Don't Read the Comments

Well, if you're a Twin Peaks fan you will get a kick out of this. (Spoiler - click to show)I seem to be the only reviewer who got the reference to Nadine; it was a nice payoff. It's extremely linear but has some humor in deflating the expectations of the protagonist and the overall pacing of the piece.

Yes it's one joke but it's a pretty funny joke.

I can empathise with the Reading Comments Conundrum so much, and it feels oddly validating to see a game about it!

DRtC is fairly short and fairly simple - the only change from the default Twine interface is really the background and font - but this game neither warrants nor requires sophisticated formatting, and the simplicity of the game's setup doesn't detract from the experience.

It's hard not to smile and smirk away while playing thanks to the great writing and comical setup, especially given the way the game presents the choices in the latter half of the game, when you begin to think, "surely I can risk having a quick look at the comments?". There's even nods to both Pokémon and Twin Peaks, which felt like a nice wee touch.

(Spoiler - click to show)In all honesty, I tried reading the comments from the very first time it was presented as an option, and the semi-frustration at not being able to read them actually made the end of the game feel strangely gratifying, in spite of the copious spam).

All-in-all, the game is short, simple and sweet - it's not pushing the boundaries of the medium, and it's not delivering an intense experience, but it's accessible, funny, and succeeds at its modest mission; well worth taking some time out to play.

A nice story. In the end it is a bit exaggerated, but part of it is surely true. It reminds me of the days when I posted my own music into forums and about half of the comments were made by users promoting their music instead of commenting on mine.
The structure is fine, it develops gradually until finally the reader feels urged to do what he or she is not supposed to do, just out of curiousness. It shows that the average computer nerd will be able to identify with the motives that occur in the story.

This game is about a philistine's struggling with internet. The scene is grotesque - he begins to blogging about curtain rails. Who writes a blog, maybe pay more attention to this, and yes the internet tropes with the absurd middle-class figure - get the reader's attention. It has two endings, so some level of interactivity can be observed yet in the game. I found the game in a collection and take it to my place, so it's playable again. I played it formerly, but now I come across it again.

For such a short game with so little content, this game sure has a lot of reviews.

To pretty much sum up the thesis of all the reviews here, this isn't so much a game as it is a long joke with a singular punchline. There's only one real choice: read the comments or not. If you do, you get one ending. If not, you get the other.

If the joke is something you'd appreciate, then this will be worth the five to ten minutes of clicking that it takes to reach it. If not, then this is a total waste of time.

That's pretty polarizing and it's why we have reviews from "Short, Simple & Sweet" to "Never Play this Game."

In my opinion, Don't Read the Comments' prose isn't particularly good or bad. It's yet another Twine "not-game" where the "player" is actually just a "reader" clicking through passages. That alone makes three stars the very highest score I'll give this "game" on Interactive Fiction Database. With adequate writing, one can rate two stars from me so that's what I dolled out.


— Richard Sharpe