History VideoGame / BrokTheInvestiGator

* AnyoneCanDie: Due to the various endings and VideoGameCrueltyPotential, ''any'' character ([[TheHeroDies including Brok and/or Graff]]) can die depending on your actions. Achieving certain endings requires plot-central characters like [[spoiler:Dee, Sin, R.J., or Ott]] to perish, and no matter what you do [[spoiler:Wes and the Director]] ''will'' die in the canon ending.

* BackToBackBadasses: [[spoiler:Brok and Graff does this in the fittingly-named "Fight Together" ending, and they teamed up beforehand to reduce a small army of Tribots at the Garbage Dumps to scrap metals before [[TheCavalry Ott]] arrives and wipes out the rest of them with a device he found at the police department.]]

** Late in the game, you will need to use a certain item in a previously-visited location to open another area. Do this earlier, however, and you can find a bonus scene.

** The investigation that takes up most of Day 4 can be completely skipped in a way that also awards an achievement: [[spoiler:jump on the unconscious body of supposedly-dead Dr. Hush until he wakes up]].

* FictionalAgeOfMajority: In Atlasia, you become a legal adult at 16. Despite his character ref sheet telling that he's already at that age, in the game itself Graff is actually 15, and would have his 16th birthday a few days after the main story happens.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: As part of Brok's investigation, he needs to enter the local Drumer city, but his status as a Slumer prevents him from entering freely. This is solved by [[spoiler:persuading a hacker to temporarily change his registration to declare he's a Drumer...unaware that Graff's tests to ''legally'' become a Drumer have a forty-point penalty if your mentor is a Drumer, making all of Graff's work for naught unless he had aced literally every test]].

* AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: After Brok gets in trouble during his investigation, the scene switches to his son Graff and his own struggles. After playing as him for a while, the perspective switches back to Brok, and the player is then allowed to swap between the two protagonists at any point.

* BottomlessPit: There's one in the Squealers' hideout [[spoiler:in the same cell is being held hostage in]]. Should you accidentally fall, you die instantly.

* FurryLens: [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-zagged]]. In the game, the anthropomorphic characters refer to themselves as "humans", but they also refer to their respective animal species as well, such as the Hacker, who insists [[InsistentTerminology being called a "mouse" instead of a "rat"]].[[spoiler: This might have something to do with the world taking place [[AfterTheEnd after humans went extinct on Earth]]. This is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in the "Cynical" Ending, where Bjorn is confused over Brok calling himself a human like he is.]]

* KarmaMeter: The game tracks when Brok and Graff use their Brains or their Brawns to solve a problem, with some events changing depending on if one is favored over the other; most notably, high enough Brawns towards the end of the game will lead to the "Fall" ending, [[spoiler: where Brok kills the Squealers Chief and then accidentally kills Graff in the middle of a heated argument]]. As they're tracked on the same meter, a silly decision that lowers Brains can also be interpreted as increasing Brawns.

** Hitting some people unprovoked can cause the player to end up in a fight to the death with them. If that happens, the battle will end poorly no matter who wins. One example takes place in the early part of Chapter 1 where Brok can get into a BossFight with Sin before [[spoiler: exposing him for his crime]]. Killing him or getting killed by him at that point will net the player a Game Over.

* YouDirtyRat: With the exception of the rat security guard in Chapter 4, who tries his best to live a life on the straight and narrow despite facing the occasional FantasticRacism, most rodents, or Squealers as they are known in-universe, are shady characters who makes a living carrying out criminal activities that Brok/Graff can end up fighting. [[spoiler: Turns out they weren't [[AlwaysChaoticEvil always the bad guys though]], as they revolted against the Atlasian government years ago due to unfair treatment, with Brok being partially responsible for their banishment.]]

* FurryLens: [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-zagged]]. In the game, the anthropomorphic characters refer to themselves as "humans", but they also refer to their respective animal species as well, such as the Hacker, who insists [[InsistentTerminology being called a "mouse" instead of a "rat"]].[[spoiler: This might have something to do with the world taking place [[AfterTheEnd after humans went extinct on Earth]]. This is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in the "Cynical" Ending, where Bjork is confused over Brok calling himself a human like he is.]]

No relation to ''VideoGame/InvestiGatorTheCaseOfTheBigCrime'', another point and click game about a detective alligator.

No relation to ''VideoGame/InvestiGatorAndTheCaseOfTheBigCrime'', another point and click game about a detective alligator.

