 re-release, which officially brought the game to the west for the first time. Despite some useful quality of life that reduce the grind, almost every single piece of the game previously available as optional content has been turned into requirements for reaching the end of the adventure. It’s hard not to feel like delaying the main ending was uncalled for.
At the end of the day, even though we do not really feel like advocating what Garage has to provide, we do have to give credit where credit is due: the sound effects add a lot to the atmosphere, almost everyone has something to say about your objectives, and this is one of the few games where even the most bizarre and disgusting scenes feel justifiable and meaningful to the storytelling.
