If indie games The Case of the Golden Idol and Thank Goodness You’re Here! (or maybe even the recent Is This Seat Taken?) had a baby, it probably would end up like The Case of the Worst Day Ever, from the husband-wife developer duo of Hero Game Co.
Out today, The Case of the Worst Day Ever is a somewhat different release from Hero Game Co.’s previous PC titles, Prose & Code and Poems & Code, although the new game is also very much a puzzler. It just sits in a different subsection of the genre. Instead of being a cipher word challenge, The Case of the Worst Day Ever goes hard on the deductive, logic-based reasoning. You know, Bill lives in the third house on the street, Emily got on the bus first, and neither Bill and Chloe have a red front door… so who made the class late for school? That kind of thing.
In The Case of the Worst Day Ever you need to figure out what happened across ten scenes, identifying the characters, and unravelling the mystery. If you’ve played any of the Golden Idol games, you’ll be familiar with the gameplay format. First you need to trawl each level to collect all the words – names, common nouns and verbs – and then use those words to fill in the blanks on a What Happened? paragraph, using all the other clues you’ve found to reach a solution. Only once you have the conclusion nailed down can you progress to the next scenario.
Whereas the Golden Idol games feature dark, bloody mysteries, though, The Case of the Worst Day Ever keeps things light-hearted. What you’re solving here is why the members of an ordinary modern family, including the pets, look so damn miserable in a celebratory photo. As it turns out, it’s one of those relatable days where everything goes wrong for everyone, like a dog being forced to have a bath after a skunk encounter, an MLM party where the personalised gifts are muddled, and seniors’ bingo ending up in an all-out brawl. There are also some fun little touches like characters playing an addictive mobile game that demands microtransactions at every turn.
Just don’t be deceived by The Case of the Worst Day Ever’s colourful, cartoonish exterior and thematic silliness. The worst thing you can do is underestimate this game.
The Case of the Worst Day Ever demands smarts. It may start easy-peasy, but by the time you solve the third case, you’ll realise the game’s difficulty ramps up steeply, as stages become more complicated and strewn with red herrings. You really need to watch out for the deductive pitfalls, scrutinising every clue and remembering to dig down to the deepest level of every scene – it’s mandatory that you snoop through bin contents, and find people’s phones so that you can scroll through their messages.
Granted with this type of game you can brute-force certain solutions by trial and error, and there is a tiered hint system available, but there’s no question that The Case of the Worst Day Ever is challenging. It may look short on paper, but the reality is quite different as you try to make sense of the information avalanche. On that note, bless the devs for including a notepad menu tab, where you can type your thoughts in-game instead of scrambling for pen and paper.
That said, expect completion of The Case of the Worst Day Ever to take quite some time, especially if you choose to increase the difficulty within the game’s settings by turning off hot spot visibility, and deny yourself any hints. On the flip side, you can also make things easier by auto-collecting all the words when a level begins.
My only gripe with The Case of the Worst Day Ever is that it is PC-only and limited to mouse and keyboard controls. As we enter the holiday season, and typically spend more time out the house, whether visiting family or vacationing, it would be nice to have the option to play the game more widely in mobile form, beyond potential Steam Deck compatibility. Fun, casual, and smart on multiple fronts, The Case of the Worst Day Ever feels like it would be an ideal, mentally-stimulating time filler while travelling.
Today, 5 December, it comes to PC, Mac and Linux today via Steam and itch.io. A demo is available on both platforms.