Draknek and Friends make fantastic puzzle games, and their latest one is a bite-sized experience designed to be played in a single sitting. It took me 55 minutes to complete the standard mode of this game, but as always with this developer, there’s something big-brain going on under the surface if you want to reach the true ending.
The Electifying Incident: A Monster Mini-Expedition puts you back in charge of Monster from A Monster Expedition, and you don’t need to have played the previous game to dive into this one. Monster is wandering around an electrical facility, which is blowing up and failing at every turn you take. You’ll need to keep the facility online by navigating its labyrinth maze of rooms and electrical switches. These switches are powered by pressure plates and electricity. You’ll need to place batteries, which are scattered around the game, to keep the doors open and working for you to progress.
The rooms you move between are tight, and this is where your grabber claw comes in. It can extend out a fair way, nearly half the game screen, but it is rigid like a metallic snapping chain link. To move these batteries around the game, you’ll need to pick them up and walk into walls or other batteries to bend the grabber in such a way that you can move the battery to the right place. You can’t sokoban your way out of this puzzle, it’s all in the grab and bend. There are some great a-ha moments to solving puzzles using this, alongside knowing when to drop batteries into the giant abyss below to get rid of them, too. Stand next to an electrified battery, and it’ll electrocute you, so sometimes a clear-out is required to clear a path.
At a succinct hour of gameplay (don’t use a guide), it’s a short experience. The game never does the same puzzle twice, though, and there is zero filler. Whilst I could have gone for a longer experience, instead, we get a two-tier puzzle to solve. I got to the end of the game’s standard puzzle in 55 minutes. It was a shock ending (literally) and feels complete in its own right, however, if you are very savvy, there is a true ending to explore. This requires looking after your batteries throughout the game and using them in a different way to keep the facility online without taking drastic measures. I’ve not managed it yet, but it turns the entire game into one giant puzzle that is harder than the simpler puzzles you solve along the way. I’ll feel like a genius when I solve it, and I hope to enjoy the cute and crazy end credits song again.
The Electifying Incident: A Monster Mini-Expedition is a short but memorable experience. It is a lesson in clever and purposeful design that works on every level. Stay for a good time, not a long one.
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