Residual Income

this is a short game about a vampire in a cyberpunk world. it kinda has a puzzle and it kinda has a meaningful choice at the end but mostly its just, i guess, a character study of an ultra cool (or so she would like us to think) vampire assassin.

the first person description has a stacatto quality and a "trying very hard to be bada**" vibe that reminded me strongly of short skirt long jacket by cake. which was hard to take seriously both bc the song itself is unserious and bc i mostly know it from people memeing on it. i don't think the game is supposed to be funny exactly but i do think we're supposed to think the pc is trying a little too hard to convince herself that she is cool and in charge and doesn't need anything or anyone.

i think the length of the game was right for that bc it would have become annoying very fast otherwise. on the other hand at this length there is not much time to explain the setting so the urban fantasy plus cyberpunk thing was a little confusing and there were a bunch of concepts referenced that i still don't really get. i see from this page that this is part of a series and i don't know the other parts of the series so possibly the author just assumed readers would already know the setting.

i hope this isn't coming off too mean or anything. the game was interesting. i especially liked the scene where the assassin runs into her target's mom. i felt like i saw hints of vulnerability in her narration there. i might try other games in this universe.

You have been hired to break into the residence of a famous author to steal something. Breaking in is not going to be a problem - you have special abilities in that direction - but getting to your objective is going to be complicated.

Or maybe not that complicated, Residual Income is a short game featuring only a handful of locations to explore. What it lacks in complexity it makes up for in an atmosphere that suits the vaguely cyberpunk near-future setting perfectly. There is a bit of a twist, but it is well telegraphed if you have been paying attention to the little hints dropped into the writing.

The one problem I have with Residual Income is that it is rather wordy, the hard-boiled writing occasionally veers off towards the purple end of the spectrum. But the game is short enough that it doesn't have time to grate. There are some really nice little touches that make up for a couple of leaden paragraphs and when the game was over I found myself wanting more.

I’m going to struggle to write a lot about this one. I liked it. I liked it a lot. It didn’t quite go on for as long as I’d hoped it would, but it’s all relative, I suppose. The game starts out seeming sci-fi - interesting concept, I remember myself thinking, but surely that makes the game not super fun as there’s no challenge in getting away. So then you go around, trying to get in, and have an odd conversation with a woman before getting into the vault. Good writing, as well, so that definitely helped push it along beyond the extremely basic puzzle which felt a little too much like lawnmower options.

Then, the game flipped. Every single thing our PC had casually mentioned, the odd interaction, the entire concept of the game, suddenly fell into place and made so much sense. How didn’t I see that before? I remember thinking. Now, that is the best way to create a plot twist.

Of course, we are given one choice at the end and I am happy with the choice I was given, so I don’t feel I need to go back and try the alternative. However, I do feel like while the puzzle was only there to slow the pace and not feel like a kinetic novel, I wish there was something more to do in that moment - a clever puzzle that maybe even gave away another subtle hint to the condition of the PC, obviously without giving it away yet, but something to create more investment in the story before the flip.