Bogeyman

Bogeyman
by Elizabeth Smyth profile

Horror, Fantasy
2018

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Reviews and Ratings

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

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Number of Ratings: 79
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

Dark and darker, January 24, 2021

by Ogre (A Cave)

For me, this was a tough read. And no, not just because of the content. The layout was horribly distracting for me. Each page had 1-3 sentences on it. I guess that was for effect, but if I’m going to read a story, I’d like to read it, not spend more time clicking “next.” But also, the font changed on pages. I think this was for speech, but it wasn’t clear, was really distracting, and really would have been so much clearer if there were simple quotation marks. The fact that all the short lines were centered on the page added a little more difficulty for me as well.

While there were options in the story, there were not a lot, and few seemed to have much of an effect on the story. I see that this story won a lot of awards, but maybe this just isn’t my scene, baby. Indeed, it was dark and just kept getting darker. And maybe if I had analyzed a lot more later into the story, I would have seen choices that made a difference, but it honestly wasn’t all that pleasant for me. Maybe for others who really like horror with kids, this is something for you. But if you don’t, you probably want to skip this one.

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- TheBoxThinker, January 15, 2021

- ComicCon2020 (North Carolina), December 17, 2020

- YourRoseQueen, November 11, 2020

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Disturbing piece that embodies a malleable entity from folklore, October 21, 2020

by Enrique Henestroza Anguiano (California)

Bogeyman is a deeply disturbing and successful piece that casts the titular creature as a sadistic paterfamilias who employs psychological and physical abuse to ensure the children he abducts remain “good."

The design choices for the game are bold and effective, without overshadowing the story. These include a white-on-black palette, text fade-ins, spooky images during chapter breaks, and a haunting, thrumming soundtrack.

The choice-based flow of the game is relatively linear, with short passages that move the reader through the story quickly and smoothly. Every passage adds to the dramatic tension, slowly piling on indignities small and large, flowing through days of quotidian chores and tasks that range from the banal to the grotesque, all in the service of building a complex portrait of life under a tyrant whose moods and reactions are often unpredictable.

The game is able to deftly tackle a number of themes ranging from abuse to the nature of punishment and whether complicity is ever morally acceptable, all while delivering a gripping story with moments where it’s often as difficult to look as it is to look away.