Later Alligator

For over a decade, I have been a head-over-heels fan of Alex and Lindsay Small-Butera's animated web series, Baman Piderman. The absurdist comedy and eclectic animation drew me in immediately, and I've been a loyal fan ever since. I no longer remember how I learned about Later Alligator, but as soon as I found out that Alex and Lindsay were behind it, I was sold. Like most games I buy, this one lingered in my backlog for years, but I was reminded to play it again after an impromptu Baman Piderman watch party with my family. While Alligator New York City and its inhabitants somehow feel more grounded than anything in Baman Piderman ever did, the same creativity permeates the entire game, and it made me cackle like an overtired witch.
 
Later Alligator plays like a classic point-and-click adventure game, but it's absolutely stuffed to the brim with mini-games. The silent player character is contracted by Pat, a hat-wearing nervous wreck of a gator, to investigate his family, who he is convinced plans to snub him out. By exploring different areas throughout the city and interacting with Pat's extended family, you'll have to deduce what exactly that evening's secret family "event" has in store for your anxious new friend. However, nobody will tell you a thing without you providing them with some assistance of your own.
 
The only way to help the alligators throughout the city is by sacrificing some of your investigation time to play a mini-game related to their personal struggles. These can be as simple as a couple of slide puzzles or a game of pinball, but a few are hilariously off-the-rails, sometimes even genre-bending. Only after you win their mini-game do you get to hear whatever it is that reptile is willing to spill about the secret event, but you'll also be 30 in-game minutes closer to said event, regardless of your mini-game skills. As time advances, so does the plot, often yanking you away from whatever you hoped to accomplish next.
 
Pat is a needy alligator, so he'll call you back to his hotel multiple times throughout the day so you can check on him and play yet another mini-game. After the evening finally arrives and you learn the truth about the event, you'll be rewound back to the start of the day to try and learn more. It's a guarantee that you didn't talk to everyone the first time through, nor did you find all the secrets hidden throughout the city, so you're granted another chance to learn what you can before the event repeats itself. As Later Alligator has multiple endings and will generally offer brand new content for each of your repeat playthroughs, I recommend taking advantage of that opportunity.
 
Most of the game's story was predictable, but I think that was intentional, and the comedy still hits hard. Later Alligator took me less than five hours to complete, but I was locked in until I had seen all that it had to offer. There is plenty of enjoyment and variety to be found in the mini-games, but the real fun was in all of the characters. The personalities at play are all excellent caricatures of strange family members and friends, figuring out how everyone was related was a fun extra layer to the mystery, and the animation really united the whole experience. While the dollar-to-hours ratio could never match something like a 100+ hour RPG or a free-to-play online shooter, any given moment in Later Alligator will be far more memorable than 90% of the time you might spend with those other games. If you like wacky jokes, family drama, or Saturday-morning cartoons, you owe it to yourself to give this game a try.
The game is available for Steam here (as of 11/25/25): https://store.steampowered.com/app/966320/Later_Alligator/
The game is available for Switch and Switch 2 here (as of 11/25/25): https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/later-alligator-switch/

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