The Interactive Adventures of Dog Mendonça & Pizzaboy®

A short and weird game but....worth a try...I guess(?

A bit of a lack of logic in the puzzles, very few interactable objects in the game, and by the end I was sick of hearing the same voice cues over and over again, a change of answers would've been nice. But I'm giving an upvote because you can see it was made with love and the artwork and music are great.

A disappointing game. The jokes really reminded me of edgy snarky humour found at a boys summer camp. Most of the jokes were also only references to pop culture which is lazy, and breaking the fourth wall by saying that your game “is not that good” does not do it any favours. The puzzles had built in answers in the hint menu and were disappointing. The voice acting for English was so bad I had to mute it. The only good thing was the art, which was drawn by the artist for the original comics which I hope are better than this. Though many of the cool scenes and character's are underutilizes, with many objects feeling like an afterthought and the backgrounds too busy. Unless you are a fan of the series (which I have not read) don’t play this.

Very beautiful and rather entertaining adventure game.

Apparently it's based upon a portugese comic, which certainly shows in the visuals, very nice.
The puzzles themselves aren't that difficult, certainly not for an experiences adventure gamer.

There is only one thing I didn't like about the game, and it was at least the last boxing match, IMHO such a difficult 'action' part doesn't belong in an adventure game. especially as it felt like the controls just didn't respond correctly.
Also it might have needed a smal tutorial for beginning adventure gamers on how to use the controls, especially the hotspot-viewer as it's nowhere documented.

But all in all it's a great, not so long, adventure game. Bought it at sale/bundle for less then 5 euro's and I certainly think that is a great price for the 5 hours it took me to play the game (without walkthrough, but with the replaying the boxing match(es) over and over till I won, which certainly took me more than 15 minutes).

Hope they'll do a sequel as I would like more of these characters.

I wanted to finish the game before posting a review, but I'm at the casino and I already have an idea of what's going on.

First of, I'm going to recommend it if only for the art and the music. Those are really good, very 90's style, and I love them. The story is quite basic, but I like the monster theme that's all over the place. I specially like how they incorporate monsters in the human world.

However, I've seen many people talking about this game trying to be Monkey Island, but to me it screams more of Deponia.
Eurico (PizzaBoy) is closer to Rufus than he is to Guybrush. Yes, he steals stuff and is clumsy at times, but Guybrush was more on the "silly-but-charming" side, while Rufus is more on the "smart-but-subconsciously-cruel" side (I know he has his redemption arc, but come on, he's really awful at first), and Eurico is leaning more towards "smart-but-clumsy".
Also, this should have been named "The interactive adventures of PizzaBoy and Pazuu's car", because that's the extend of the characters' repertoir you have to work with.

(And I just found out there are books of this, and I may want to read them, not gonna lie).

As for the puzzles, yeah... many have stated it. The notes you get on the game basically explain the puzzle to you, and most of the time give the solution away. Whatever is not said in there is actually hard to spot and figure out, because the game turns into pixel hunting really fast, even if you use right mouse to spot the clickable spots, most of them are not visible. That chain in China Town was not easy to get, I can tell you that much.

And yeah... This game really needed a double mouse left click to make Eurico pick up the pace. Like, my dude, you're in danger, your friends are in danger, the whole world is in danger, but don't let me rush you to go back to the right side of the screen.
And the inventory would have been better to be on the top of the screen. I kept clickin on Eurico's hand and opening his jacket by mistake.

All in all, I'm enjoying the game, but more in Kevin's Time Machine style rather than Monkey Island or Deponia style.

Tired of games that have the stupid arcade games that get increasingly harder. If I wanted that I would buy arcade games.

Preatty funny and nice pint and click game. Puzzles wasn't ridicales and story was really intersting and good in my taste.

I haven't played all the way through it yet but I highly recommend for all my friends that are even mildly interested to jump on it while it's on sale. It is a very engaging point and click puzzle story game!

This game was a relief after playing the very disappointing The Inner World: The Last Wind Monk. Recommended for all P&C fans. Not too difficult, not too long, a couple of fun hours. Looking forward to their next games.

