Game: The Electrifying Incident: A Monster-Mini Expedition
Genre: Puzzle, Indie
System: Steam (Windows & macOS)
Developers|Publishers: Draknek & Friends
Controller Support: Full
Price: US $4.99 | UK £3.99 | EU € 4,99
Release Date: April 15th, 2025
A review code was provided, and thanks to Draknek & Friends.
A Monster’s Expedition is a pleasant little sleeper hit of a puzzle game, one bite-sized and unassuming enough that it can be played on your phone. A particular subtype of puzzler that relies on pushing blocks around until you’ve got the placement right is occasionally used in big-name series like Tomb Raider and Horizon — the original game is an open-world exploration of anthropology from the non-human side. Sort of like a super-intelligent squid coming on land in a few thousand years and wondering what a Monster energy drink can is.
Once you’ve beaten it, there’s not much that’ll hit the same craving. Sure, there are tons of charming puzzlers out there, from Monument Valley to themed Picross games, but nothing quite like Monster’s Expedition. The good news is that creators Draknek & Friends have dropped a little aperitif so fans can hold them for a while. The Electrifying Incident isn’t a full-sized game, but it is a tightly-packed hour or so of brain scrambling and all-new charm. Let’s zap it.
Electrifying the Incident for New Arrivals
Let’s step back and assume you’ve never played a Draknek & Friends puzzle game (If you haven’t, I also heavily recommend LOK). Good news! The Electrifying Incident is so intuitive to pick up for first-timers that it’s a bit like a psychic experience. The Steam Deck natively jumps to a straightforward controller scheme, and the only commands you might have to guess at — backing up a puzzle step or resetting the puzzle area completely — are quickly shown on screen.
Moving your charming little dark blob in his OSHA-approved orange and white outfit is as simple as flicking the joystick, and grabbing blocks to move them is just one button press. The Electrifying Incident wants you to spend all your brainpower on figuring out its puzzles of escalating difficulty, not worrying about how to control the situation. Literally, the only mechanical thing you might fuss with is that it’s not a firm grid-based game. Your guy will wiggle a little as he turns to face whatever direction you need, and it’s something the game requires you to account for. It’s not drift; it’s just how the dude is.
Going Room to Room as Things Go Boom
There’s minimal exposition about what’s going awry in this initially pristine, Aperture-style lab. Occasionally, you’ll realize something’s gone a-clunk in an engine room, and the blocks you’re moving around will be key to resolving this large-scale and apparently explosive tech issue. But there’s no deep lore to focus on, just your guy and the simple joy — and frustration — of shifting blocks around until you can move on without crisping yourself with a 50,000-megavolt bad day.
But even moving from one area on may not mean you’re done with everything back in a past room. In fact, at first, you may think this is indeed as simple as finishing one room and going to another, but you’ll realize quickly you’ll have to backtrack once in a while to grab a block or do one more last-minute shift to make sure the next door opens.
The neat thing is, once you have solved what’s on your screen, whatever’s coming up is deftly arranged to not feel like you did all that work for nothing. Your next solution in The Electrifying Incident won’t ever have you backtracking only to trap yourself in something you just fixed; it’s always a matter of realizing some block or another has a life as a loose thread to stitch up in the next room. It’s a neat way of making you feel clever instead of annoyed as you delve deeper into this mixed-up machine room.
Learning to Grab with your Grabber
With all this in mind, your little OSHA monster has exactly one tool in his arsenal: an automatically extendable grapple claw whose connective shaft can bend and wrap around obstacles to create geometric results that would horrify a plumber. Playing with shapes and tool length is key to resolving the puzzles in your way. Wrap the tool around a lightbulb in the middle of the room for right-angle madness, or just add a little whip at the end. Or use multiple items lying around the room for a zipper-style end result that might just get a block exactly where you need it on the other side of a gap.
If you don’t like the results of your tool, keep on wiggling it or just hit the nifty reset button to try your experiment over from the start. With such a bite-sized game, you won’t lose a lot of progress, and it won’t take a lot of your time to earn the serotonin from a job well done. If you’re a block puzzle whiz, you might fix this sitch in thirty minutes or less. But if you’re unwinding after a long day and not the most spatial of persons, it might take closer to two hours. Still less investment than the average Coppola movie, and a lot lighter on the dialogue.
Conclusion
The Electrifying Incident: A Monster-Mini Expedition may not be a full meal, but it’s a delicious snack of a game for fans of A Monster’s Expedition. Anyone who’s a fan of block puzzles, slidey or otherwise, or who can think spatially are going to get a kick out of this little charmer. Light on story but full of this adorable little goon with his grabby toy and his PPE-approved vest, it’s the video game equivalent of a short story you’ll be thinking about for days afterward.
Final Verdict: I Like It A Lot
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