I knew one of those guys in college. He thought that because he played Battlefield 2, he would be the ultimate soldier in a wartime situation. And he talked about it a lot, despite attending college and not enlisting in the military. Kind of sad. Very annoying. Our friendship was not meant to survive.

I bring that up because I’m fully convinced that I missed my calling as a ship’s captain. Crabmeat wasn’t the first game to give me that idea, but it is the most recent. Listen, I even know some nautical speak: “Ahoy.” That means “hello” in seaman speak. I would fuck up those oceans.

But before I move to the East coast to live out my new dream, let’s talk about this excellent short-ish-form horror game about being a crabberman. It’s called Crabmeat.

JOHN THE CRABBERMAN

Crabmeat opens up with that real depressing humour. You start off being expatriated from the dystopian feudostate of Australia. You overdrafted on your bank account and didn’t pay it back within 48 hours. Crabmeat says the joke that I would’ve made anyway, “Hope that month of rent was worth it.” As punishment, you’re being sent to catch crab. If you make your quota, you’ll be repatriated.

You’re let loose in a big ol’ chunk of sea. The map indicates a few places where you can find crab. You need to sail out there, drop some traps, then make sure you only keep the really big crabs and throw the rest back.

You’re able to move about the ship, though controls are exclusively point-and-click with no keyboard input. You can move to any spot on the floor or interact with something in the environment just by clicking. I’m not sure anything is gained by preventing free WASD movement, but the control scheme isn’t terrible. I look at it sort of like tank controls in the sense that the clumsiness adds a sense of panic in combat situations.

THE HEINOUS CRIME OF POVERTY

Alongside the crab zones, unrecovered traps from previous convicts are indicated with question marks on the map. Hauling these up not only provides you with bonus crabs and an extra trap, sometimes they come with extra supplies or keys to locked cabinets around your ship. These cabinets usually contain more supplies, but may also contain notes that flesh out the backstory.

With that in mind, Crabmeat’s story isn’t all that deep. It’s clearly a satirical take on the nature of class in the present day. You’re literally punished for your poverty by an unseen bourgeois; stamped down further when you’re already at the bottom. But as you haul up notes, they mostly just say, “Gosh, this sucks.” They don’t really lend to the mystery of the killer crabs. You don’t find out why Australia became a feudostate. Current events explain that already, though, so it’s more effective being left out entirely.

Other people have been in your position and died. That’s the backstory. It works. It’s fine. Your situation is all that matters, and being told how harrowing it can be and how likely your demise is does lend to the horror.

That said, I actually found Crabmeat to be pretty comfortable.

PUNISHED WITH A GOOD TIME

I really got into the work. I felt I was being punished with a good time. I was open to turning this into a permanent position. Set up a little radio on the dashboard, throw down a rug: perfect.

I mean, sure, there’s a type of crab that sabotages your ship, and another that tries to kill you, but that’s just part of the job, right? That’s why you lock the door when you go to sleep. Yeah, I keep hearing about how many lost their lives on this very boat, but those people were amateurs. I’m a much better captain, so that won’t happen to me.

And the atmosphere is perfect. The waves are always roiling, but sometimes storms kick up. There’s an area where it snows, and ice will build up on your boat. In some of the areas you have to avoid ice floes and debris. I almost feel like booting it back up just to sail around some more.

You’re given “one week” to meet your quota. It goes by pretty quickly (my playthrough was just over three hours), and doesn’t represent a day/night cycle (at least not in the pre-release build I played), but the ticking clock is a nice addition. I made it through pretty comfortably and took the time to find all the missing traps, but there’s a boost button on the boat in case you find the schedule to be a little too tight.

SEA LEGS

Gosh, forget horror, I just enjoyed the blue collar work. It’s like a seabound Hardspace: Shipbreaker. It takes a tactile approach to all its tasks. Everything requires a healthy heaping of clicks, which gives the work a crunchy feel to it. While it may feel like a process, there’s enough wiggle room that crabbing doesn’t become an exact science.

And your introduction to everything is so well-thought-out. Nothing about the job is complicated, but because there is no tutorial beyond a simple manual and some signage means you’re learning as you go, leaving room for simple mistakes. It feels very intuitive and satisfying to learn.

That said, there’s only so much there. By the end of my playthrough, I began to see the gears turning. Killer crabs weren’t as concerning, and pulling up a cage wasn’t as tense. It became very clear how much danger I was in and how I could handle it. I moved through the latter part of the game with a confidence that is deadly to the horror and atmosphere.

But at around three hours, that’s perfectly fine. It stops in a sweet spot. There’s a finale that I didn’t really see coming but caps the experience off more deftly than most horror games can manage.

THE REAL STUFF

Impulsively, I want to tout Crabmeat as being horror, but, y’know, one that is also fun to play. As opposed to the usual horror games, which aren’t fun. It makes me realize that, regardless of a game’s mechanics, if you squash everything beneath an oppressive, scary atmosphere, the fun kind of disappears into the background. The experience can still be entertaining, but fun? Not usually. That’s not the goal of horror.

Crabmeat’s horror atmosphere is breathable. Its crabbing manages to claw its way out from under the darkness without compromising it. Its outstanding work-a-day gameplay alongside a great attention to detail create a very involving experience all around. The restraint it shows in certain areas, especially when it comes to narrative and runtime, allow it to succeed in just about every facet. I can’t remember the last time I found a horror game so satisfying, which is a weird thing to say about horror. I’m a little afraid.

9/10

This review was conducted on a digital Steam version of the game. It was provided by the developer’s PR.