Drag Star!

I don't know much about drag culture, although I have friends and family members who are or have been drag performers. This game was a real eye opener for me, and I ended up learning a lot more about things like Drag Race, drag queens, faux queens, etc.

I went back and forth a lot on the rating here. I really don't like the first chapter. It's a huge bombardment of concepts, people, very stylized writing, that just felt like so much. I'm sure it'd be less overwhelming to someone already familiar with drag culture, but for me it felt like I was reading some fantasy book where the author spends the first chapter introducing all the kingdoms and using new words they made up ('and the hrothgus, or town constable, rode forth on his vytnrewr, an insect-like steed). Take that, and make it a sassy drag queen version.

It also ran into Poe's law a bit in that chapter, where I couldn't tell if was portraying drag accurately or mocking it/parodying it, it was just so over the top.

Fortunately, it calms down a lot in the later chapters, and becomes a story about people and what was for me an excellent, compelling mystery, one where, even having solved it, I'd love to go back around and dig in to find out more motives, more background, more viewpoints. The drag queen aspects themselves became more thoughtful, funny, and pointed. The characters were complex and rich.

Another reason I thought of knocking it down a peg is the humor. Not because it isn't funny; it has plenty of lines. But in this fictional world, these are top-tier meme makers, comedians and dramatists putting out their best efforts, and while the author is genuinely funny or dramatic, sometimes seeing the writing and having the audience (or the narrator) say 'this is the funniest thing I've ever had' just kind of falls flat.

But a point in its favor is that the game manages stats well. I always knew what each stat did, had plenty of chances at the beginning to increase them, and basically didn't fail any stat checks till near the end where my particular mix didn't hold up (smart, funny, confident).

Now, I know that makes it sound like the game is 'too easy', but the real game is in strategizing between cooperating vs going solo, investigating the mystery vs preparing for the competition, sabotaging people or helping them when they are potential rivals and potential future judges, and deciding what to do with the seemingly cult-like abbey.

At the end, I felt somewhat uncomfortable recommending this game to general audiences as it has some raunchy and sexual material (almost all in jokes and skits), as well as frequent opportunities for drug use or binge drinking (you are a recovering addict). But I can't deny the overall quality of the game, and I'm putting the mention of those things here so that you can get an idea before you play.

Edit: having played through it now, I can see why it doesn't have a ton of ratings on the omnibus app but has one of the highest ratings. The offputting first chapter may have kept people away, but the solid remaining portion of the game probably led to higher scores. Also, people went out of their way to rate it highly in opposition to a campaign by trolls against the game.

I have mixed feelings about Drag Star. I'm probably not the target demographic for it, and when I first finished it... my feelings were along the lines of 'somewhat entertaining'.

You are a contestant on a reality TV drag competition, along with a dozen other characters. While they all pack interesting names and backstories to hit you with that TV star vibe, the huge cast didn't allow much room for individual character depth, and none of the characters felt memorable when all was said and done, although the author probably had fun coming up with all those different character names. The stat page does have a section allowing you to keep track of everyone, for what it's worth, but I didn't really pay much attention to it as none of the characters caught my eye after the flashy introductions.

The games does explore plenty of LGBTQ themes within the story. If you're here because of that tag, you'll get what you seek.

You get a lot of choices for character creation, along with pronouns, body type and the like. There are also plenty of (I suspect) fake choices during the game where you pick what you wear or what you think (with free text options). Still, these sorts of things are useful to set the mood, and picking another flamboyant and racy costume did help to immerse me and help me pretend I was really a contestant in a crazy TV show.

Gameplay consists of surviving episode after episode, completing all sorts of reality TV show challenges, watching other contestants getting eliminated and praying that you're not the next to drop. It's the bog standard CoG system of picking your best stats and running them through a gauntlet of stat challenges, hoping you've picked the right ones. I focused mainly on confidence and humor for my latest playthrough, and I think it saw me through a good number of stat challenges.

The writing is another interesting beast. At the start, the narrator uses plenty of slang and terminology from drag, showbiz and who knows where else, although it gave me the feeling of someone trying too hard to sound like one of the cool kids. Interestingly, as the story continued on, the writing style became more dry and run-of-the-mill, as if the narrator decided that the excessively cool kid vibe was too hard to maintain. That aside, the writing is technically competent all around, and I didn't see any mistakes.

All in all, this genre wasn't quite my thing, so you'll probably enjoy it more if the drag star TV show genre is more your style. Try not to get eliminated!