Big Brain Wolf is a peculiar, yet charming, cartoon style, click and point, puzzle solving game. It’s about a smart veggie eating wolf who just graduated from the brain academy with flying colors.

Back at his home sweet home, his “only” worries are to try to avoid meat despite his mother’s well meant but odd ways of convincing him otherwise, and to survive the enigmas of his strange neighbourhood, while trying to rescue his mom, who apparently got framed for murder.

It has a weird mix of humor, kind of bizarre and subtle at times, but can be a bit forced. The game oozes of dry scientist’s puns and word jokes of various levels of subtlety.

The game was financed by Telefilm Canada and was made in cooperation with a team of neuro-scientists from Brain Center International, based on the research from their Neuro Active program.

There is a lot of text to read throughout the game and I guess for younger player that could get really tiresome in the long run. I much more prefer the style of, for example Machinarium, where the humor comes through visually without all those text windows moving the game forward in a sluggish, staccato kind of way.

Unfortunately, one of the initial puzzles had more than one solution (yes I double checked and also took a photo of it for reference, just in case) but for some reason was not accepted nevertheless.

This dilemma obviously made me a bit tired of the game to start with, but once I overcame that, the game started to grow on me and the puzzles got more interesting and were more consistent.

Throughout the game you are guided by a weird looking cross between a mummy and a genie.

The puzzles are initially hinted by glowing light on the objects or areas that are clickable.

You may have hints to each puzzle but they are not especially helpful and may confuse you. Some puzzles demand some skills, like playing chess, which one really can’t expect everyone to master.