Dominique Pamplemousse: It’s All Over When The Fat Lady Sings
By Charlotte “Charlie” Humphries
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[dropcap]L[/dropcap]adies, gentlemen, and others! Deirdra Kiai Productions proudly presents Dominique Pamplemousse in It’s All Over When The Fat Lady Sings – the point and click musical. Yes you read that correctly, a point and click musical featuring a wide range of music genres to keep your toes tapping.
Featuring an original score composed and performed all by one person – Squinky of the dapper bowtie – it is this attention to detail that makes Dominique Pamplemousse an outstanding contribution to the point-and-click genre.
And if composing and producing all of the music wasn’t enough, Dominique Pamplemousse is presented as a black and white stop-motion film with subtitles. The scenes have all been crafted by hand, and the characters are all manipulated to sing for your enjoyment during your investigation. While other games that use similar techniques fall flat in their execution, Dominique Pamplemousse excels and raises the bar for such performances. The stop-motion element adds to the overall quality of the game as any other technique would have ruined the careful combination of original music and script.
The hard work and dedication put into Dominique Pamplemousse goes beyond the creation of the music and characters. The story itself – while simple enough – is elegant in its execution and displays a logical progression that a lot of point-and-click games forgo in order to look clever or to raise the difficulty bar in an unfair manner. Throughout the game you take on the role of detective Dominique, with trench coat and hat drawing a few comments from various characters. Your main goal in Dominique Pamplemousse is to find the pop star Casey Byngham who has skipped town. Sounds easy enough, straight forward, right? Until the game takes a few twists and turns and arrives at the ending which – no spoilers! – will leave you reeling and demanding an encore.
This game also goes further in terms of representation of non-binary genders without being overbearing or making it the entirety of Dominique’s character. Name another game in which the gender of the protagonist is never actually stipulated or is hinted at being non-binary. In a confrontation later on in the game, Dominique says, “You never actually asked me how I like to be referred to,” and while investigating the mall, the sign for the toilets prompts a small comment, “Which one’s for me?” Representation matters and Dominique Pamplemousse is paving the way for other games to follow suit.
Dominique Pamplemousse is a daring game worthy of your time and adoration. Watch the pieces fall into place as you move through each scene, each musical number. This is certainly an un-missable experience that will leave both old and new point-and-click fans clambering for an encore from Dominique Pamplemousse.
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[author image=”http://cliqist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/charlotte.jpg” ] Some say that Charlotte can smell incorrect spelling from three miles away. It is actually four and a half, but let’s not split hairs. When she isn’t proof-reading or playing games, Charlotte spends her days at community events cosplaying as Deadpool, or cat herding. Her favourite video game character is Patricia Tannis. If you want to read more of her ramblings, head over to http://www.humphriesck.wordpress.com. [/author]
