Gaming on the cheap: Ben There, Dan That

October 25, 10:00 AMPittsburgh Video Game ExaminerEric Keihl

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Know your roots.

As anyone who's ever been forced to sit through a long, boring credit sequence knows all too well, making a video game is a pretty big deal nowadays. Full-time staffs numbering in the hundreds work for months upon months on elaborate 3D models, intricate level designs, and (most importantly) realistic jiggle physics, all to create a single game that might last only a few hours.

At least, that's how it usually works. But hiding inside the dark and lonely crevices on the video game world are games made by small, dedicated groups of designers, who put in countless (and often payless) hours so that they might one day bring their vision to life... and maybe make a couple of bucks. And best of all, every so often (as is the case with today's subject,) the game they make is even good.

Ben There, Dan That, to me, represents the very best of what small-market developers have to offer the world of video games. It doesn't have a massive budget, and it doesn't have the sophistication of a corporate development team, but it does have wit, charm, and what might be described by a more sentimental writer as a heart of gold . An old-school point-and-click adventure game, it's probably the most well-known title released by Zombie Cow Studios, which sounds like the name of a really awful novelty band but is actually the brainchild of Dan Marshall, a fairly respected figure in the indie game community, who created Been There along with writer Ben Ward. And when I say he created it, I mean he did almost all of the work himself. Been There Done That is a basically a one-man operation, which is part (but only part!) of what makes its outstanding quality such a pleasant surprise.

Let's get the negative out of the way first: the indieness of Ben There is pretty apparent in its visual presentation. Designed using the free Adventure Game Studio software, the graphics and animation (both of which were done entirely by Marshall) are (as might be expected) a long way from the hi-res, Phong-shaded jawdroppery of current big-budget titles like Crysis. The backgrounds are pretty crudely drawn, with messy sketch lines sticking out all over the place and a lack of respect for perspective that would make neo-cubist blush. The jagged-looking characters walk on their pencil-thin legs with an unnatural sort of crabscuttle, and the lip sync calls to mind fond memories of Flash animutations and Howdy Doody. The interface is just as old-school; in fact it's straight out of Sam and Max Hit the Road, with the player right-clicking to choose an action and left clicking to perform that action on the target or move around. To be fair, it works just fine, but even a point-and-click obsessive like myself found it a little primitive.

Luckily, Marshall and Ward are clearly completely aware of their creation's aesthetic limitations, and artfully defang any attempt at serious criticism by having their own characters repeatedly call attention to the game's lack of visual polish. Indeed, a large part of the game's appeal lies in its self-aware sense of meta-humor; characters make snide remarks about having to search endlessly for "objects to interact with" and one particularly amusing NPC tells them that their entering his home would be pointless, since he owns no items that could can be combined with other items. Anyone familiar with the tropes of the adventure genre is almost certain to get a kick out of this kind of light-hearted self-deprecation, and it really helps to keep the game's tone light while glossing over its graphical shortcomings.

All of that self-awareness would be for naught, of course, if the game couldn't pull off the holy triad of a traditional adventure game: story, puzzles, and dialogue. Fortunately, Been There, Dan That left me rather impressed on all three counts. The plot centers around the eponymous Ben (who does most of the talking and item manipulation) and Dan (whose jobs are to flick light switches, make sarcastic asides, and acknowledge how totally useless he is) trying to get back to their rundown London apartment by navigating through a series of alternate dimensions to which some sinister aliens have confined them. These other versions of London include one where everyone's been turned to zombies, another where England has become a part of the United States, and yet another where the dinosaurs survived, became the dominant species, and started coding mindlessly violent video games and incessantly quoting from Star Wars. Truly, existence is filled with horrors beyond reckoning. In any case, each dimension requires that you pick up a key of some sort before you can enter, and acquiring the keys makes up the meat of the game's puzzle-solving. Said puzzles range from simple (crack a priest upside the head with a Bible and steal his crucifix) to tricky-bordering- on-obtuse (light candles corresponding to verses from scripture to open up a secret staircase.) But while the solutions might make you roll your eyes on occasion, for the most part the puzzles are logically thought out, and you'll probably never reach the hair-tearing stage that more difficult adventure games can push you to.

As well done as the first two aspects are, though, it's the game's brilliantly written dialogue that really sets it apart. While the constant bickering between Ben and Dan  is great, and the game's other inhabitants (especially a trio of drunken ex-game journalists bent on destroying the world) are all memorable, what might be most amazing is just how much of it there is: almost every single interaction between the characters and the stuff around them seems to have something unique written out for it; generic filler lines like "I can't talk to that!" almost never pop up. Just as an example, here's what Ben says when you try to talk to a gigantic fish sign resting atop an abandoned fast food restaurant, something that's completely unnecessary in order to finish the game and which 99% of people who play it would never even think of trying:

"HEY, BIG FISH! I CAN'T THINK OF A SINGLE THING YOU MIGHT BE USEFUL FOR... SO... SO JUST STAY THERE FOR A BIT, OKAY? I'LL COME BACK IF I NEED YOU, YEAH?"

As a writer, my mind positively reels at the thought of how long it must have taken (especially with a staff of two!) to pump out all of the dialogue needed to cover the thousands upon thousands of possible interactions players can have with their environment. Yet despite it's ubiquitousness the writing never feels forced or tacked-on, and some exchanges (especially those centering around obscure references to older adventure games like Monkey Island) are bound to have you laughing uncontrollably. It's clear that Mr. Ward and Mr. Marshall put a ton of effort into making sure that, if nothing else, the game was fun to fool around with, and I daresay they succeeded completely in that regard.

Which only makes it more astounding that they were willing to offer such a monumental labor of love to the public for no cost. Yes, that's right. Ben There, Dan That is 100% free, available for download at the Zombie Cow website at no cost whatsoever. It's awfully rare to see this kind of generosity in the rough-and-tumble world of video game design, especially in the current economic climate, and if I owned any hats, I would certainly put one on, tip it, and then take it off again out of respect to Mr Marshall and Mr. Ward. In the meantime, I can only encourage you all to check out Ben There, Dan That and, if you've got a little cash to spare, suggest that you pick up it's sequel Time Gentlemen, Please! on Steam for a mere $5. I promise, it'll be money well spent.