Jimmy the Troublemaker

Who would have thought that cleaning Grandfather's attic could be dangerous? Certainly not Jimmy, who quite unexpectedly gets transferred to the land of Xandia, where the evil witch Josephine has gone mad with power. That happens to Jimmy after picking up a book in the attic that just happened to be some kind of magic book. From there the goal for the alleged troublemaker is to work against Josephine and find a way back home.

From the very first moments it is very clear that the game doesn't take itself, or anything else for that matter, too seriously. During the opening credits the protagonist comments on how the developer's name is misspelt (should be Segerbäck, but is written as Segerback) and how it's unnecessary to use different fonts just to get one letter right. There is a lot of breaking of the fourth wall in this game. And lots of swearing and foul language. And the kind of humour that has many rough parts, which would rarely be found in a commercial game, but can be used in a freeware game like this.

For a freeware game, "Jimmy" is actually quite impressive. There is lots of content, both in terms of playtime and also in the number of areas that the player gets to explore. There are commercial releases that offer significantly less. Overall, the game is like one big homage to classic point-and-click adventure games. And that is both a good thing and a bad thing.

The good thing is that the game has managed to replicate that great sense of adventure, where going from one screen to the next one feels exciting. And trying to figure things out and find solutions to puzzles is the very core of the gameplay. With no deaths, no dead ends, and no real mazes (although going through the many areas in the game can be confusing at times), the game has avoided the biggest downfalls in adventure games. Instead of all that, the player gets to freely enjoy puzzles and comedy throughout the game.

The bad thing is that the game really is an homage to some of the worst adventure game tropes. There are a lot of puzzles that don't quite make sense, the worst one being a lever puzzle where the player has to operate levers without any hints or feedback – it's completely random trial and error. Or reading a walkthrough. In addition to that, the game world is quite large, and there is a lot of backtracking to get a single item and then return to use it somewhere else. At times, pixel hunting is required, although there is a mouseover text to help with that. And yes, the classic thing too; some things need to be repeated several times before the desired outcome happens.

There are also other kinds of adventure clichés in the game. For example, almost every door and hatch is locked in the game, and the game is even self-aware of that and makes sarcastic comments about locked doors (and that's one thing that is truly appreciated by AdventureDoor!). Someone stealing an inventory item and the protagonist being forced into a different location are both things that have been used in adventure games to make the gameplay longer, and both are used in this game as well.

But adventuring in the game world is mostly nice. The simple but pleasant graphics are nice to look at, although animations are slightly twitchy. There is no question about that, because even the game characters, including the protagonist, comment on how the developer isn't so talented in those areas (but he clearly is better than his characters give him credit for). A much bigger problem than the visuals is the audio. There are no voiceovers in the game, but the background music is extremely annoying in most places. It is a very short looping melody, and it sounds like the cheapest sound banks of an old Casio keyboard. There are some places where the music is noticeably better, but the main music gets very old very soon. It would have been better to either create a longer and better melody (a difficult option) or simply not use background music and have only some ambient noises (an easy option).

It's not necessary to slam such a nice free game, but the truth is, it isn't quite finished or perhaps isn't quite as polished as it preferably should be. There are some spelling errors in the game, and some character comments are in quotation marks, while some are not, and this seems to be very random. There are some issues with the user interface, and it is also very difficult to move from one area to the next in some areas. That is perhaps the biggest issue, because sometimes the way to move to the next screen is to place the move icon on the screen so that it goes partially off the screen. Maybe that works for some hidden areas in some games, but it doesn't work as the usual way of getting around. While the game is an impressive effort, things like that clearly separate it from the commercial releases where such things would be (hopefully) fixed before the launch.

In the gaming business, naming games is an important part of any marketing strategy. Jimmy the Troublemaker is superficially similar to names like Simon the Sorcerer, and there is even a thematic connection. But really splitting hairs here, the name of this game is semantically wrong. The protagonist doesn't make trouble as such but is instead drawn into troubles and is perhaps a victim of circumstances. Classic adventure game titles like Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places) or Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender are not only incredibly funny as such, but they also describe the nature of the game surprisingly accurately. "Troublemaker" here mostly just describes how the protagonist is doing what protagonists in most adventure games do: loot other people's stuff and ignore some kind of behavioural norms.

Speaking of which, game characters saying or doing profane things can be extremely hilarious when done right. In this game, there is a lot of swearing, but it doesn't quite hit the right tone. When using dirty words, the point should be to use them in moderation and at the right time to either be funny or give characters some extra character, so to speak. But when the protagonist and NPCs keep using bad language with no apparent reason, it just seems a bit off. Clearly the point is to take this adventure homage to a level that the classic adventure games never went to, but random profanities are just tiresome. There are games that have managed to do that right, but this game, not so much. Admittedly, some of the lines in the game are funny, but just saying bad words in itself is rarely good humour; it all has to fit the context.

Even with its faults, most of the game is entertaining and fun to play; that's the most important thing. The game offers nice graphics, not spectacular but moody, with much more content than an average AGS freeware game has. There is a lot of untapped potential here, which is a bit of a shame. Many things in the game feel very enjoyable and charming, maybe more than they should. With better puzzle design, with a bit less homage to adventure tropes, and some of the humourous parts rewritten, this could be a freeware gem. As it is, it is not, but it's worth playing nonetheless. Most people have played worse games in all likelihood.

Image gallery