First Year Demons

I was provided a review copy of this game.

This game doesn't follow established Choice of Games patterns or standards at all, and for good reason. It was part of a government program to use games to educate others. Its author, Rebecca Slitt, is an author known for the great Psy-High games and numerous Choice of Games-related activities.

But the government asked for a lot of specific qualities in the game: make it short, have less branching, have there be right and wrong answers for things.

There are a series of blog posts discussing this process, and they're really interesting to read. Rebecca Slitt is not Chinese, but worked closely with a team of Chinese individuals who were involved in other non-game components of the project.

The game itself is about a kid in a family of demon fighters. Most of your choices and stats revolve around how you approach family values like balance or respect for elders. There are moments where the game pauses and allows you to self-reflect through text boxes.

I had some trouble figuring out what choices would affect which stats, as a lot of the stats overlapped. As an educational tool, I think announcing the stat changes would be helpful.

I think the education worked. At first, the family seemed really strict, so I rebelled as much as possible. But over time I noticed that they were fair in the 'family first' mentality as they put me first as well, and that when I treated adults with respect, they rewarded me. My character's crush also seemed to like traditional people more. It was an interesting but effective strategy.

As a small side note, I was confused because we lived with Grandpa but the other family didn't treat him like a relative. It turns out that I had skipped a part where we had a roommate named Grandpa as a nickname.

Overall, I think it achieves many of its goals; as a government-funded education tool, I'd give it 4.5 stars. As a game for fun, I'd give it 3.