Dead Man's Fiesta

Dead Man's Fiesta tells the story of a young man coping with the death of someone close to him. However, the game never gives the identity of the deceased or the PC's relationship to him. Nor does it focus much on the PC's grieving process - at least not directly.

Instead, the game spends most of its time on the events of the last several days of the PC's bereavement leave. He takes his inheritance money and buys a used Ford Fiesta, which turns out to be haunted by the ghosts of a former owner. The rest of the story entails the PC dealing with these ghosts and what they want while continuing to work through his grief.

The game has a strong voice. The PC very much comes across as aimless, without much direction in life, and this affects his attempts to deal with both the ghosts and the death of his loved one. Most of his sentences feature neither punctuation nor capitalization, which underscores (punctuates?) the PC's aimlessness: It's as if he can't be bothered even to complete his thoughts fully.

At this stage in my life (probably a generation older, and with many more responsibilities than the PC), I have trouble relating. Much of Dead Man's Fiesta just didn't work for me. However, I suspect I might have clicked more with the PC when I was younger, and I bet there are plenty of people who would identify with him right now. My rating is thus more about my subjective response to the game rather than my opinion about its quality as a work of art. It is, of course, hard to separate the two, though.

Several scenes in the game feature well-done illustrations that remind me of the art design in the movie Waking Life.

This is an IFComp game that had some standout moments. Overall, it's a quirky game about death. A car you receive turns out to be haunted, and dealing with the issue requires you to think about your life and the life of the ghosts.

I enjoyed one particular moment of this game a lot, when it discussed how the human fondness for randomness is associated with us trying to prepare for the unfairness and randomness of death.

I had some weird formatting issues both times I played, even with full screen, and the story as a whole was a bit uneven. But for people trying to find quality Twine games I'd give this a go.

(I posted this review years ago in a non-public message board, but I feel enough water has gone down the river to post it here, now)

Thematically, this game feels like an homage to the Big Lebowski, and not just because of the scenes where we have to strew peoples’ ashes into the wind. The PC seems to be exactly the same kind of guy as that film’s protagonist, who has had little success in life, mostly because he couldn’t really be bothered, even though he is not dumb or unempathetic and it’s fitting that he’d end up with a cheap car (a treat for himself, now that he’s inherited some money) that is not just filthy but actually haunted by its former owner’s three(!) ghosts. They seem to symbolize the dead man in various stages of his life, but I couldn’t quite figure out how this mapped exactly and I got the feeling that it didn’t matter which discovery about his life I used to exorcise which ghost. My impression is that this story is essentially unlosable (or unwinnable, whichever you prefer). Essentially, we go on this road trip because we happen to have time for it. I have to admit that the Big Lebowski is not exactly my favourite film, but I know other people like it a lot, so I’m sure there will be an audience for this title that is able to appreciate it more than I could.
The game comes with a number of background images for the choice-based narrative, which are pleasing enough. Unfortunately, they were too big for my screen and instead of shrinking them to fit, the game forced me to use the scrollbars to play.
What I liked most was the writing. The voice in Dead Man’s Fiesta is consistent and fits the setting and story very well.