Retroulette: Fatty Bear's Birthday Surprise

Recently we here at RoboBlog celebrated the birthday of one of our own. So in celebration we've chosen to throw all of the, like, 10 games with the word "birthday" in the title into the Retroulette machine and see what comes out.

The game begins with a young girl, Kayla, wishing her teddy bear a good night. After she falls asleep, the bear comes alive, as stuffed animals are wont to do.

After he watches her sleep for a few hours, breathing heavily.

The bear is instantly in panic mode, as tomorrow is Kayla's birthday and he only has eight hours to prepare a party. This bear must be pretty sure that her parents aren't planning to give her anything but a lifetime of bitterness. Most importantly is making her a cake. That's not too difficult, right?

But first, let's talk to the other toys in the room.

First of all, you'll notice that that dude on the shelf is just straight up Bullwinkle. There's also an Oompa Loompa chick, a clown, and a rabbit. Unlike Fatty Bear (a name he gladly answers to, despite being a bear and therefore not one to have to take any shit from anyone), all these dolls are lazy asses that just sit on a shelf all day.

For some unknown reason, there's a head of lettuce on the shelf as well, and you can make faces with it. It's....eh...pretty fun.

"Kiiiiillll meeeeee"

So, leaving the room, we enter a hallway. I can't imagine there's many cake ingredients in the bathroom or in the parents' bedroom, but that doesn't stop me from snooping around. In typical Adventure game for kids fashion, the biggest focus of the gameplay here is to click things and watch silly things happen. Whereas in something like Myst clicking a part of the background will elicit nothing but feelings of emptiness, in Fatty Bear clicking anything will without fail make it flip the hell out. In practice this makes the world of Fatty Bear a nightmarish world of sentient household items and poltergeists.

Like...I don't even...

As in Blueberry Garden, the matter of your character's size in relation to the world around him is fluid. Observe:

At the end of the hallway is a locked door. There is a hole in the door though, and a mouse comes out with the key. Even though  Fatty stares at the mouse for a good thirty seconds before the mouse retreats back into the hole, he declares the mouse "too fast", and decides to return later.

Finally we make our way to the kitchen to get this cake business over with. There's a present in the middle of the floor, and Fatty can't resist opening that shit himself.

Inside is a puppy, who jumps out and runs away because of course he did. Someone put him in a box with no air holes and expected him to just sit in there overnight. Melinda rabbit tells me I should go get the puppy back, but Melinda rabbit is a bossy bitch that can just shut her damn mouth. I search the cupboards for the ingredients for the cake, and find them all save one. Sugar. That seems rather important if you want to make a cake people will actually eat, so now I have to find that. I look all over the house and don't find it, so I guess I have to walk to a store and buy some.

Outside you can play bowling, which is pretty awesome.

I don't even have anything to add. Bowling is fun.

 Other than that, there's nothing worthwhile outside. There's a locked garage and a skateboard that you can do sweet ass tricks on, but other than that it's back to the house to keep looking for sugar.

Upstairs the Oompa Loompa doll informs me that she was working on a banner for Kayla but the dog stole some of the letters (and I call bullshit on that, because she didn't move a single pixel from when we last seen her). Instead of doing it herself, she asks me to go around the house looking for them.

Here she is ordering Fatty around like she's somebody, and here is Fatty taking it like a bitch.

So now we have more errands to run for these bastards

Long story short, I look around the house for what seems like another five hours or so before I give up and look up the solution online (a Retroulette first!). First I have to find the garage door opener which is in the basement and only accessible by way of the bathroom. So after I have that, I can get into the garage and.....grab the sugar.

What the hell is this, 1871?

With the sugar in my inventory, I can now get this stupid cake thing over with.  I head to the kitchen and throw all the shit in a bowl. Matilda sits there barking orders at me while I mix it, and then tells me she can handle baking it. This blows my goddamn mind, because up until now I was fairly certain she would have asked Fatty to wipe her ass for her.

Oh by the way she could fly this whole time.

When it comes out of the oven, Matilda lets you decorate it however you want.

I found some cheese in the fridge, so now we can get the key from that asshole mouse. Through that door is an attic somehow, and other than there being the last of the letters for the banner, the only interesting thing in here is a magical wardrobe that shoots sparks at you and let's you change clothes. Fatty Bear has more outfits than Barbie.

The best part of this is that as soon as you step away from the magic wardrobe, you change back into your grubby overalls, so it's pointless.

Now it's time to set up for the party. Oompa Loompa begins by telling me that she's going to finish "her" banner by having me put the letters on it. Then she tells me that she's in charge of balloons, so why don't I just blow them up for her.

Dude is whipped.

Now the toys just wait for a few hours until Kayla wakes up. She does and is very happy to see that she got a good birthday for once.

In this boxart, everybody is chasing Fatty Bear out of his home. Good luck living without the guy who does literally everything for you, you assholes.

I also notice that the box advertises the game as for children 3-8. I am a 24 year old man, and I had to use the internet to basically play the game for me.