Clam Man 2: Open Mic is a demo to the upcoming full sequel. It gives you access to the first full day in the game. It does a great job of setting up the plot as well as the many game play changes from the original. That is what impressed me the most because there are a lot of changes and they work well. The game is still a 2D point and click game at heart but it has added quests; RPG style character traits; a map system; partial voice acting; and more. My favourite add on was the RPG style traits. You pick at the start which traits are most important to you and it gives you a level based on that. 70% for the most important and then less for each depending on their order. These traits come into play during dialogue as well as solving certain puzzles as having a high enough trait can unlock different conversation options as well as puzzle solutions. The game doesn’t lock you into these options though, it is till possible to complete the demo regardless of what special options you see. The quests are optional for the most part but doing them allows you to acquire jokes to use later so it is required to complete a certain amount although you could choose which ones to do still. The voice acting was well done although it highlights why I am not a huge fan of partial voice acting. It seems weird to have the character’s voice come on for some sentences but not others. The graphics have the same style as the original which works well and I like. The map system helps show you different areas to explore which will allow you to find quests more easily. The demo section did a good job of showing and referencing characters and events from the original without becoming bogged down in it. Open Mic still had it’s own distinct story. If you enjoyed the original’s focus on story and humour then you’ll probably enjoy Open Mic as it is much of the same style.
I played Clam Man 2: Open Mic on Linux. It never crashed. I did notice a couple issues though. The resolution option topped out at 1920x1080 which means I couldn’t use my full resolution. The original supported my resolution of 2560x1440 and they use the same game engine so I see no reason why the demo of the sequel tops out lower. I also found one area of the map where Clam man would get stuck walking into a mail box. I had to go around it carefully or he would just try to walk through it which wouldn’t work. There are no graphics options aside from resolution. You can manually save but not during conversations. This presented an issue at the beginning of the demo as the first twenty minutes or so was a long conversation so that was twenty minutes where I couldn’t save. Hopefully the full version has less of these stretches. There are four save slots. Performance was great but one thing I will highlight was the demo used an absurd amount of VRAM. I had enough to not be an issue but I have seen full fledged AAA games with much more intensive graphics not come close to what Open Mic used. Hopefully the full game improves the optimization. The game didn’t have a v-sync option but did respect my refresh rate.
Game Engine: Unity
Graphics API: OpenGL
Disk Space Used: 1.2 GB
Input Used: Keyboard and Mouse
Graphics Settings: 1920x1080
GPU Usage: 0-91 %
VRAM Usage: 5877-6120 MB
CPU Usage: 2-7 %
RAM Usage: 3.7-4.9 GB
Frame Rate: 153-165 FPS
Overall I came away hopeful and impressed. I recently played the original Clam man and this demo makes me think the sequel will be bigger and better in almost every way. It does have some work to do in tweaking optimization and some other technical issues but the game play; audio and graphics are all as good or better which is great. I finished the demo in one hour and sixteen minutes. If you enjoy point and click games that focus on story and humour I would check it out.
My System:
Intel i5-12600K | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | XFX RX 590 8GB Fat Boy | Mesa 23.1.5 | Western Digital Black SN850 500GB | Kernel 6.4.8-zen1-1-zen | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165hz