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by David Welbourn

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Foo Foo

by Buster Hudson profile

Mystery
2016

Web Site

(based on 61 ratings)
8 reviews

About the Story

Someone's been bopping the field mice on the head, and only Good Fairy, Senior Detective can find out who.

A parser-driven noir adventure based on the interactive fiction of Ryan Veeder.


Game Details


Awards

Nominee, Best Game; Winner, Best Story; Nominee, Best Setting; Winner, Best NPCs; Nominee, Best Individual NPC; Nominee, Best Individual PC - 2016 XYZZY Awards

1st Place - First Quadrennial Ryan Veeder Exposition for Good Interactive Fiction

46th Place - Interactive Fiction Top 50 of All Time (2019 edition)

Entrant, Back Garden - Spring Thing 2016

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Member Reviews

5 star:
(27)
4 star:
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3 star:
(6)
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Number of Reviews: 8
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Most Helpful Member Reviews


6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
A brilliant take on noir, April 10, 2021
by Chin Kee Yong (Singapore)

This is the kind of game that lures you in with twee storybook trappings before bopping you on the head and leaving you out cold in a dark alley. It's a magnificently competent parser game with far more worldbuilding chops and emotional weight than it has any right to have.

You play Good Fairy, Senior Detective, in a brilliant noir plot about corruption, cheese-dealing, and cutthroat economic pressures. There's a gunfight. There's a femme fatale. The prose is good; the drama meaty. That the author has turned a story about fairies and talking animals into a piece of gripping crime fiction is, I think, a truly commendable effort.

The puzzles were straightforward and signposted well, and I enjoyed the diegetic hint system in the form of Murphy (although I didn't use it very often). I very much enjoyed the multiple plot twists and the moral choices that Good Fairy was called upon to make.

Overall 9/10 game. Short, sweet, and wonderfully sharp, like a meringue you could cut someone with.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Foo Foo: cuddly genius, October 7, 2020

This is a serious 9/10 -- 10/10 game.

Some isolated thoughts:

I don't know if I can get enough of the concept of small cuddly stuffed animals being embroiled in a hardboiled noir story. A few of my favorite quotes for the sake of cuteness (minor spoilers):

(Spoiler - click to show)Lions, tigers, and bears, all beautifully crafted, lifelike. Malice flashes in their beady plastic eyes. They reach into their own stuffing and withdraw a handgun each.

(Spoiler - click to show)
You hold Doohickey up in front of your face and get licked softly and dryly, because his tongue is made of felt.
>pet doohickey
Doohickey wags his tail.


The worldbuilding is great, the action is thrilling, the twists are spectacular, and the ending broke my heart a little bit.

My only complaint is (major spoiler) (Spoiler - click to show)when Sabado tells you to get anything "with wish powder on it" out of the area, I thought he was referring to any stuffed animals that were still 'alive', and so didn't realize that he was also referring to the pouch of wish powder. Other than that, everything's quite clear and well-laid-out.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Sharp-witted noir under a fluffy covering, March 30, 2018
by verityvirtue (London)
Related reviews: sanguine

If you like Jasper Fforde’s Jack Sprat series, a novel series giving a noir spin to nursery rhymes, you’ll probably enjoy this. All the field mice have been leaving town; someone’s been bopping heads - and it’s up to you, Fairy Detective, to find out why.

Hudson’s writing is extremely readable, and while the characters may be talking fluffy animals, there is sharpness underneath. The forces working in the town are the familiar push and pull of racism and the search for better opportunities, anthropomorphism or not.

Foo Foo is directed enough that I could figure most things out with just a little guidance and some in-game hints. Overall a well-written murder mystery, with an intriguing setting that I enjoyed.

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Foo Foo on IFDB

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My new walkthroughs for July 2019 by David Welbourn
Very late on Monday July 29, 2019, I published new walkthroughs for the games and stories listed below! Some of these were paid for by my wonderful patrons at Patreon. Please consider supporting me to make even more new walkthroughs for...

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For your consideration: XYZZY-eligible NPCs of 2016 by MathBrush
This is for suggesting games released in 2016 which you think might be worth considering for Best NPCs in the XYZZY awards. This is not a zeroth-round nomination. The category will still be text-entry, and games not mentioned here will...

For your consideration: XYZZY-eligible Best Games of 2016 by MathBrush
This is for suggesting games released in 2016 which you think might be worth considering for Best Game in the XYZZY awards. This is not a zeroth-round nomination. The category will still be text-entry, and games not mentioned here will...

For your consideration: XYZZY-eligible individual NPCs of 2016 by MathBrush
This is for suggesting games released in 2016 which you think might be worth considering for Best Individual NPC in the XYZZY awards. This is not a zeroth-round nomination. The category will still be text-entry, and games not mentioned...

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