Become a teen con artist in The Big Con

If you ever feel like revisiting your childhood and reliving all the emotional upheavals of adolescence, then the upcoming narrative adventure game, The Big Con, may just be up your alley. It has all the hallmarks of a classic coming-of-age tale: a snarky teenage protagonist, plenty of awkward high school nostalgia, and a whole lot of barely legal hijinks.

As a teenage con artist, you found out that your mum’s video store has been held ransom by a bunch of unscrupulous loan sharks—and you’ll need a lot of cash to get her out of this predicament, lest your family business get shut down. It’s then that you meet another fellow con artist, and decide to embark on a crime-filled, cross country road trip together. That means picking pockets and locks, persuading marks, sneaking around in extremely effective disguises like putting on a fancy hat, or simply talk your way in and out of whatever situations you’ve landed in. 

That said, you still can’t tell your mum what you’re up to, though, so expect to have to tell a lot of lies and fibs. At the same time, all these are wrapped in fluorescent, splashy hues that bring to mind American cartoons and teen movies from the ‘90s.

The Big Con also promises a lot of interactions with the most outrageous technological fads of the era—such as payphones, VHS tapes and malls—all of which are sadly out of reach for us at the moment. Who have visited a mall in recent days? The infamous “Winners Don’t Use Drugs” slogan is even featured in the trailer, too! Rad!

The Big Con will be released on Steam sometime in summer this year.