Kwumpus Hunt by MechMage

 

Fan cover made by Clavietika

Absurd, surreal, and goofy. Based on a text adventure game from the 70s, Kwumpus Hunt offers a fantastic comedy wrapped up in puzzle-like gameplay that any Student Transfer fan should check at least once if they want to try out something different and refreshing.

The plot centers around Mel and her quest for the Kwumpus, an evil entity that has taken over the school changing everything and everybody to his liking. With the help of her friend and guide Flavia, Mel will have to find out what is happening and strike in the right moment to free the school of its perdition.

The gameplay is nonlinear and even randomized. Now, before you flip up about randomizer use, I have to say that this is randomizer use done right. There are several characters that appear in different rooms every time, the location of the villain is also randomized so you will never know where to actually attack. The rooms without characters offer to the player the possibility to watch pieces of the past to collect clues about the evil Kwumpus to make sense out of the situation.

The rooms with characters will not let you get any clues from that room, so, to get all clues, you will need to replay the scenario several times; even then, the scenario lets you get the right ending with a single playthrough. Replaying the game is very enjoyable anyway thanks to the 7 different endings you can get in total (9 countings some small variations according to Mech, but I didn't see them anywhere, to be honest).

Each room gives you a limited selection of other rooms to go to, if you find end up walking to a room with the wrong character, you will get a bad ending; you have to learn how to go through the right combination of rooms to navigate through the school without being found by the villain or one of the mind-controlled people before time. 

One thing I found a bit annoying is that the rooms do not follow a certain pattern, naturally. Being in the stairway doesn't give you the option to go to the roof, and being on the gate doesn't necessarily let you go to the courtyard, you have to go through several rooms until you find one that lets you access the room you are looking for. While some people might find this a small inconvenience that could increase gameplay without adding any actual content, I found it to be just a small nitpick in the otherwise interesting random mechanics of the game. Because yes, that's right, this is not just a visual novel, this is an actual puzzle game where you have to press the right buttons at the right time.

A lot of the TF events like gender-bending, possession, and twinning are used either just in small amounts or are relegated for comedic gags, so overall I would classify this as a Mind Control focused scenario since it is after all the main threat destroying the school.

While I would not recommend it to people who want a thought through serious TF narrative or to lewd and sex-oriented TF fans, I think Kwumpus Hunt is a great choice for anybody who is looking for come comedy-oriented TF content. It is not just very interactive but also very funny and one of its kind.