Gemini Jay, your old colleague, is in a pickle. His undercover intel-gathering mission in Club Low went sideways, and he’s trapped in the nightclub, with the risk of his cover being blown up. To get Gemini out before this happens, you’ve been sent on an undercover mission yourself as none other than a pizza delivery guy. Do you have what it takes to successfully extract your pal from Club Low without raising any alarms?

Like with developer Cosmo D’s previous entries in the Off-Peak universe, Betrayal at Club Low packs the surreal, Lynchian presentation where quirky scenes mingle with iconic audio. You’ll come across a car with a skull hood, converse with a security system and prepare Flamingo Thigh Stew. The artstyle is also similar in tone with the previous entries, with familiar-looking characters and architecture.

However, unlike the excellent Tales From Off-Peak City Vol. 1, Betrayal at Club Low’s surrealism deals less with the likes of talking buildings and more with human interaction. It’s not in any way bad but somewhat contrasting with the previous title in the series.

 

This focus on interaction is central to the gameplay structure, which also differs from the first-person perspective of Tales From Off-Peak City Vol. 1. Betrayal at Club Low plays in third-person with mechanics inspired by tabletop RPG. For nearly every conversation you have or action you take, you’ll have to roll dice to determine the outcome. A successful action will require scoring higher than your opponent.

These actions are flavoured with different options: bash a door, unlock it or send a nice message for the person on the other side to ask them to kindly open it? Wrestle a guard or challenge him with your patience to let you through? Such encounters and creative approaches abound in this game; and they are engrossing, over the top and a delight to engage with. Each and every conversation makes for a unique, memorable experience that has become characteristic of Cosmo D’s games.

 

Your way forward also depends on your set of skills (seven in total: Athletics, Cooking, Deception, Music, Observation, Wisdom and Wit) which can give you an edge over your opponent based on the level of certain skills. You can further use cash, obtained by winning encounters, to upgrade skills.

In addition, you’ll need to keep an eye on your character’s conditions, such as feeling guilty and unabashedly honest. These can lower your roll score but are temporary effects. Other, more favourable and permanent, conditions can also be gained by finding items by completing “side quests”.

Indeed, even if you've solved a puzzle, it might still be worth engaging in an encounter and rolling the dice to learn more tips and secrets. For example, in an early encounter, you could sneak past a guard sleeping on a job but talking and empathising with him will let you in on a secret which could further help you down the line. This endows the game with an open-ended approach to completing the mission which can lead to eleven possible endings.

 

Moreover, some events also happen only once, so you need to be careful and upgrade your skill set accordingly. Thankfully, there are other mechanics that assist you in your encounters. For one, you can re-roll your dice should you not be satisfied. As an undercover agent disguised as a pizza delivery person, you will, of course, have pizza dice rolls at your disposal. Make some pizza with toppings ranging from basil to grey matter and these can provide attributes such as extra cash, health top-ups and re-roll enemy dice. 

 

However, as it can be expected, there is an initial learning curve to the controls. They might feel overwhelming at first but you can easily get the gist of it with some tries. In any case, the ensuing over-the-top conversations and surreal actions help keep the experience engrossing. 

While Betrayal at Club Low is a third-person title, it isn’t that well optimised for controllers. You can use one stick to move and the other to direct the pointer in a point-and-click fashion. But you’ll need to direct the pointer to an element in order to interact with that element as opposed to just walking up to it and pressing A. Luckily, there's a handy way to find interactive elements by pressing RB which helps from fiddling around and clicking on every element on the screen.

I also encountered a couple of bugs post-launch. For some dice rolls, the screen would just freeze while the music went on. This happened a few times and needed a restart. Another noteworthy bug happened close to the end where a dialogue wouldn’t show. This also required a restart to fix.

I was not really put off by those bugs because Betrayal at Club Low is such a unique title. Sure, it’s a short game, lasting around 2-3 hours, and the locations are limited; but the game is set in such an intriguing universe that it’s hard to let go. In addition to the multiple endings, the different approaches, conversations and actions that are possible entice new playthrough just to see what unexpected turn the new game from Cosmo D's mind can take. For $9.99 / £7.19 on Steam  and Itch.io at launch, it’s well worth trying it out.

Betrayal At Club Low - Official Trailer