Jacob Jazz’s Baobabs Mausoleum.: Episode 1 – Ovnifagos Don’t Eat Flamingos.

In ‘Jacob Jazz’s Baobabs Mausoleum: Episode 1 – Ovnifagos Don’t Eat Flamingos’, players step into the bizarre and ridiculous universe of Jacob Jazz. This Japanese-style RPG adventure combines point-and-click puzzle elements with a side-view, 2D scrolling perspective. Despite its shonky graphics and ropey writing noted by critics, the game’s utterly absurd premise and world prove to be weirdly gripping, culminating in a cliffhanger ending that sets up the next installment in the series.

Jacob Jazz’s Baobabs Mausoleum.: Episode 1 – Ovnifagos Don’t Eat Flamingos.: A Surrealist Homage Lost in the Night

Introduction

In the vast and often predictable landscape of independent gaming, a title emerges every so often that defies conventional critique, a game so wilfully bizarre that it exists outside the standard metrics of technical polish and narrative coherence. Jacob Jazz’s Baobabs Mausoleum.: Episode 1 – Ovnifagos Don’t Eat Flamingos. is such a creation. Developed by the enigmatic Celery Emblem and published by ZeroUno Games, this 2017 point-and-click adventure JRPG hybrid is less a traditional game and more a digital artifact from a parallel dimension where David Lynch directed a Saturday morning cartoon after a fever dream. This review posits that while the game is, by any objective measure, a shambolic and technically flawed experience, its unadulterated commitment to a singular, surrealist vision creates a perversely compelling charm that has cemented its status as a cult classic.

Development History & Context

The gaming landscape of 2017 was dominated by polished, high-definition epics and meticulously crafted indie darlings. Into this environment strode Celery Emblem, a developer with a pedigree in the peculiar, having previously created titles like Don’t Eat Soap! and Mausoleum of the Medusa. Their work consistently leaned into the absurd, and Baobabs Mausoleum represents their most ambitious foray into this niche.

Built using the Unity engine, the game is a fascinating case study in leveraging accessible modern technology to create a deliberately “retro” aesthetic. The choice of Unity was not to achieve graphical fidelity but to facilitate multi-platform deployment—it launched on Windows and Mac in July 2017, followed by a Nintendo Switch port in May 2018. This strategy allowed its unique brand of weirdness to reach audiences on both PC and a console known for embracing eclectic experiences.

The vision was clear: to create a “retro point and click adventure in J-RPG format,” a fusion of genres that itself is a bold and unconventional choice. The developers were not chasing trends but excavating a very specific, nostalgic feel—the kind of obscure, low-budget European adventure game one might find on a forgotten floppy disk—and filtering it through a modern, Dadaist sensibility. The constraints were likely less technological and more artistic: how to most effectively translate an utterly unhinged narrative into an interactive form.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

The plot, as described in the official blurb, is a masterclass in surrealist loglines: “The town of Flamingo’s Creek is a place that appears every 25 years in Albatross Road, a neighborhood that only appears in nightmares.”

You assume the role of Watracio Walpurgis, an FBI agent who is also, crucially, a vampire eggplant. His mission is to escape this “eerie and gooey village” while interacting with its “stranges and paranoids inhabitants.” The narrative is a non-sequitur hurricane, involving puzzles to solve, a Wendigo to defeat, “cosmic laser chickens,” and monsters that hunt UFOs to eat (the “Ovnifagos” of the title, a portmanteau of the Spanish “ovni” for UFO and “fagos” for eaters).

Themes are not so much explored as they are vomited onto the canvas. There are hints of Lynchian small-town horror, bureaucratic parody (a vampire eggplant working for the FBI), and cosmic dread, but all are subsumed by the game’s primary theme: absurdity for its own sake. The dialogue, described by critics as “ropey,” is likely a key contributor to this atmosphere, prioritizing bizarre and stilted exchanges over coherent character development. It’s a world built on dream logic, where the phrase “Ovnifagos Don’t Eat Flamingos” is a central mystery and the population is a fixed, ominous 64.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

At its core, Baobabs Mausoleum is a hybrid of two distinct genres:
* Point-and-Click Adventure: The primary interface is point-and-select, requiring players to interact with the world, collect items, and solve environmental puzzles. The “Platform” and “Puzzle elements” descriptors hint at challenges that may involve traditional adventure game logic, albeit twisted through the game’s surreal lens.
* Japanese-style RPG (JRPG): The game incorporates JRPG elements, which likely manifest in a combat system. Players presumably engage in turn-based battles against entities like the Wendigo and the UFO-eating monsters.

