Ratings and Reviews by macabremobster2

Awake is a lovely, short little Texture game that deals with the theme of a computer becoming self-aware and, ultimately, (Spoiler - click to show)learning about love. Though short, it's quite effective in the delivery of it's theme. My only quarrel with it is the writing could be a tad bit better. Sadly, many will probably skip this game because someone gave it a review of 1 star without any real reason.

The Anxious Object is a very interesting game about the effects of objects and things in someone's life that takes a turn towards magical realism as the game progresses. The descriptions are well-written, tone is consistent, and the speed at which the story progresses matches that tone well. My only complaint is that the story stops abruptly when you get close to the end, whether with a completely blank screen or a screen with text but nothing to click on. It brings the tone to a screeching halt. I do realize this is an incomplete game, and I hope to give it a higher score when the story is complete. All in all, worth a look, but probably more worth your time once it's finished.

In my previous experience reviewing IF games, I've run into people who will rate games one star out of the blue, with no rhyme or reason as to why they did it. This annoys me greatly, as I believe a good game is worth of a good score so it can get out there and show the world how amazing it is. However, this game deserves the ratings it's getting. I hate to break it to the author, but a poorly drawn TV playing anti-Trump and pro-Hillary ads is not interactive fiction, nor is it remotely interesting. I'm completely bipartisan on the matter of this election, and this still annoys me. Play it if you want, since it only takes about 3 seconds to get the full experience, but even then I'd say those three seconds are wasted. In conclusion, avoid this. If you don't like Trump, watch anti-Trump ads on your time. That's at least less nausea inducing than a crappy TV with a crappy color scheme.

I'll admit, when I first booted up the game I was enjoying myself. The uneasy mode the first part creates is perfect for what's happening in the story. After that sequence, you're presented with a well designed game screen with *gasp* headshot drawings of the characters. While I don't like the script style of writing it used, mostly because I see it as a way of getting out of writing actual descriptions of things, it was overall good. I would've given the game four stars, but then (Spoiler - click to show)I met the raccoon. I don't know if the author thought he was being creative or original or interesting with creating a conversation with emojis, but he wasn't. If anything it was just annoying, confusing, and didn't end up getting across any information at all. Emojis are something I rarely accept the use of, even in texts, but in a piece of writing it's a terrible and lazy choice. Why would a dead raccoon even speak in emojis anyways? It's dumb, and the story didn't need it. Hell, it would've been way better without it.

One of the strongest suits of this IF is the very well-written and literate descriptions of things. Unfortunately, this is coupled with a lackluster story. The story itself isn't anything phenomenal or astounding and seems to be just a quickly thrown together framework on which to drape the exquisite tapestry of the writing. The story isn't too bad, no, just nothing outstanding.

Though perhaps the author doesn't know this, copy-pasting The Hangman (an actually good piece of literature) and putting pictures of Trump over it does not mean a creative or good game. Boring game, boring presentation, and the parallel the author was trying to make between the words of the Hangman and the Trump story are non-existent (except for, I'll admit, the beginning which at the very least makes slight sense). I would most certainly not recommend this game, as it is quite boring and a better experience can be garnered from reading the actual Hangman.

TL;DR: Hangman > Trumpman