On the first playthrough, I was having fun and experimenting and enacting a fireman fantasy. Then I died. Then I thought about the game for a while, replayed it and adjusted my rating up a star.
The Volunteer Firefighter is probably the most realistic ChoiceScript game I've played. It's set in our present world; the events and characters described are much more mundane than, say, in SLAMMED!; there's very little of extraordinary, over-the-top; no striking plot twists, no clever narrative tricks; you don't even have a chance to do many "heroic" deeds. It's a simple and honest game and it has some simple truths to remind you of.
