City of the Living Dead

by Joshua Houk (as Tanah Atkinson) profile

2014

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Number of Ratings: 8
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1-8 of 8


- Edo, November 23, 2023

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
An interesting social commentary entered into Ectocomp, July 16, 2017
by MathBrush
Related reviews: less than 15 minutes

This game is about gentrification rather than zombification. A social commentary twine game designed to show the plight of those affected by gentrification.

This game had no ending that I could find, but upon restarting the game you can find access to more information about gentrification.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Forever wandering, June 3, 2016
by verityvirtue (London)
Related reviews: melancholic

This game takes the form of a continual uprooting and moving. Circumstances - renovation, increasing cost of living, disruptive neighbours - constantly make it impossible for you to live there. Each passage lists what you missed from the last place, a sketch of the place you've moved to, and what eventually forces you to leave. At each turn, the direction from which you came is blocked off: you can never return where you came from.

The mechanics work well to illustrate the concept. It stabs at the insidious force of gentrification and also casts a glance at the impersonal nature of urban living, where it is possible to live months in a place without ever knowing anyone.

It would have been good if I, the reader, could have been more invested in the PC. The reasons why you move out are so varied that it can be hard to tell what the PC is like, and the descriptions are always more about the environment than about the PC. I imagine, though, that each play through shows the player a different set of circumstances which drive the PC out.

This game is otherwise technically sound: each passage appears procedurally generated, making it possible to wander through this city virtually forever.

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No place like home, January 28, 2015
by J. J. Guest (London, England)
Related reviews: Ectocomp 2014

Circumstances outside your control force you to move to a different part of a city again and again, as described in a panoply of randomly generated passages. It's not much fun, but as a satire on gentrification and urban displacement it's quite effective.

Note: this rating is not included in the game's average.
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- NJ (Ontario), November 22, 2014

- Mr. Patient (Saint Paul, Minn.), November 21, 2014

- duodave (Indianapolis, Indiana), November 10, 2014

- Marco Innocenti (Florence, Italy), November 9, 2014


1-8 of 8 | Return to game's main page