Jazzpunk

Set in the year 1959.B, Jazzpunk tells the non-sequitur tale of secret agent Polyblank, who goes on missions in a bizarre, nonsensical world.

Mac

PlayStation 4

Linux

Story

Although players are encouraged to ignore their mission directives for as long as possible in order to just wander around and explore the bizarre, often nonsensical world of Jazzpunk, the game does feature a single main plot; ignoring the many, many optional experiences in the game, this is how that story goes.

The protagonist of Jazzpunk is Polyblank, a secret agent operating out of Darlington Station, an abandoned stop on a subway line. He meets with his commander, the Director, in his renovated subway car office, is informed of the objectives of his upcoming missions, and is then given a prescription of Missionoyl pills that, when consumed, somehow transition Polyblank into the right area for his missions.

First, Polyblank is sent to infiltrate the Soviet Consulate, in order to obtain a data disk that the Soviets had stolen from Polyblank's home nation, which is inconsistently referred to as either the United Partitions of Brazillia, or the United Prefectures of Japanada. Polyblank distracts the staff by changing a clock and triggering the lunch break early, then makes his way inside the building, retrieves the data disk from a Soviet computer, and escapes through the garbage disposal.

Next, Polyblank is sent to steal a valuable artificial kidney from a man who works for a powerful corporation. Ending up in the Japanese district of whatever city he's in, Polyblank tails the man to the Goldenlucky Electric Squid, a sushi restaurant. There, he infiltrates the kitchen by disabling the arachnophobic head chef with a jar full of freshly-caught spiders, and sprays fugu poison onto the target's next plate of sushi. The man immediately becomes violently ill, and flees to the ladies' room, where he vomits so hard the kidney is expelled from his body, and passes out. Snatching the kidney, Polyblank is accosted in the street by several groups of enemy agents, but defeats them using a fly swatter he obtained while helping out a vase store owner. Escaping into the metro line, Polyblank shakes the tail.

The Director is pleased with Polyblank's progress, but also believes he has attracted too much attention, and arranges for a dose of Vacationoyl that will send Polyblank for some well-needed R&R. Travelling to the distant, tropical Kai-Tak Resort, Polyblank enjoys the sun and the beach, but after checking into his hotel room, he receives a phone call from the Director. He has received intel that an enemy operative known as the Editor is making a play at Kai-Tak, and wants Polyblank to take time off from his vacation to steal his briefcase. Disguising himself as a beautiful woman, Polyblank distracts the Editor while he switches the briefcase with a duplicate, and casually leaves. Unfortunately, no sooner does he leave the tiki bar then he suddenly passes out, having been drugged through a drink he received from a mysterious woman, revealed before he loses consciousness as an associate of the Editor, who was aware of Polyblank's identity all along.

Polyblank regains consciousness several hours later, having been tortured and possibly lobotomized, and receives a message from a conspiracy theorist who lives in the out-of-order second pool at the resort. This man helps extract a tracking device planted in a tooth in Polyblank's mouth, and then gives him shocking news: Kai-Tak Resort doesn't really exist, it's just a computer simulation, and all its inhabitants are secretly trapped there. He shows Polyblank a way to escape, though, and the secret agent makes his way out into a digital world known as the Wetworks. Climbing to the top of the Wetworks, Polyblank pours coffee into a computer, shorting out the Wetworks and kicking Polyblank back out into the real world, conveniently at Darlington Station.

Approaching the Director's office, Polyblank discovers that both the Director and his secretary have been kidnapped and replaced with cardboard cutouts, and he finds a pre-recorded message from the Editor telling him to come to a certain address if he hopes to see his associates alive again. Showing up at the Editor's penthouse apartment disguised as an exterminator, Polyblank gasses a number of wandering RAM chips, and then makes himself comfortable before discovering the Director suspended in a tube. The Editor then confronts Polyblank, challenging him to sporting challenges for his friends' safety. The two agents compete in a game of "golf", which is rigged, as the Editor's ball contains electronics that magnetically draw it to the hole. After that, they turn the rooftop moat of a nearby building into gravy and race gravy boats across its surface in "Gravy Race 64". Polyblank can win or lose this competition. Finally, the Editor challenges Polyblank to a game of digital tennis on a blatant Nintendo Virtual Boy clone. The game is incredibly difficult, but Polyblank can opt to skip straight to victory by bludgeoning the Editor with a virtual folding chair.

Even if he only won one out of the three events, the Editor declares himself the overall winner, and after giving him a trophy, Polyblank retrieves more awards and accolades from the rooftop to give to the Editor, causing his ego to skyrocket and his body to literally swell with pride. After giving his enemy six different awards, Polyblank pierces his skin with a sewing needle and causes the Editor to fly away, deflating like a punctured balloon. Returning to the Editor's penthouse, Polyblank finds the Director's secretary trapped inside a gigantic Jell-o mold, and spends the next twenty-six hours eating jelly to free her. Then he heads inside, where he finds a control console where there hadn't previously been one. It consists of two buttons, labelled "Crocification" and "Free the Director", which turns out to be a false label placed over a button actually called "Gatorization". Regardless of which button Polyblank presses, the tube transforms the Director into a human-reptile hybrid, and after apologizing to Polyblank for his new instincts, asks his friend to climb into his mouth and be eaten. After obediently allowing himself to be swallowed, Polyblank wanders through the Director's intestinal tract, where the player is shown the first portion of the credits. Polyblank eventually finds a message from the Director, pre-recorded for just such a series of events, where he advises the agent to be wary of his particularly potent immune system while escaping from his body, and provides some specially-designed Missionoyl to help him in this quest. Polyblank takes the pills, and the game ends, cutting to a more traditional credits sequence.