Backbone

Backbone is a strange point-and-click adventure. Its story moves from one extreme to the other too fast, going from complete cliché to “holy hell, what’s going on” after a single twist. However, it never commits to both approaches, abandoning important elements for the twist, but not giving it time to breathe.

The protagonist is a raccoon that wears a trenchcoat and works as a private investigator. Howard Lotor is your typical noir detective: he’s reckless and cynical, talks tough and claims to be used to the dark, filthy places of his town: “Granville. Smells like wet concrete, overpriced fast food and puke. My kind of battleground.” One day, when he’s investigating the whereabouts of a male otter – his wife believes he’s cheating on her – Howard gets mixed in a sinister plot that involves the most prominent figures of the city. With the help of a journalist – that just happens to be an attractive fox –, Howard must then find what truly happened to some missing girls.

The first parts of Backbone follow the noir staples to the letter. The investigation gets more and more complicated, incriminating more and more important people. Howard believes society is rotting from the inside and his findings just corroborate this notion: the rich are exploiting the poor in ways that even the detective couldn’t have imagined. There’s a feeling of powerlessness that permeates the entire story, imbuing it with a melancholic dose of fatalism: Howard constantly wonders whether his actions really matter, since even if he discovers the truth, he can’t exactly go to the authorities to get the people responsible punished.

Corruption is always a major theme in noir stories and it’s no different with Backbone. The people in power always have law enforcers in their pocket: they do horrible things without a care in the world because they know they are blessed with impunity. There’s an early scene when Howard talks to a homeless person – they are the wisest wise and most compassionate characters in the game – and the guy warns the detective that his optimistic mindset will bring only disappointment. The protagonist is talking about how his actions can finally have an impact on the world and change it for the better, but the homeless man says, “We talking about change now? People like you and me don’t change things.” But Howard still believes he can.

After all, despite his act, Howard is still naïve and inexperienced. Early on, he even contemplates – even if just for a short moment – going to the police to tell them about a hideous crime he saw a mob boss commit. When his search for the missing otter leads him to such discoveries, the character knows he’s out of his depth: he’s used to small cases, like taking pictures of unfaithful husbands, so going against the mafia is a bit above his paygrade. The scene that opens act II is crucial in this regard, because it shows Howard panicking after finding that crime scene: he asks a lot of questions to himself, but doesn’t know any of the answers. He’s clueless about what to do next: if he should lie to his client or tell the truth, if he should delve deep into the case or pretend it never happened. He only knows that his life is at stake, but that only makes him more anxious.

But then comes Renee, a journalist that gives him meaning and purpose. She stirs him in the right direction, forcing Howard to uncover all the dirty he can on the mob and the politicians so she can then make it public. Her influence on him is what makes Howard never back down, as she’s the one that’s always pushing him to do the right thing.

The first parts of the game follow this pattern: Howard goes to interrogate a person or infiltrate a place, discovers that things are even worse than before – and that the rich and powerful are even more wicked than he first imagined – he panics, tries to leave, but Renee puts him back on track.

There’s a focus on building side characters: there’s a rabbit vendor called Mo, or Po or something else, that pretends to be different people in different parts of the city – or so Howard believes. There’s an elderly couple you meet on the street that is lonely and you can help them be together – even if there’s no reward for it, as it would turn a selfless act into something not so selfless. There’s a scientist that doesn’t hesitate to use people as guinea pigs for her research, but still treats them kindly. She has been denied access to her dreams all her life, so when the mob boss offers her the chance to finally work with what she wants, she doesn’t look the gifted horse in the mouth.

That’s how the main antagonist in the game controls people: society oppresses and she offers relief. Sometimes, by tempting girls with a big check, offering them the amount of money that they could only dream to get elsewhere. Sometimes, by investing in personal projects, allowing good deeds to happen because they will get loyalty in return. The antagonist gives back what society takes and people start answering to her, looking the other way when it comes to her crimes.

This all means that Backbone works in its first hours. It nails the noir atmosphere, with a fatalist, melancholic tone and a jazz-based score. Even the loading icon is a cigarette burning down, which adds to the charm. It has interesting characters, gorgeous backgrounds, and even some humor spread throughout to keep things from becoming too gloomy.

The unfaithful otter that Howard is after at the beginning, for example, is called Jeremy Green, and he wears a green hat and a green tie to work. Because the protagonist is a raccoon, one of the usual options of interaction is also to “sniff” things, like objects and people. This leads to some humorous writing, such as when Howard gets infatuated with a desk:

“[Sniff the desk]

The wood has perhaps been rubbed with scented oil, redolent of citrus and smoke. It smells of power and success. 

[Feel the desk]

It feels like a desk. But you wish you could run your hands over its silky grain every day.”

However, even when it works, Backbone still has its fair share of problems. The soundtrack is great but too sparse. There are scenes in the game that play out in complete silence, as the dialogues are not dubbed, the letters don’t make “Phoenix Wright” sounds when they appear, and there’s no background noise. This decision makes scenes that could have used more drama become weightless.

The game’s puzzles are also non-existent. The most difficult one is at the beginning, which functions as the climax before the first big reveal, but there’s just one more in the rest of the game, which retrospectively makes that puzzle feel out of place.

You also have the option to choose Howard’s answers, but they’re limited to being a jerk or compassionate, self-assured or uncertain, and you can move between extremes with no penalty, creating a contradictory character.

Finally, there’s the twist, a big “WHOA” moment that upends everything, changing even the game’s genre. Even though it’s surprising and memorable – in the way ultra-bizarre narrative decisions usually are – at the end of the day, this twist does more harm than good to Backbone.

First, there’s the matter of time: after it happens, there’s only one more act left in the game and an epilogue, which doesn’t leave time for the twist to be developed. Since it has absolutely nothing to do with what came before, it doesn’t use those things – the characters, the themes, the plot points – in its favor. On the contrary, instead of bringing closure to them, it ignores past events and opens numerous more doors.

Noir is a genre that looks inside: it shows corruption at the heart of a society. The twist in Backbone shifts the focus outwards: it asks big questions about the world itself, creating mysteries related to worldbuilding. Consequently, the game’s last hours are at odds with the first ones: they’re looking in different directions, talking about different things.

Consequently, characters are forgotten – like the brother of one of the missing girls – jokes don’t get their punchline – like the identity of Mo/Bo – and some important plot points are suddenly dropped: one of the antagonists, for example, says in the epilogue, “you know the horrible things I was doing? Well, I’ve just decided not to do them anymore.”

And the new questions the twist brings to the table, about Howard’s world and what lies beyond it, are also not answered. Even the discussion about identity that suddenly comes to the forefront also leaves underdeveloped: the question of “what am I” that Howard starts to ask becomes muddled by the strange nature of the twist itself, since it corrupts precisely that answer.

Backbone pulls the rug out from under your feet, which is great, but it never stops to ask “at what cost?” Because the answer here is not only everything that came before the event, but also afterward: the twist becomes the point in and of itself. And no story survives with only that.

June 22, 2021.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTC6ZET43uM