Hank: Drowning On Dry Land preview [PAX] — Drunk time traveler vs evil mastermind

Hank: Drowning On Dry Land is an action-adventure game inspired by Saturday morning viewings of Batman Beyond. The game goes beyond honoring its inspiration, establishing its own grungy identity through compelling time-bending gameplay, eye-catching comic book visuals, and well-written dry wit.

Players assume the role of Hank, a drunk, Batman-like vigilante. Unlike Batman, however, our sloshed protagonist has a superpower: time manipulation. This will help him wiggle his way out of his current predicament. You see, Hank has been paralyzed by poison, so now he’s on the floor, drowning in a puddle of beer. As his mind slips away, his subconscious creates a scenario where he’s facing off against one of his usual antagonists, The Unraveller. The villain is a masked man in a dapper suit who wears a spiraling-patterned mask.

Our protagonist “wakes up” in a church (probably an alien landscape for him) and is greeted by his foe. Right away, a few things are noticeable. First off, the game has amazing art direction, with saturated colors being complemented by dark shadows. Secondly, there’s a guy trapped on a stage surrounded by explosives, and the Unraveller claims that this mysterious hostage is Hank’s friend. The situation is clearly tense, with the villain laying out the rules: find three buttons around the church grounds to shut down the explosives before time runs out. Oh, and when their conversation ends, he’s going to send a ferocious dog after Hank for good measure. He’s smug in his assured victory, but Hank knows how to break the rules, and even in this world, his mind fabricated, he can still time travel.

This is where we learn the basic mechanics of the game. You might want to try a different dialogue option during the conversation, or maybe you got caught out by the dog immediately. Well, you’ll be relieved to learn that you can rewind time as much as you want, even (and especially) at the death screen. When you’re safe, you can fast forward to give Hank a speed boost, which makes getting to the first disarm button a breeze. You might be thinking, “You get to rewind as much as you want? Where’s the challenge?” Well, dear reader, whenever Hank hits a disarm button, he performs a time jump to reset the bomb timer, thus creating another copy of himself that he cannot meet without creating a time paradox. In a nice touch, each Hank is a different color, so you know where each Hank is going and what task they’ll do. By the third disarm button, you’re avoiding two copies of yourself, as well as the attack dog, all while navigating the maze-like church grounds. It’s a brilliant brain teaser in both concept and execution, and it’s entirely softlock proof. In addition, the developer told me that players will be given a grade depending on how well they play.

One detail the developer shared with me is that Hank’s powers are imperceptible to The Unraveller. I love this premise because, from this evil mastermind’s perspective, some drunk larper is flawlessly outplaying his evil plans. This leads to an interesting dynamic between the two, as The Unraveller is obsessed with Hank. Their interactions are fun to watch, as our genius villain has set up an elaborate trap, but Hank doesn’t exactly seem impressed and just wants to go home. The two characters are also very well voice acted as well, with Hank’s gravelly voice, dry quips, and nonchalant attitude reinforcing his rough vigilante characterization.

The developer of the game described it as “A playable comic book.” Each game will be an isolated adventure that adds onto the series with each installment by building the story of Hank and who he is, and his relationship with a gallery of villains. The art style and music are tied together very well to achieve the playable comic book style. One segment of the game will have Hank riding a roller coaster around the head of a giant Unraveller. The visuals pop as Hank veers left and right around hazards and speeds through neon rings. Hank’s grungy, head-bang-worthy theme song sets the atmosphere, and words like “BLAM” appear when the Unraveller gets hit. These touches really bring the world of Hank to life, succeeding at combining the compelling aesthetics of comics and the interactivity of video games.

To wrap up, Hank: Drowning on Dry land is positioning itself to be the video game version of Saturday morning cartoons. Between the tight time traversal mechanics, the smart dialogue, and the grungy, highly stylized aesthetics, the game is truly delivering on its promise to fuse the interactivity of a video game with the thrilling plots and characters of a comic book. There’s a demo out now on the developer Discord, which will soon come to Steam. The developers are aiming for a 2025 release date.