Edit after finishing game: I had never heard of this series before playing, and while i do recommend it, it does have flaws. I ran into a few different audio bugs, including a line that was silent and not voiced at all, as well as a line that was supposed to be voiced by another character, but pizza boy said it, which is obviously more than just a bug considering the wrong voice actor said the line of audio. I also found it rather annoying that pazuul is a mute, and thus really adds nothing of value to the story. It also does have this strange habit of either over explaining things to the point of being too easy, or explaining nothing, and intending that you just figure out what to do, which is made all the worse because this game commits what i find to be one of the most annoying sins of point and click games, and that is, objects not becoming interactive to pick up or use until a certain action or dialogue has been completed, meaning that you could have already interacted with everything in a room or area, but later you can come back and new items will be able to be acquired that either had no place to interact with, or was not even there at all before. This leads you to get stuck doing puzzles, not realizing you need to back track to get an item that was not even there before. Despite it's flaws, it is a beautiful classic style point and click adventure with a great story and had actually pretty good voice acting for most characters. It is a bit short, maybe like 5 hours, but i still enjoyed and would recommend it to point and click game fans.
I will update this review later once i actually play the game, however i nearly immediately refunded this game due to technical issues. Like many people who want to buy this game, i was drawn in by the beautiful hand drawn graphic novel aesthetic, but as i started playing, i was greeted by choppy, ugly pixelation. Even the text was blurry and choppy, almost doubling up on itself. I first thought, maybe the graphics settings need changed, but there are no graphics settings. I tried changing it from full screen to windowed, and that made it slightly sharper, but now I'm no longer immersed. I went back to the store page, had i really not noticed how pixelated it was? No, the trailer is still beautiful. Had I been a victim of a bait and switch, being shown a beautiful hand drawn version, and then given a pixelated mess? Luckily not, after some research into game play videos and then the community forums, i found there was a problem with the game's DPI settings, which can be fixed by overiding high DPI scaling behavior in the game's properties. Now it looks beautiful as it is supposed to, though i did spend more than 30 minutes figuring out what was wrong while considering if i should refund. I'm going to give it a chance now, however i don't know why so many games seem to have technical problems these days that players have to try to solve themselves. I do love the steam community though for banding together to get information out to everyone on problems like these.

Animation looks charming but has a kind of 'crustiness' to it that makes it look very rough and amateur. That and the fact that you've got this big, brash, loud-mouthed fat guy "Dog" basically calling you stupid every 20 seconds for the first 5 minutes of the game had me bailing.

pros

+ graphic novel styled hand drawn, colorful, richly detailed background graphics and character models
+ a well written and intriguing story which inspired from film noirs concluded pretty nicely in the game's end
+ decent voice acting
+ noir background musics
+ there are plenty of wacky characters
+ some good humor
+ enjoyable puzzles. they are not too easy or overly complicated. there are also inventory puzzles you can combine some items
+ boxing mini games fun
+ nice atmosphere
+ notebook very helpful when you stuck
+ when you press to right button on mouse, hotspots highlighted so no need to pixel hunting

cons

- characters can't run and their animations little bit slow
- puzzle solutions getting quite obtuse towards to end
- there are no Steam achievements
- game doesn't drop any cards
- the game is short

Overall this is an decent point and click game but characters and story quite weird so it may not everyone's cup of tea.

The Interactive Adventures of Dog Mendonça & Pizzaboy® (what a mouthful!) is a competent, if somewhat forgettable, comedy point+click adventure from 2016. The characters and story are based on an existing comic book trilogy, and there are a number of references in the game to the written work it is based on. I am not familiar with the source material for this game, but as someone who is new to these characters, I still found the game to be accessible and enjoyable.

The story follows a big and blustery werewolf/private eye who is contracted by a beautiful young woman to investigate a gypsy curse. He promptly vanishes under mysterious circumstances. We play as his unpaid intern, who picks up the trail and tries to piece the mystery together. Two sidekicks, a talking gargoyle head and an ancient demon trapped in a dainty little girl's body, tag along. Eventually, the case leads to a wider corruption scandal in the monster movie industry. If you have played Pendulo's "The Next BIG thing", you will notice many similarities between these games.

At first, I was not quite sold on this game. At first, I found the dialogue to be a little stilted, and I found the puzzles to be a little simple. Another issue I found the game to have is the disconnect between these large, colorful, richly detailed backgrounds and environments, and the fact that each room only tends to have one or two tiny little pixel-hunty hotspots. There are so many things that look like they should be interactable or explorable, but pretty much the only things you can click on are the things that are required to complete the game. Those things are sometimes hidden pretty well, too, and there is no hotspot highlight feature to assist.

Despite the issue above, the game picks up a bit. The puzzles never become too challenging, but they keep the game moving at a good clip. The game's best puzzles are all in the back half. The story also picks up as well, despite the Big Bad kind of not really showing up until the closing scene. By the time I finished this game, after about 4 hours of play, I had warmed up to it quite a bit.

