Strayed

This work reminds me of the creepy stories they used to tell us at summer camp. Lonely road, strange creatures, constant sense of dread and weirdness, with enough ambiguity at the end to leave you worrying over it. Except in this case you can go back and try again, as there is a good deal of replayability owing to the different choices you can make. In my three playthroughs this didn't lead to drastically different outcomes, but mostly gave variety to the characters I met and various details along the way--it scratched the exploration itch pretty well.

The writing was fairly engaging and moved the story along at a brisk pace, while the overall atmosphere left me feeling appropriately uneasy. If you've never driven a creepy, tree-shrouded road at night, here's your chance. There's always the promise of a lighted, civilized area thank God not too far away, but whether you get there or not is an open question. The ending was suitably mysterious, but left me a bit puzzled about what was happening, and there were some elements I felt were cliché. The Android version I played was all text, though the promotional video might lead you to think otherwise.

The story conveys the effects of your choices by underlining pieces of the text that follow. This was not mentioned in the description and was puzzling and distracting at first--I kept wanting to click on the underlined parts. Then, when I learned what was going on I wanted to go back and play again to see the effect of my choices, so opinions may vary on this.

Three stars for average, but in my book average is fine, so not a knock against it.