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About the Story""But my madness speaks: Game Details
Language: English (en)
Current Version: Release 2 License: Freeware Development System: TADS 2 Baf's Guide ID: 909
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Awards
Nominee, Best NPCs - 2000 XYZZY Awards
1st Place - 6th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2000)
3rd Place - The Top Five IF Games (Adventure Gamers, 2002)
Editorial Reviews
Baf's Guide
A nicely done dystopia, with plenty of atmosphere and some well-executed twists. Rather linear--about halfway through, the game sort of locks you onto a certain track, and there's really never more than one thing to do from that point on. The game does justify the linearity, however, and the puzzles are good enough that the player doesn't feel like he's just pushing the story along. The music and graphics enhance the game experience considerably, so be sure to use an HTML-TADS runtime. A worthy heir to the tradition of dystopian IF.
-- Duncan Stevens
Adventure Gamers
More than any other IF game I have ever played, Kaged allowed me to truly visualize my world. The walls of the Citadel are cold and grey, cameras everywhere to ensure no employee dissension. The living quarters are sterile and unwelcoming. It is somehow enchanting, but frightening also, and the ultimate resolution of your quest is remarkably satisfying.
-- Evan Dickens
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SPAG
As a mood piece, "Kaged" is excellent. Every bleak, oppressive nuance of the world you live in comes to life in the vivid writing, enhanced by graphics and sound (the opening picture is especially evocative), and your own character is well-drawn. As a story, it is ambitious, but less excellent. I felt that what began as tightly woven threads unraveled near the end--and not just because of the protagonist's dissolving sanity. I came out of the experience with no real understanding of what had happened and why.
-- Suzanne Britton
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SPAG
The plot wouldn't be that bad if you took only the very beginning and very ending of the game. At least it would be original. But when I saw the middle of the game and all those story twists I felt that I was seeing another bad movie with all the cliches and standard devices that I have already seen a thousand times. And the author manages to place at least two conflicting plots in this game.
-- Stas Starkov
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SynTax
Kaged is original, well-written story with a rich vocabulary, but I couldn't figure out exactly who was on which side sometimes, which caused some confusion and spoilt the atmosphere.
-- Dorothy Millard
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>VERBOSE -- Paul O'Brian's Interactive Fiction Page
On the one hand, I have to admit that it does an outstanding job at achieving what appear to be its goals. By the end of the game I was twitchy, angry, and thoroughly awash in the reality-questioning quasi-madness brought on by works like Brazil and 1984. Like those works, Kaged is a kick in the head all the way through, and a very powerful kick at that. In a way, I love this -- I find it a brilliant indictment of authority run rampant, and perhaps even a radical thesis on the problems of non-interactive IF. All that makes me want to rate Kaged quite highly indeed. On the other hand, if I give it what it wants, doesn't that make me complicit? If I truly believe in resisting totalitarianism (and I truly do), then shouldn't I resist Kaged and its demands by giving it the lowest rating possible? Shouldn't I raise my voice as strongly as possible to insist that IF like this is unacceptable? Maybe I should. But then again, what about that old rationale of irony? Sure, Kaged shows us totalitarianism, and controls us with an iron hand, but isn't it just making a point by doing so? Sure. Of course it is. It's all ironic, you see? That's what it is. And it certainly would be overly paranoid of me to think of that as just a rationalization.
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Member Reviews
| Average Rating: Number of Reviews: 4 Write a review |
Most Helpful Member Reviews
Orwellian darkness, October 21, 2007Not all of the puzzles in Kaged feel fair or well-clued, and this is a pity, because the game is otherwise very effective. You play a minor bureaucrat in the justice system of a vast and overbearing state, trying to understand a series of recent disturbing events. The architecture of the setting, the behavior of the other characters, and the unfolding of the plot all work together to create a sense of oppression and fear, which only grows stronger as the game plays out.
Kaged is illustrated with a handful of surreal images, which do more to strengthen the mood than to explain anything.
You spin me right round, September 9, 2020
With a Kafkaesque dystopia the author must be very careful that while the world is constantly spinning around the protagonist that the viewer in addition to being misdirected doesn't feel cheated. For the most part Finley does his job here.
I played this twenty years ago and played it again just recently (because I had honestly forgotten most of it) and was swept away both times. I have generally enjoyed frequent plot twists as long as they're fun (e.g. Wild Things) and don't negate everything that came before (e.g. The Game). Multiple times while playing Kaged I thought to myself "Hey, this isn't logical" (Spoiler - click to show) like when the guard was conveniently asleep knowing that in this government that would be dangerous), or the code on the matchbook for no reason and then it would be revealed later that I was correct and the inconsistency was intentional. I also felt like many of the plot twists were foreshadowed so that I didn't feel cheated at the end. (Spoiler - click to show)My favorite was being told that the Commissar had front-row seats to the execution, very cheeky. I also figured out the final twist with about five minutes of play time left (Spoiler - click to show) because of all the cameras which was a brilliant move by Finley. Throughout the game I felt empowered and thrilled by the chase, until right near the end where I felt powerless but compelled to press on. The parallels between the story and my experience as a player were often step for step.
My only critique of the structure was the ability to die at several different points along the way. While I understand that seemed necessary to conceal the ending, it feels like in retrospect that those ways of ending the story do indeed negate the final ending.
Many have commented that the puzzles are poorly clued. I frequently use walkthroughs while playing and I didn't have to resort to one here. And I felt many of the puzzles were heavily clued (Spoiler - click to show)(the armband one especially, and even how to help the boy) but your mileage may vary. However, there is one structural issue (Spoiler - click to show) being allowed to access the 10th floor before helping the boy that killed the plot flow a bit early on.
Finley's writing is, as always, a treat and despite the game's flaws I was happy to be along for the ride.
A surreal, horror-futuristic game with some thriller scenes, July 5, 2017I have to make one big admission up front: I played Kaged with a walkthrough almost straight through. I had heard some of the puzzles were unfair, and the story seemed great, and so I just read it as a short story.
This worked surprisingly well. It makes for a great short story. You are a bureaucrat in a complicated futuristic society where everything is tightly regulated and disturbing. You are asked to help stop a menace in this world.
The game deals with the nature of reality and with mind-bending. A pretty crazy game.
Edit: The original version of this game, played on HTML Tads, has great music and graphics. Really worth playing.
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Recommended Lists
Kaged appears in the following Recommended Lists:The People's Revolutionary Game List by verityvirtue
Games set in dystopias inspired by the Soviet Union. Often involves bureaucracy, wrongful imprisonment and revolution. Suggestions welcome.
Great "white hat" horror games by genre by MathBrush
This list does not include games intended to disgust or to make you personally feel evil. The focus is on games where good overcomes evil, or that just make you think. That is what I mean by "white hat" games. Games like Vespers or...
Noteworthy Games Which Can't Be Played on the Web by Walter Sandsquish
Because TADS 2 is still missing a TADS Web UI or Glk server or a JavaScript 'terp.
Polls
The following polls include votes for Kaged:Sublime Moments by Sam Kabo Ashwell
I've been thinking about games that provide really brilliant moments. This is not about the overall quality of the game: there are plenty of excellent games that never deliver a clear, standout moment of unalloyed excellence. And surely...
I'm looking for mysteries. by MCCLUTCH32
I like a game with a good story, good puzzles that aren't too difficult to understand and a good mystery. I was thinking more along the lines of horror, but murder mysteries work as well.
Fast-paced action scenes by Juhana
Fast-paced action is something that's notoriously hard to do in IF where waiting for player's input necessarily pauses the game every turn. Which games have succeeded in creating action scenes that convey the sense of urgency, danger and...
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