This fusion is inherently risky. Point-and-click adventures thrive on methodical exploration and puzzle-solving, while JRPGs often involve grind and statistical progression. How well these two loops integrate is a pivotal question. The single critic review notes “less-than-stellar gameplay mechanics,” suggesting this fusion may be one of the game’s rougher aspects. The UI, built for mouse, keyboard, and gamepad, was functional enough to facilitate a playthrough but likely lacked the refinement of titles in either genre. The core gameplay loop involves exploring the nightmare town, talking to its insane inhabitants, solving puzzles to progress, and battling monsters—all in service of understanding a plot that actively resists comprehension.

World-Building, Art & Sound

This is where the game’s heart truly lies, and where its cult appeal is forged.

• Visual Direction & Art: The game employs a “2D scrolling” visual style from a “diagonal-down” perspective. The art is self-admittedly “shonky”—a purposeful, low-fi aesthetic that feels like a haunted VHS tape of a lost PlayStation 1 game. It’s not ugly by accident, but by design, evoking a specific, grimy nostalgia. The world of Flamingo’s Creek is rendered in a way that feels both tangible and utterly unreal, a key to selling its nightmare logic.
• Sound Design: The audio landscape is arguably the game’s most praised element. The critic from Starburst Magazine singled out the “weirdly gripping opening credits” and the “incredible theme tune courtesy of the magnificent Messer Chups.” Messer Chups, a Russian surf-rock band known for their horror-influenced soundtracks, was an inspired choice. Their music provides a driving, cool, and eerie backbone that perfectly complements the on-screen weirdness, elevating the entire production. The sound design is crucial in building the game’s unique atmosphere, stitching together the disparate visual and narrative elements into a cohesive mood of cool surrealism.

Reception & Legacy

Upon its release, Baobabs Mausoleum existed largely under the radar. With only one documented critic review (a positive 80% score from Starburst), it was a commercial niche product. The review itself perfectly encapsulates the game’s reception: it acknowledges the title is “nowhere even close to being perfect,” citing its flawed mechanics, writing, and graphics, yet concludes that its overwhelming ridiculousness is so compelling that the reviewer was “totally on board for the next instalment.”

Its legacy, however, is more significant than its initial splash would suggest. The very fact that it spawned two direct sequels—Episode 2 – 1313 Barnabas Dead End Drive (2018) and Ep.3: Un Pato en Muertoburgo (2019)—demonstrates that it found an audience fervent enough to sustain a trilogy. Furthermore, in 2021, the entire series was repackaged and re-released as Jacob Jazz’s Baobabs Mausoleum: Grindhouse Edition for Windows, Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox Series. This “Grindhouse Edition” is the ultimate testament to its enduring cult status, bringing its bizarre world to a modern console audience and preserving it as a complete, curated experience.

Its influence can be seen in the continued freedom of indie developers to explore utterly nonsensical and personal universes. It stands as a beacon for uncommercial artistic expression in game design, proving that a strong, unique identity can outweigh a lack of technical polish in creating a memorable experience.

Conclusion

Jacob Jazz’s Baobabs Mausoleum.: Episode 1 – Ovnifagos Don’t Eat Flamingos. is an impossible game to review in a traditional sense. It is a flawed artifact, a messy and short experience with gameplay that often fails to inspire. Yet, it is also a work of pure, unfiltered artistic id. Its value is not in how well it plays, but in the potent, singular atmosphere it creates—a vibe of surreal, creepy, and hilarious nonsense, perfectly scored by a stellar surf-rock soundtrack.

Its place in video game history is secure not as a masterpiece of design, but as a cult object. It is a reference point for the outer limits of game narrative and style, a title to be discovered by players seeking something truly off the beaten path. It is the video game equivalent of a forgotten B-movie discovered on a dusty VHS tape: objectively bad in places, but so brimming with unique ideas and passionate weirdness that you can’t help but be glad it exists. For those with a taste for the bizarre, a trip to Flamingo’s Creek is an unforgettable, if gooey, vacation.