* AIIsACrapshoot: One of the reoccurring enemy types in the game is robots, usually fought in the context of them malfunctioning (such as one stuck in a loop of demanding a street peddler to explain why they're operating without a license and threatening to shoot them for not complying). In the endgame, [[spoiler:it's averted, as bots start ''intentionally'' coming after Brok due to Wes wanting him dead]].
* AmnesiacHero: After the accident that took Lia's life, both her son Graff and her current husband Brok developed partial amnesia, partly due to the trauma and partly due to medication side-effects [[spoiler:but mostly due to temporal shenanigans]]. This has some unfortunately far-reaching repercussions, as some of Graff's resentment towards Brok is from the belief that Brok is keeping secrets about his past from him, when Brok can't ''remember'' all of his past.

* BottomlessPit: There's one in the Squealers' hideout in the same cell [[spoiler:Ott is being held hostage in]]. Should you accidentally fall, you die instantly.

** At some point, you can get access to a "book" that has 999 pages, all but one of which are the same image from the third on. If you're crazy/bored/masochistic enough to go all the way to the final page, your efforts are rewarded with [[spoiler:a page that gives you 50,000 Unis]].

** At some point, you can get access to a "book" that has 999 pages, all but one of which are the same image from the third on. If you're crazy/bored/masochistic enough to go all the way to the final page, your efforts are rewarded with [[spoiler:a page that rewards you with 50,000 Unis]].
** During interrogation sections, pairing two things that are clearly connected but aren't what the game is looking for at that moment usually gives you different dialogue than from usual failed pairs.

* TakeYourTime: Barring certain circumstances, Brok and Graff can put off their current main tasks indefinitely to play Trasher Hunt or fight in the Virtual Arena for Unis and/or (only) XP, in Graff's case.

* IronicEcho: Graff's first trials to apply for Drumer status is a multiple-choice exam, which slips in a question of [[TheNeedsOfTheMany whether he'd save his friend or ten strangers]]; there's no "correct" answer, though the test results state that with more context, the right choice would have been [[FantasticCasteSystem whichever option saves the most Drumers]]. Towards the end of the game, [[spoiler:the Squealers Chief asks a kidnapped Graff the same question, and then appears to go through with killing either Ott or a bunch of hospital patients via hidden explosives before revealing that he was just messing with the kid.]]

* IronicEcho: Graff's first trials to apply for Drumer status is a multiple-choice exam, which slips in a question of whether he'd save his friend or ten strangers. Towards the end of the game, [[spoiler:the Squealers Chief asks a kidnapped Graff the same question, and then appears to go through with killing either Ott or a bunch of hospital patients via hidden explosives before revealing that he was just messing with the kid.]]

* StoryDifficultySetting: The game has three "difficulty" modes: Relaxed, which focuses more on the Point & Click elements and allows the player to skip mandatory fights; Standard, which strikes a balance between the two gameplay styles; and Hardcore, which focuses more on the Beat 'Em Up elements.

* BackToBackBadasses: [[spoiler:Brok and Graff does this in the fittingly-named "Fight Together" ending, and they teamed up beforehand to reduce a small army of Tribots at the Garbage Dumps to scrap metals before [[TheCavalry Ott]] arrives and wipes out the rest of them with a device he found at the police department.]]

* BigBad: Nearly everything about the case Brok investigates, from Sin's unjust treatment to [[KillThePoor the defective medication for Slumers]], can be traced back to [[spoiler:Prototype-26, AKA Wes post-UnwillingRoboticisation]].

* TheCommissionerGordon: Wes the weasel, who used to be a mere investigator when Brok started his career but has been promoted to police commissioner over time. Even though Wes has his grievances with Brok, [[TheyDiedBecauseOfYou such as blaming him for a death until it's scientifically proven that Brok's conscience is clean]], he still tries to stay on good terms and even calls Brok directly for assistance on occasion.

* HappilyAdopted: Graff isn't Brok's biological son; Graff's original parents passed away, and Brok took him in because he loved Graff's mother. However, the "Happily" isn't constant, as Graff resents Brok for frequently putting his investigation work over family matters.

* KillThePoor: Near the end of the game, the drugs regularly supplied to the Slumers to help them survive the harsh conditions outside of the domes gets tampered with, with only a single Drumer, Dr. Gherkin, seemingly concerned over the matter. [[spoiler:It turns out Wes, part of the secret government, specifically tampered with the drug for this purpose, as the vast majority of criminals he's dealt with over the years have been Slumers.]]

'''BROK the [=InvestiGator=]''' is a hybrid BeatEmUp / PointAndClickGame, referred to by its marketing as a "PUNCH & CLICK". The game was developed and published by Cowcat, who also created ''Demetrios - The BIG Cynical Adventure''. Following a "Prologue" version of Brok for PC in December 2020, and a successful Website/{{Kickstarter}} campaign, the full game was officially released on August 26, 2022.

!!BROK the [=InvedtiGatropes=]:

!!Tropes: