External Links


Play Online
Play this game in your Web browser.

Have you played this game?

You can rate this game, record that you've played it, or put it on your wish list after you log in.

Playlists and Wishlists

RSS Feeds

New member reviews
Updates to external links
All updates to this page

Dead Man's Fiesta

by Ed Sibley

Mystery
2018

(based on 13 ratings)
2 reviews

About the Story

Summer was coming to an end, and all you wanted to do was finish grieving in peace before you had to go back to work. And because it had been a rough couple of months you bought yourself a car, you know, as a treat.

It turned out to be haunted. That was a big deal for you.

This is the story of how you dealt with that problem.


Game Details


Awards

Nominee, Best Story - 2018 XYZZY Awards

19th Place - 24th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2018)

Tags

- View the most common tags (What's a tag?)

(Log in to add your own tags)
Tags you added are shown below with checkmarks. To remove one of your tags, simply un-check it.

Enter new tags here (use commas to separate tags):

Member Reviews

5 star:
(2)
4 star:
(7)
3 star:
(2)
2 star:
(2)
1 star:
(0)
Average Rating:
Number of Reviews: 2
Write a review


3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
We all deal with death in different ways, November 20, 2018

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.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A quirky Twine game about self-reflection and death, March 12, 2019
by MathBrush
Related reviews: about 1 hour

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.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 




This is version 2 of this page, edited by Doug Orleans on 17 November 2018 at 10:42pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page