A fellow Nindie fan is obsessed with Tux and Fanny and wants the world to play. He wore me down until I eventually bought it. It took me a while, but I finally made a hard push through it. I have to say it is a masterpiece. A weird masterpiece, but one never the less. Don’t go in expecting a plot, there isn’t much of one. Don’t go into this point-and-click adventure game expecting brain teasers either, because there really aren’t any. What makes the game a masterpiece is all the random stuff they crammed in, including the entirety of Moby Dick. You can spend hours reading books or playing computer games you find. The game keeps a score, with the maximum being 452, but I beat the game with a score of 216, meaning I didn’t even do half the stuff you could do there.
The point of the game is the journey, not the destination.
You will play as four characters. Tux is a magenta person with a male voice. Fanny is a purple person with a female voice. There is a cat and a flea looking to go to the promised land. You will need to play all four characters, but most of the time will be spent with Tux and Fanny in their quest to inflate a soccer ball. Tux and Fanny want to play soccer, but their ball is deflated, so they must inflate the ball. That’s it. That’s the plot. And then you go on a huge series of seemingly random tasks that eventually net you the items you need to inflate a ball.
Tux and Fanny’s Journey
Tux and Fanny is fairly linear in what you have to do. At any time, you can press the stick, and Tux or Fanny will tell you the next thing that needs to be done. However, for much of the game, it’s fairly open in terms of the order to do things. The first major puzzle is the opening of a safe. To open it, you need to find the six-number code. And to find them, you do six random things like tune a TV or make tea and go to sleep. You’ll open the safe and get a key to open the gates in your fenced yard to explore the wider world. It’s here the game becomes somewhat non-linear. After a while, everything will converge back to a linear path to the end, where you’ll face a “final boss battle” that is grand, hilarious, and touching at its conclusion.
As I said at the top, Tux and Fanny is about the journey, not the destination. More than half the stuff you do has no bearing on finishing the story. Lie in a mud puddle and then take a bath. Skip stones. Make various films, including a puppet show and a claymation. Help goblins with their problems. Build a bike and go on a bike trail. Read the entirety of Moby Dick, and get points when you read it all. The choice is yours. And I think that’s sort of the point, as the title in game is “Tux and Fanny in ‘A nice day’.” You can complete the game, but it’s better to dawdle around and experience everything else.
A game about nothing!
I call Tux and Fanny the Seinfeld of gaming. If Seinfeld was a show about nothing, then this game is also about nothing. But within its nothingness, Tux and Fanny comes together into something meaningful that I loved immensely. I will go back and get more points because it is that good. It has a charm that is undeniable, and a wicked sense of humor at times. I am proud to give Tux and Fanny a Must Play. Oh, and by the way, play with the sound on. The game isn’t the same without its computer-generated Russian voice-over.
But wait, there’s more! You see, Tux and Fanny is really a prequel to an 82-minute feature film that you can either buy a Blu-ray of or watch on YouTube (first 79 episodes). There is also a second movie you can watch on the same channel (next set of episodes) or buy the Blu-ray of. If you love the duo even more, there is an entire store full of merchandise.
Overall: Tux and Fanny is an often funny and whimsical point-and-click adventure game about absolutely nothing, and I love it dearly.
Verdict: Must Play
| Platform | Nintendo Switch |
| Release Date | 9/9/21 |
| Cost | $9.99 |
| Publisher | Means Interactive |
| ESRB Rating | E10+ |
