Crabmeat Reviews
Crabmeat is a great short-form horror game that delves deep into the existential dread of both being in debt and being stranded in an unforgiving sea. The challenge and threat amps up throughout the 3-hour playtime and everything culminates in a conclusion that works as a suitably fantastic payoff. Similar to a game like Threshold, this is a one-sitting experience that shows the range of indie horror gaming.
Taking major inspiration from other indie games in both gameplay and graphical design, Crabmeat is a fun, decently paced horror fishing game with incredible attention-to-detail and lackluster visuals.
Crabmeat offers a short and enjoyable fishing experience. Using the boats various cranes, and navigation allows the player to easily become immersed as they play. I loved sorting the crabs out, and seeing them bonk each other as they ragged dolled. The overall atmosphere was nice, with the eeriness of what is going on. However, the story itself, or mystery I would say, was rather lacklustre. Another minor issue is with Crabmeat’s movement. I understand it is advertised as a point & click game, but the movement really suffers for this. It would be best to ditch it, or at least offer the player the choice to toggle it off. It may not be the strongest mystery game, but I would say picking it up for the fishing aspect is decent enough. Especially if Crabmeat is on sale. So I will be awarding it the Thumb Culture Silver Award.
Crabmeat offers a part thriller, part fishing sim experience that explores fishing, or more specifically crabbing in a more in depth way than many games do with the obligatory fishing mini-game. Whether you’d like to find out more about the hostile crabs, the Feudostate, or just want to spend some time crabbing, this game could fulfill any of those options.
Overall, Crabmeat is a nice little game. It takes the realistic machines and processes from crab fishing and mixes them into a horror game. While this is an unusual mix, with the storyline, it actually works. If you’re after a little challenge and enjoy the fishing process, jump in and see if you have what it takes to clear your debt and head back to society; your family will thank you.
Crabmeat is a decent fishing game, but if you go into it expecting to get scared by the horrors of the sea then you'll be sorely disappointed.
Ultimately, while the seafaring aspect of Crabmeat has its own meditative qualities, I find it fails to live up to its inspirations and aspirations. The open nature of the sea and sky takes away from any sense of claustrophobia found in similar minimalist titles like Iron Lung, and without any real pressures or threats to be found (outside of a few notable exceptions), I mostly found myself hoping for a future where interesting things might happen — a hope that was so rarely realized.