I don't think this game is destined to be remembered as a classic, if it is remembered at all. It is a nice way to spend a few hours, though, and it features some lovely location art. I liked it enough to want to check out other games this developer/publisher have worked on, so I am giving it a solid thumbs up.

A few hours into the game and leaving a quick review. In many ways, this game is not a traditional point and click game. The game leans heavily on the Darkhorse comic stories, and this is a must-buy for fans of comic book narratives. The story is solid, and there are many narrative challenges, where the player must pick the right questions for interrogations. Additionally, the hand-drawn animations and incredibly detailed backgrounds are excellent. Obviously there were some veteran artists involved here.

The game is less impressive in some other areas... that's painful with the game's above-average price tag. The voice narration is just forgetable, there are some unconventional puzzles and game interfaces, and some of the point and click gameplay feels downright uninspired. I wish they had developed the game world a bit more, to make me appreciate these graphic novel characters.

All in all, I would recommend this game for fan of graphical novels, because it does deliver an interesting story. There are some very great graphical flourishes, too. But it lacked the elements of a good point and click game. So, this is one where you might be waiting for a steam sale, unless you are already a fan of the comic style.

Played this on an Ubuntu Linux 18.10 system, with radeon mesa drivers. This game uses the Godot Game Engine, and I had no technical problems with this game, even on a very old computer.

I had a good time playing through this game. In all it took about 5 hours, and for a $2 on sale purchase I was happy with my investment. The complaint from others that there isn't much to interract with is valid, but the puzzles weren't overly complicated and everything flowed fairly well. The story did have adult elements but not overly so, it's mostly jokes that would go over the heads of the younger generations. There are a LOT of pop-culture references from movies to other games and finding them was a big part of the fun for me. If you're looking for a game to play during a lazy Sunday afternoon, this is a nice choice.

Probably the first thing which should be mentioned about The Interactive Adventures of Dog Mendonça & Pizzaboy is that it’s a very rare game in the current state of the video game market: not only is the title way longer that it needs to be, but the game itself is more or less an old-school point-and-click adventure game, which unlike most contemporaries in this genre does not use a pixel-art style.

Opting instead to use high quality 2D art with some sprinkles of 3D and animated scenes creates the overall feel of a high budget point-and-click adventure game from the nineties. The look is gorgeous both in terms of quality, style and the setting portrayed.

The story of this game takes place in Portugal, in a world where monsters exist right beside humans. It revolves around the titular Dog Mendonça, a werewolf private detective, and Pizzaboy (his actual name being Eurico) — his sidekick, as they stumble upon a case involving a string of strange murders and a seemingly non-existent gypsy curse. The overall story itself is pretty fun and engaging — writing is certainly another strong point of this game. So, the only two complaints I could find would be tied to the game being rather short (took me less than six hours to complete the game, with all of the puzzles) and that the storytelling doesn’t really dive deep to tell you about the overall setting and characters in too much detail, assuming that you know at least some of the basics.

The last part is probably somehow tied to the fact that The Adventures of Dog Mendonça & Pizzaboy is actually an award-winning comic book trilogy released a couple of years ago, which I didn’t know until I started writing this review. So, some interesting side characters like Pazuul and Gargoyle receive way less attention then they deserve.

The overall gameplay in The Interactive Adventures of Dog Mendonça & Pizzaboy is mostly your regular point-and-click adventure game from way back when: you navigate between locations, talk to NPCs, take, give and use items. And while items aren’t specifically highlighted in locations with either effects or style, pixel hunting isn’t really an issue here: most of the items are visible on locations and you can easily find them if you look carefully.

Unlike some of the old adventure games, you mostly won’t find mind-bending logic here. The general point-and-click adventure game style is sometimes broken up by either animated action scenes, short mini-games or things like that, which further improve the overall feel of the game. And while music and voice-acting may not be the best or too memorable, they are pretty good and fit both characters and the game overall.

So, while I would certainly recommend The Interactive Adventures of Dog Mendonça & Pizzaboy for anyone who looks for a fun, short, and gorgeous-looking point-and-click adventure game, you don’t actually have to be a fan of point-and-click adventure games to like it — it’s pretty easy to pick-up and play for anyone. This game certainly deserves more exposure than it got, with SteamSpy estimating sales at around just 60k copies.

P.S. For more awesome hidden gems, follow the steam CRIMINALLY Low Sales curator.

All in all a good but not great point and click adventure game with minor flaws. A bit too easy for my taste. Maybe consider buying it at sale (This game is rather short hence around 14,99 €/ 18 $ is a bit too much) !

