Sundews are a type of carnivorous plant that uses nectar to lure insects to their doom to supply themselves with nutrients. This makes The Sundew an apt title for a dystopian cyberpunk game where humans try to eke out a living on impoverished land. Plants play an important role throughout The Sundew‘s narrative in surprising ways despite their rarity in the rather bleak and desolate world of 2054’s Shibukawa, Japan. It’s important to note that this indie title was created by a one-woman development team, which is an impressive feat in-and-of-itself. Still, fans of the point-and-click graphic adventure genre should be aware that The Sundew is short and to the point, perhaps almost to a fault.
In true cyberpunk noir fashion, players control a cantankerous cyborg cop called Anna Isobe. Thanks to innovations in robotics by the year 2054, cyborgs are all but obsolete, though Anna begrudgingly continues her work despite the hardships. A fun night out that she blearily remembers melts into what seems like just another thankless day on the job, but it turns into something more problematic when Anna gets caught in a conspiracy that has her heading off to prison. This starts a journey that involves Anna facing down the powers that be in her dingy corporate-fueled world, maybe even saving the entire planet from a horrific fate while she’s at it.
The gameplay is pretty standard point-and-click fare, as players guide Anna by toggling the mouse pointer around an area to detect objects of interest that you can then take or interact with. Objectives, such as puzzles that need completing before advancing to the next major story scene, are clearly outlined in a menu for safekeeping so that players can check over the steps they still need to do to get past them. An electronic “eye” interface allows you to connect to other characters or, later on, interact with the physical world from a digital landscape. That pretty much sums up all there is to the mechanics of The Sundew. They’re simple, but they do the job nicely.
The controls on the Switch are easy enough to learn, and there’s a helpful tutorial available at any time for players to peruse. I quickly picked up the controls just by playing through the beginning and occasionally glancing at the tutorial and objectives. However, I want to share one piece of advice: you should examine everything of note within a given area. You’ll never know when something might become important for a puzzle later on, even if it seems irrelevant at the time you come across it!
This brings me to what is probably The Sundew‘s biggest weakness. Oftentimes, the path to solving puzzles and reaching objectives isn’t very clear. Unless you seek out some sort of guide, you’ll spend several frustrating moments in one area trying to figure out what to do with something like a random plastic bag so you can advance. Because of this, there are many head-scratching moments, ut these could’ve been avoided if puzzles were presented or explained slightly differently.
The Sundew’s other issue is simply its short length. The story is intriguing, especially if you’re fond of cyberpunk tales, but you can finish a playthrough in around three to four hours. That’s only really enough time for the plot to get the first layer established for worldbuilding, which is a shame, as the writing is excellent, and there are a lot of dialogue options to exhaust. There’s no real grammatical errors to speak of either. Anna is an interesting character, and you get a sense of her personality thanks to the dialogue, but other characters don’t get as much time in the spotlight and sort of fade into the background once they have played their part. The only exception is the mysterious Nate as a decision point involving them is integral to getting one of The Sundew‘s three endings. You uncover these based on particular actions you’ve taken throughout the game, but the endings themselves don’t add a lot of playtime or replayability to the experience.
I enjoyed how The Sundew used sound effects, particularly background noise, to showcase how populated an area was even if there weren’t many characters visible on the actual screen or highlight how empty another space might be. You also hear snippets of voice acting from time to time. The music is sparse but fitting for The Sundew‘s sci-fi aesthetic, and the lack of music at certain points helps add to the sense of bleakness the narrative is trying to convey. Visually, The Sundew has nice pixelated visuals that set the stage perfectly — this is a gritty, dark cyberpunk world, after all! The graphics convey this with incredible attention to detail that helps players figure out where objects of interest might be. The game’s promotional art is also quite arresting.
In many respects, The Sundew is a decent point-and-click graphic adventure, but it never quite breaks into stellar ground. However, it is still an enjoyable, albeit short, diversion that you can easily beat in one or two runs. There’s some confusion over how to approach a few of the puzzles, and the brief length doesn’t help the game’s plot and characters stand out as much as they might’ve otherwise, but I genuinely wanted to advance through the game and actually wished it was longer once I beat it. If you’re a fan of the genre and like cyberpunk tales, I think The Sundew is worth a go if you’re looking for a distraction, but expect a fleeting bit of entertainment with some confusing caveats. Considering that this title was obviously a labor of love from one person, at the end of the day, I enjoyed my time with The Sundew overall and am looking forward to seeing what future works may come from this promising developer.
