Poker Night at the Inventory is a surprising remaster of a fairly obscure Texas Hold’em title from 2010. Originally released by Telltale Games, it’s now returned some 16 years later thanks to Skunkape Games, a small group of early Telltale employees who worked on the original. While it’s light on depth, it makes up for it in personality, thanks to the players you’re competing against.
Your competition is a video gaming quartet: The Heavy from Team Fortress 2, and Tycho from the Penny Arcade Adventure games will be less familiar to gamers who play primarily on Nintendo hardware. More recognizable are Max from the Sam & Max games (Wii/Switch) and Strong Bad from Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People (WiiWare). This foursome elevates what would otherwise be a modest poker game into a trash-talking cult classic.
Take full advantage of this “punchy banter” by exploring the various settings. Ensure you have both the voice volume and “Table Talk” set to the maximum. This allows for each character’s individual personalities to shine through, with the latter increasing the likelihood of unique interactions they’ll have. You can turn off strong language (mainly Tycho) and have it replaced with a censor bleep. You can even enable captions (with Tycho’s odd cursing replaced with asterisks). This gift of repartee is what will keep you coming back to the game, not for extended sessions, but for shorter ones every so often.
Extras include winning personal items from characters who are short on cash. You can also unlock decks from the various IPs. Beyond that, it’s just a small Texas Hold’em game. It’s well-made, and it’s never looked better thanks to higher resolution and improved lighting. But there’s only so much here; the game remains intentionally modest in focus. Even a prohibition-era back-alley underground club (The Inventory) can only bring so much.
What could’ve been added beyond more poker variations? How about letting knocked-out characters return to the table to occasionally drop one-liners? It’s fun to see Max wandering about in the background, and Strong Bad furiously playing the arcade machine. But if they lose quickly, I miss the ribbing they bring. Or how about even more characters? To see Pom Pom from Homestar Runner bouncing about in the intro only to completely vanish is a bummer. Poker Night at the Inventory is a very good game, but it could’ve been an even greater one.
Modest though it may be, Poker Night at the Inventory proves to be as fun as ever. And while it’s easy to wish for more, the game is only $9.99. To quote Strong Bad, that’s “Chump change, I say. Chump change!” The game’s charming personality guarantees you’ll be busting it out for a tournament or two every now and again.