Charming old school point and click adventure. Simplistic, but with heart. Don't hesitate to grab it at a sale, you'll love it!

The game is generally ok-minus. The graphics are good, the voice-acting is so-so. The plot is ok. The thing that most annoyed me about the game is that there are so few elements that you can't help but get the puzzles right. If the game's own mechanics weren't so slow (omg, the time it could take pizza-boy to go from one side of town to the other..) then it wouldn't have even lasted the 5.5 hours I played.
It is kind of ok-ish if you get it on sale. It is just ok-ish or ok-minus overall

After much thought I have to go against recommending this new entry into the "point and click" game library. While it's worth playing I would only play it if I had nothing else in the "adventure game" category to play. It is actually the reason why I bought it and played it.

The game has a lot going for it but it lacks a few things which bring it down the rungs against newer indie point and clicks and the classics from the old Sierra/Lucas arts days.

Its easy to see that this game wasn't originally meant to be in English as some of the phrasing and speech acting doesn't flow so well or has the wrong intonation for the particular phrase. It feels like most of the actors just read lines for sound samples. That isn't a dealbreaker however but just something to keep in mind, there are other adventure games that may not look so pretty but the voice acting is better. I have a feeling it might be to do with the translation and the odd dialogue progression sometimes, ala LA Noire, that the whole thing feels a bit confused and rushed. It makes sense it just doesn't flow quite right.

The artwork is perhaps one of the best features about this game, bringing back the old hand drawn feel of some of the later adventure games such as the original Broken Sword but in such rich detail and clarity. The problem is there is a bit too much of it with no ability to interact with anything even if it's only just for humorous intent. Some of the detail just doesn't make sense for where it is and just gives a feeling of cluttering the scene. Also some wonderful scenes are only just briefly shown when they could've made up another scene for puzzles and info, it feels a bit of a waste.

The animation is great in some areas of the game but oddly sparse in others, there's also the feeling of being a little lazy in some of the animation with certain things moving slightly just for the sake of moving when they could either be still or be a bit more animated such as people swaying. This gives the feeling of there trying to be more "action" than there really is.

One of the great things of this game is the easter eggs and details relating other classic movies and adventure games, the bad thing is in some scenes there is a bit too much of it and not enough original content creating a bit of a feeling of riding on the legacy of older games and movies.

It is very short, it really feels like half or even a quarter of a game due to the plot being crammed into the scenario.
There are a lot of really fresh things in the game in terms of plot, dialogue and humor, some great injections of fresh thinking even if sometimes it doesn't work e.g. The "Jacket inventory" which is a great idea but unfortunately blocks some things if you're not far enough to the right.

It's worth giving it a go but if you're a fan of adventure games perhaps when it's on special.

The game is amusing, and not terribly difficult. The artwork is excellent and reminiscent of the graphic novels. The story certainly captures the flavor of the Graphic Novels.The music and sound effects are good as well. The voice acting... leaves something to be desired.

There are certain points where things simply make no sense, and I had to resort to randomly clicking things and eventually bungled my way through. Some of the puzzles were frustrating in that you couldn't jump back into them immediately after a failure, but has to sit through a preceding conversation or animation. Other times, there was an opportunity for a puzzle which was bizarrely skipped.

I had hoped also for a more active role by Gargoyle and Pazuul, but they are relegated to something of a supporting role with almost as little to do as they did in the demo. The puzzles are somewhat spare in this... I was hoping for more.

My biggest complaint is in that the game is so short. It consists of only a single case and game play only last about 8 hours.

All those negatives though don;t really cause me to NOT recommend the game. Its fun, I enjoyed myself. And ultimately, thats all that matters.

The Interactive Adventures of Dog Mendonça & Pizzaboy®
At this time, I am 3 hours into the game. When I first came across this title, it was with the demo release several months ago. I was excited for the game, and bought it straight away when it came out. The art style still looks impressive, however some movements from the secondary characters are remanicent of those ads you find on facebook, chossing distorting the image in lue of jaw movement or breathing. The lack of animation in some places does make the game seem unfinished or buggy, an example being a mini game between a professional boxer. When first playing this game the sound quality of the voice overs may also seem scratchy and alittle poorly recorded. However the sound quality is not bad, and after awhile i forgot there was an issue. In my opinion the story is good and in places the game looks great. If you are patient and can look past the games short comings, I think it would be worth it. If you are a fan of the comic series or are just looking for an easy adventure game, I suggest givving this one a shot. (ps. this game is not for kids)