Read Greg Collins’ Review – February 3, 2012

Kaptain Brawe is a game I picked up during a Steam sale. I had never heard of the game before then, but it was being billed as an adventure game so I couldn’t resist. I was pleasantly surprised with my light-hearted jaunt in the shoes of Kaptain Brawe.

The Story

Kaptain Brawe is a captain of the space police. He is a bit of a bumbler, but one who can get things done. The game starts with Brawe on his space ship with his first mate, Kralek. There is some tension between the two, but they do work together and have been tasked to investigate a distress call. The game’s introduction starts in the spaceship, with Brawe collecting some items needed to follow the distress call. Then it’s off to the planet to investigate. The investigation leads to a conspiracy involving alien scientists, space pirates, and the destruction of the universe.  

Throughout the game, you’ll get to step into the shoes of three different characters. You’ll spend most of your time as Brawe, the space Captain for whom the game is named. But you’ll also get to play Luna, another member of the space police, and Danny, a human clone of a space pirate. Later in the game, switching between these three characters becomes important to the plot’s progress and in solving puzzles.

Production Values

Kaptain Brawe is a light-hearted adventure game. It reminds me a bit of Space Quest in that it takes place in space and is full of humor. It has a set of quirky characters, as does Monkey Island, and enjoyable animation. A lot of the adventure games today seem to go out of their way to provide a pixelated retro look. Thankfully, this is not attempted in Kaptain Brawe. It is nice to play a game that attempts to provide modern graphics, while still maintaining a 2D approach to adventure gaming.  

The game is not without its flaws, though. I don’t feel that the title character has a distinct personality. It’s almost like he’s the nameless avatar of old, before game creators started to inject attitude into their characters. I think this may be compounded by the fact that the game uses no voice acting. It is weird to see that in a modern game. I found the game enjoyable without the voice acting, but it is an odd choice for marketing to modern audiences. The musical soundtrack fits the quirky environments, though, and helped to augment the scenes.

Final Thoughts

If you’re looking for a light-hearted adventure that you can play over the course of a weekend, look no further than Kaptain Brawe. It is an entertaining diversion from the real world. At the time of this writing a sequel is being Kickstarted, and I’d love to see it succeed so I can once again step into the shoes of Kaptain Brawe.

+ A light-hearted adventure + Quirky musical soundtrack – Has no voice acting