Tom the postgirl review

• Reviews by Daniel Yam
• Published:

Delightfully unhinged voyeur adventure doesn’t ask much but delivers dark humour in spades

Tom the postgirl, the debut game of French studio Oopsie Daisies, is a surreal adventure following the titular Tom on her delivery rounds in a rural mountainside village. What starts out as a cute and comfy game about the zany quirks of her neighbours quickly turns darker and more bizarre as she spies on everyone and uncovers their various secrets. It’s a short but fun romp that won’t challenge you at all, instead encouraging you to indulge the sort of intrusive temptation one might have to eavesdrop on a conversation after overhearing something that piques your interest, only to discover that there’s much more going on than you ever imagined. 

The story follows new postgirl Tom as she drops off packages and peeps on the various local residents to learn whatever mysteries they are hiding. Broken up into five acts, each individual act takes you to a different part of the village to deliver Tom’s bag full of parcels – unless your curiosity or mischievousness gets the best of you. There isn’t much in the way of gameplay, so I finished in just under two hours, but there’s a fair bit of replayability for those who love hunting achievements.

Described by the developer as a “walk-and-stalk” as opposed to a point-and-click, Tom the postgirl uses a gamepad or the arrow keys/WASD for controlling the young protagonist and the spacebar to interact with hotspots. A minor criticism is that Tom walks slowly and even her running speed isn’t much faster. Starting from an overworld map, you’ll select each parcel recipient’s house and deliver it to them.

Or not. Beginning in the third act, Tom has the option to open the parcels she’s meant to deliver when she discovers her name is scribbled over the address label, like someone wants her to keep what’s inside for herself. The game lets you choose whether to fulfill your postgirl duties or to give in and see what’s inside. This allows Tom to interact with the environment using the object inside the parcel, though it affects the overall grade Tom receives on her performance at the very end of the game. 

Either way, you’re not there just to deliver the mail. At each stop, Tom the postgirl highlights the likes of uncovered windows, holes in fences, and other available openings as an opportunity to peep into people’s houses. This is where the game’s black humour is really showcased, with the mounting absurdity and at times disturbing activities you observe pushing the surrealist vibe to the forefront. 

The very first house in my playthrough was an orphanage where the children were depicted like pets, and the parcel I had just handed over was a case of dog food that the children immediately devoured. Needless to say, that really set the tone for the macabre nature of what was to come. You’ll see all sorts of unpredictable scenes, but personal favourites include a barn where the chickens are playing poker, a hippie couple cutting down trees to sell “Vegan Bio-Organic Wood,” and the narcissistic mayor whose entire home décor has his face plastered over everything.

The difficulty level is non-existent, as there aren’t really any true puzzles. That’s great if you are looking for a more narrative-driven experience with offbeat humour, but not if you were expecting some mind-bending brainteasers along the way like in a more traditional adventure game. Most of the gameplay consists of simply walking up to people’s houses, choosing whether to deliver their package, and seeing the chaos that unfolds through the various voyeuristic opportunities. 

Tom the postgirl

Genre:	Drama
Presentation:	2D or 2.5D
Perspective:	Third-Person
Gameplay:	Quest
Graphic Style:	Cartoon

There are some additional interactions, particularly those tied to the side quest present in each of the first three acts – rescuing a farmer’s chickens, winning a gardening contest, and finding an appropriate outfit for a rave. This gives the game elements of traditional point-and-click adventure game questing with some light backtracking, but before long its back to the core walking and stalking.

Along the way, Tom the postgirl’s visual style wonderfully complements all the insanity, with a hand-drawn look with pencil strokes still intentionally visible, evoking a children’s book or old cartoon (albeit one that’s definitely not for children). The palette is almost monochromatic, primarily whites, blacks, and greys. Red is the only real vibrant colour, which makes Tom’s bright coat stand out against strange backdrops of a chicken wooing a farmhand, a naked man dressed as a butterfly surrounded by trees with nametags, and a house shared by two stockbrokers with a room full of… call them “toys” to spice up the bedroom. It’s never at all realistic but the game is surprisingly graphic in its depictions of nudity and gore. While never fully showing any of the violence, the visible remains make it absolutely clear what happened, which the vivid red highlights certainly help to emphasise. 

There is no real voice acting (or indeed dialogue) as most of the characters communicate through sound effects and grunt in gibberish, which does a surprisingly effective job at conveying what they’re trying to say. Musically, the whimsical piano score really adds to the game’s cartoony vibe. As Tom first descends down the mountain on a gondola with her parcels, the gentle soundtrack and rolling title credits are reminiscent of the heroine starting her journey in a Disney movie. Obviously, the near-immediate whiplash of the game’s grisly absurdity breaks that illusion, and then takes an even more overtly darker tone about halfway through. The music changes to reflect this shift, with more sombre-sounding background tracks from Act 4 onwards. 

The game has a slew of welcome quality-of-life features, with fully rebindable controls, a quest journal to keep track of additional side goals, and a chapter skip feature unlocked after the first playthrough. The game grades you on your performance as a postgirl at the end with a personality type depending on your actions throughout, including how many packages were delivered vs opened, how close you stuck to the path, how many side quests you completed, and goofier metrics such as how many flowers were trodden on during your playthrough. 

There are a whopping 50 achievements to unlock for completionists, and at least 3 different endings to experience based on your final grade. Unfortunately, the grading is only applied if the entire game is played through again in its entirety, making the chapter select feature far less appealing for replaying only certain sections you want try again.

Story-wise, there’s not much of an overt plot but a palpable sense of unease throughout the entire game that raises some potentially uncomfortable questions. Why is a little girl even taking on the job of a postgirl? And who is it that keeps writing her name on the parcels? No matter how weird things get, or how much damage she does in destroying her neighbours’ properties, Tom’s expression is always unfazed, just continually smiling, her large eyes never blinking as she goes about her business. There’s a twist to the story, and a fairly big one at that, which may leave audiences divided, but I found it a satisfying explanation for all the strangeness around Tom as a character.

Final Verdict

While I really enjoyed the game’s unhinged nature and the narrative twist in the final act, not everyone is going to vibe with Tom the postgirl. You shouldn’t come into it expecting a conventional adventure game, and it’s definitely not family-friendly despite its charming cartoon aesthetic. But for those with a slightly twisted sense of humour, the chance to be an impish voyeur for a few short hours is hilarious, absurd, and at times downright disturbing, with some of the funniest situations you’re likely to experience in a point-and-click game. 

Daniel played Tom the postgirl on PC using a review code provided by the game's publisher.

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