Reviews by DB
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Simple, variable assassination, August 13, 2011From the beginning, the game tries to help players along as much as possible, perhaps even too much. It's clear the author had some trouble setting up the game's primary NPC with a depth that both motivates and withstands continued player interrogation. The writing throughout remains functional, with a few sour spots.
The obvious star of the game here is the variability in the game's writing. While goals remain the same (in short, shoot somebody and make your best exit), the details of the event change with each play. This is interesting in the way that it resists the creation of a static, command-by-command walkthrough, ensuring the significance of the player's role as an interpreter in the story's action. Gameplay is otherwise straightforward. It has its puzzles, all solved fairly easily.
The less obvious star-- and, I think, the potentially more interesting one-- is the game's protagonist. Beneath the content of his actions on the job, the text frames the killer as a soft-spoken intellectual who maintains a family and loves gardening. This introduction gives some depth to this variably named 40-something professional killer, and the varying amounts of attention given to objects in the world also complement this character's mindset in a nice way. Remembrances of training, just snippets of quotes, bubble up to the surface of the killer's mind in the same way a song might get stuck in a person's head. The variable and replayable nature of the adventure suggests that the protagonist has worked for several gangland bosses, and that assassinations are, to him, a routine as straightforward as a game. Here the contradictions of playable space and linear narrative in the form of an IF ultimately serve the development of this likewise complex and contradictory character.
Admittedly, not everyone will be quite as pulled in by this one as I was, but for its compact size and play time you really can't go wrong giving Target a shot.
Roar for Moar, August 7, 2011Mostly uses one short, primary verb for the easily distracted. Reminiscent of E.V.O.: Search for Eden. Nom, nom, nom-- a yummy treat and a quick play, do try.
Scattered, August 7, 2011Game by up and coming ADRIFT author Mike Desert. Heavy uses of anti-mimetic writing and familiar stereotypes. Inclusion of illustrations and music may ameliorate these for some.
From the Author
The illustrator's younger brother supplied the initial "seed" for this story: the idea of a meat monster. He was at a time when he liked making up stories and wanted to write books, but only ever came out with rough ideas. I told him I would use an idea from him as the basis for one of my own stories, and this (plus puns) was the result.
Produced under EvenComp restrictions, it is only constraint and the game's ridiculously over-the-top delivery that make this one stand out to me, which is why I think it could take two stars instead of just one despite its being rather bad. The story strives to hit two extremes, of horror and humor (hoping to bring nuance to a "so bad it's good" shlock style), but fumbles its deepest horror element. The humor becomes sort of awkward next to an image of a man chopping a bloody fountain out of... something with a lot of blood in it. Ultimately the experience evens out somewhere around the level of simple gross-out shtick. Unfortunately, that's a fail for both horror and humor.
Still, some of the humor does manage to amuse me when I look back on it. The hyperbolically mean, old man makes me giggle. Who's really that mean? My favourite line is the one about The Stranger's name.
A work made without seriousness which maybe had more potential in it somewhere, but might still be worth a chuckle... or a squick?
Full disclosure: I thought I would upload this because I saw a poll for Worst IF Titles and figured this might garner a vote (two of its reviews from the ADRIFT Forum mention the quality of the title). Also, though I wasn't when this game was made, I've been a vegetarian for a while now.
A funny game at times, but tedious. I don’t know what I would think of Rybread if I hadn’t happened to play this game first. Certainly it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I also enjoy Ed Wood, so hey. It’s a good fit.
The writing is at its best lampooning literary criticism, doing unique or otherwise unvisualizeable things with language (e.g., (Spoiler - click to show)“Room in the Shape of a Burning Credit Card”), or toying with notions of interactivity (e.g., (Spoiler - click to show)playing with audience assumptions in the first interview scene). Those elements make Acid Whiplash recommendable. It could’ve done those things more frequently, though. Irritable players: use a walkthrough (I did).
Its non-sequitur humor gets stale quickly. Why did it have to include any mazes? I sort of wish the game just had a word you could type in to skip from one interview scene to the next.
Powerful narrative trumps sometimes cruel implementation, February 19, 2010I’ll be upfront: my personal experience probably biases my interpretation of this story in ways that maybe not everyone else can account for. Having taught English in Southeast Asia I have a special affinity for the scenes and characters crafted by Mr. Whittington in Love is as Powerful as Death, Jealousy is as Cruel as the Grave; they all seem just so much more real to me for having my actual experience there to which I can compare them, and ring true. I don’t wish to say that the game isn’t flawed -- it has its flaws -- but I do wish to emphasize that I think the narrative in this Cambodian ghost story stands far above any problems in its coding.
Could it use more polish? Maybe, but a strong story is already there and on the strength of it I still definitely recommend Love is as Powerful as Death.
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