Review: Batty Zabella

There’s no sugarcoating this: Batty Zabella is a game where you wake up as a grungy, voluptuous, naked vampire lady femme (the titular Batty Zabella) bemoaning the vanishing of her husband Husbano (yes) right before she has to get dressed (which she does while teasing the player to enjoy the view first) so that she can go tend to the needs of her teenage son, Bat-Son. Sorry.

Soon discovering that Bat-Son is hungry and pining for blood, human blood, you are tasked with going down to the kitchen to fix him up something to eat. In the ensuing point-and-click adventure, you guide Batty Zabella as she finds a mouse trap, uses it to catch a mouse, deep-fries it and sandwiches it between slices of bread. Later, Bat-Son is discovered transformed into some kind of ghoul, and Batty Zabella is mysteriously knocked unconscious and knocked in a dungeon under her house.

Eventually, Batty finds herself in the middle of an age-old conspiracy involving her house being built on top of a derelict castle from a fallen kingdom that’s now overflowing with avenging spirits. As she wanders around the house solving this mystery, we hear much innuendo that indicate that her husband, Husbano, is essentially a large bat (“oh, how I miss his flapping and scraping in the night!”).

The relationship between Batty and Bat-Son is… unique, to say the least. While the game plays it for laughs, there’s an undercurrent of genuine affection beneath the bizarre circumstances. Bat-Son’s insatiable hunger for human blood is treated with the same nonchalance as his need for new walkman batteries. It’s a weird juxtaposition that somehow works within the game’s off-kilter universe.

I don’t know what to tell you; this is a weird game. Most of its jokes center around how suggestive Batty Zabella is as a character, with glamour shots of her chest and behind aplenty. It’s absolutely not my cup of tea, personally, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good game. Most of the jokes land. The game’s transgressiveness in its chosen medium is strong, legitimate and pays off. The graphics and art direction in general is pretty amazing.

When Batty Zabella isn’t leaning heavily on its protagonist’s physical assets for cheap laughs, it does manage to create some genuinely creepy moments. The pixel art depicting the haunted areas of the house is surprisingly effective, channeling a sort of “Addams Family meets Silent Hill” vibe. It’s in these moments that you can glimpse the potential for a genuinely interesting horror-comedy. I think it would’ve been easy to expect the developers to have restrained themselves from turning every other scene into a low-brow burlesque show, but I think that’s part of the humor, part of the ironic, self-aware thing the game has going on.

Indeed, despite its overt reliance on Batty Zabella’s physical attributes for humor, Batty Zabella demonstrates a surprising level of self-awareness. It’s as if the developers are constantly winking at the player, fully cognizant of the absurdity they’ve created. This self-awareness manifests in clever dialogue that often breaks the fourth wall, with Batty herself occasionally questioning the logic of her world or making sly references to video game tropes.

One of the game’s better-executed elements is the bizarre premise of Batty Zabella’s husband, Husbano, being a literal bat who’s been taken hostage by evil spirits. Rather than treating this as a throwaway gag, the game commits fully to the concept, weaving it into the narrative in increasingly ridiculous yet funny ways. When Batty finally finds Husbano, the chained bat squeaks and sqwawks at her the truth regarding the conspiracy of maleficent spirits that has befallen their household, only for Batty to say, “but this doesn’t make any sense!” – this commitment to its own internal logic, no matter how outlandish, gives Batty Zabella a charm that elevates it above mere shock value, even if it doesn’t always stick the landing.

However, the game’s audio design leaves much to be desired. The music, if it can be called that, consists mostly of weird disjointed notes droning on in the background. This cacophony not only fails to enhance the atmosphere but often detracts from it, making puzzle-solving more of a chore than it needs to be. A more cohesive soundtrack that better matches the game’s horror-comedy tone could significantly improve the overall experience.

The point-and-click gameplay works adequately most of the time, but it’s hampered by several issues. Navigation is often confusing, with poorly defined hotspots and a lack of clear visual cues leading to frequent bouts of aimless wandering. The game would benefit greatly from a more intuitive interface, perhaps including a hotspot highlight feature or a clearer indication of interactive elements.

Moreover, the excessive backtracking required to progress the story quickly becomes tedious. This issue is exacerbated by the game’s non-linear structure, which, while ambitious, often leaves players unsure of their current objectives. A more streamlined level design with clearer goals and fewer unnecessarily locked areas could alleviate much of this frustration.

Lastly, the pixel-hunting aspect of the gameplay – where you find yourself randomly clicking everywhere to see whether there’s something you’ve missed – is a relic of older point-and-click adventures that feels out of place in a modern game. Implementing a more logical and consistent interaction system, along with better visual feedback for interactive objects, would go a long way in making the gameplay more engaging and less reliant on trial and error.

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