Bouncer Story

Video games are great at showing far-off worlds and introducing us to cool fantasy characters. But sometimes you just want to play as a regular guy with a normal job. That's a good way to describe Bouncer Story, the debut release from Finnish developer Helmi Games. It's a work simulator where you check IDs and shoo-off drunk people, all while attempting to stay on the good side of the local mafia. It may not have fantasy characters from far-off worlds, but Bouncer Story delivers a tense and exciting story about a regular guy who gets in way over his head.

Not to state the obvious, but this is the story of a bouncer. He doesn't have much money or experience, but decides to take a part-time job checking IDs at Twelve Blues, a little dive bar on the wrong side of town. This probably should have been his first clue that a late-night blackjack game was a bad idea, but he goes anyway and wakes up with a pounding headache and almost no recollection of what happened. Unfortunately, it's actually worse than that, because he also owes a lot of money to the local mafia. Now he's forced to work as a bouncer at a number of different clubs around the city in an effort to pay back his debts.

As a game, Bouncer Story reminds me a lot of the 2013 indie hit Papers, Please. It's a game where you have to decide who gets into the bar and who gets turned away. You'll earn money for every person you let in, but you have to be careful, because your wages will be docked if you're not thorough enough. This starts out simple enough, with our hero doing little more than turning away drunk people. You can tell they're drunk based on what they say and the spelling errors in the dialog, which makes the job feel a lot like being a copy editor.

Obviously, his job doesn't stay that easy for long, as the bars will start requiring more scrutiny. He'll need to start checking IDs to make sure the people in line are old enough to get in, which is made even more complicated when he has to start dealing with stolen cards and fake information. He'll need to keep an eye on the pictures to make sure they line up and carefully check the names, all while making sure to abide by the no-entry list sent down by each of the bars and clubs. Letting in underage kids, drunks and those deemed undesirable will cut into the money he makes each night, which will only make paying back those gangsters that much harder.

Thankfully, we can spend some of that excess money on upgrades, including charisma, intelligence and strength. Pumping money into charisma will open up the map, giving the bouncer more opportunities around the city. The intelligence, on the other hand, will make it easier to spot drunk people and even increase your daily payout. But as temping as it is to dump all your money into those two upgrades, you don't want to neglect strength, which will make you a better fighter. You'll find that people are a lot more punchy in the later levels, and the last thing you want is to get knocked out while you're working. That's bad form.

On one hand, this is a game about checking IDs and making money. But as the title suggests, Bouncer Story is also about the narrative. What I like about the game is how it effortlessly weaves in different story elements, often making you decide what the bouncer will do. Will he help the investigators as they track down a string of local murders? Will he get in good with the mafia? Will he choose not to pay off his gambling debts? You have a lot of control over how the story unfolds, giving the player quite a bit of incentive to go through it a few different times.

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That said, I do wish there was a little more to the story. I like the different choices you get to make, but there isn't a lot of meat on the bone. You get a few lines of dialog and a news update, and that's about it. I wish this part of the game was fleshed out a bit more, since it ends up being one of the more interesting aspects of the bouncer's journey, especially towards the end.

This criticism feeds right into the other problem with the game, which is the repetition. Even with the added scrutiny, you'll start to notice that every level feels the same. It doesn't help that you're only saying "yes" or "no" to a handful of potential customers, so it's common to have a screen filled with the same characters wearing the same outfits. There's just not enough variety here, which is true of the game at large. You can work at a bunch of different bars and clubs, but the only incentive for jumping around is to see a different background. It's not even like you're earning more for working the harder venues, which is a real mistake. It would have been fun to see the different bars have their own unique stories, but there's nothing like that here.

There are some other minor issues with Bouncer Story, such as confusing menus that don't always tell you what you need to know and a hero who always looks and dresses the same. But these aren't the types of problems that get in the way of the fun. Even if it's a little repetitive, I kept going back to see how the different stories played out and because checking IDs is surprisingly entertaining. Who knows, maybe I missed my calling by not working as a bouncer. I guess we'll never know.