Game: Shindig
Genre: Adventure, Indie
System: Steam (Windows) Itch.io
Developers | Publishers: Imaginary Friends Games LLP
Controller Support: No
Price: US $7.99 | UK £5.79 | EU € 6,59
Release Date: September 2nd, 2021
Review code used, with many thanks to Imaginary Friends Games LLP.
Shindig is a narrative adventure game by the husband and wife team Imaginary Friends Games. Shindig is their first game, and it is available to play on Itch.io and Steam.
Let’s have a Shindig
In Shindig, you are tasked with organising a party to cheer up the glum populace of your new neighbourhood. But first, you get to customise your character when you start the game. You can choose skin and hair colour and extras such as glasses as well as pick your character voice. It is not a lot of customisation but it is great that it is included.
Simple Fetch Quests
Shindig is a sweet and short adventure where you roam around an island talking to all the animals, complete a few fetch quests and organise a party at the end. It’s a fairly linear path that you take around the island, and the game has a run time of a few hours.
Uplifting Experience
It is a wholesome and uplifting experience visiting the various shops and chatting to each animal in turn. Some of my favourites are Quinn the Octo-postmaster and Astrid the cat, who has a typical cat attitude of “If I fit I sits” and blocks off one of the paths you need to take on the island. I own a cat myself, or rather being caretaker of a cat as no one really owns a cat as they do their own thing. I laughed out loud when I came across Astrid as that is typical cat behaviour to sit in the most awkward of places.
In each storybook-style scene, some details and surprises make all sorts of things worth clicking on and make all of the characters’ interactions a real treat. Shindig is fully voice acted by the developers themselves, and for the most part, the voices are fun to listen to. There are a few that do sound similar in tone, but that’s the be expected.
Quirky Characters
There is lots of humour dotted throughout the game, and the music is a delight to listen to. There are closed captions on the screen which describe the sound effect or the music. Each character you meet has a story to tell and maybe a song to sing as well. The game is really a delight to play and I spent most of my time playing it with a smile on my face. It sure is a happy game.
Shindig shines with the lovely quirky characters with tales to tell. The voice acting and the added puns create a cosy and welcoming atmosphere in which exploration always feels pleasant and rewarding.
Controls
Controlling your character in Shindig is done with the mouse and for the most part, it works fine. I did find that the odd time if I clicked the ground to walk forward my character would sometimes not move at all. It took a few clicks to get her moving along.
Conclusion
Shindig is what I call a happy game. A game that you will find it hard to keep the smile off your face while you are playing. It is a game that leaves you with lots of happy and positive feelings as you play it and after you have finished it you’ll still be thinking about it. In this day and age, we could all do with feeling happy for a long as possible.
Final Verdict: I Like It A Lot 