The ORPHEUS Ruse

This is definitely an unusual Choicescript game. You are a psychic that steals bodies, and you're caught in a war between two psionic organizations.

In a way, it contrasts with Jim Dattilo's A Wise Use of Time. Both are Choicescript games where you a human with an exceptional power (in that game, stopping time; in this game, possessing other people with your psionic powers).

The time stopping game worked really smoothly but had fairly dull uses of your power: taking a break before work, keeping a kid from scraping her knee.

This game shows off all sorts of psionic powers in amazing and creative ways, from the first chapter to the last. The aspects of having and using an awesome personal power really stick out.

Storywise, it worked very well for me, one of the stories I've most enjoyed in the game. And, having played a lot of Choicescript games with weird choice sets, I felt comfortable picking a path through much of the game.

However, I see this game down by mine near the bottom of the sales charts almost every week. Why?

I think a lot of it has to do with the inherent failures in the game. One thing I learned from playing and writing parser games is that no one will ever find a puzzle where you have to die to proceed, because dying is perceived as failure and people will UNDO to win.

But there is no UNDO in choicescript, and most games provide no saves. Every game is in hardcore mode. So when the game pulls things that feels like failures, you either have to accept that your whole run is ruined or restart. And if it happens more than once, you might as well give up.

There are several times in this game where you have to either go against some major principle you have or lose much of your skills. One major choice can completely reset one of your opposed stats. Often the game will tell you you messed up or did everything wrong.

I think that this 'fighting against all odds' improves the story, but it makes the gameplay pretty grim, and I believe that has contributed to the low sales of the game.

This game has faults, and I don't think I can recommend it for a pleasant experience, due to the above issues. Content-wise, it has strong profanity, moderate violence and optional sexual encounters. Despite these things, it satisfies all 5 points of my 5 point scale (being polished, descriptive, has good interactivity, emotional impact, and I would play again).

I received a review copy of this game.

I have mixed feelings about this one. It’s a very interesting concept, where you play as someone gifted with psychic powers, with the ability to take control of other humans with a touch. However, when your own body is taken from you, you find yourself caught up in a larger plot as you try to recover it, with plenty of opportunities to jump to another person and take control of their body.

The writing is good and the game also asks some thought-provoking questions about motivations and morals every now and then. However, the story’s pacing is fast and tends to jump from one point to another quickly. I found myself losing track of the story at several points.

The stat system is another strange beast. I picked the skills I wanted to specialize in early on, but I saw very very few choices which appeared to be skill checks. Maybe there were more… but in that case, the signaling could have been clearer. Also, halfway through, I found all my stats reduced to minimum levels. I’m not sure if this was a glitch, a penalty for some bad choices made, or a storyline thing, but when I finally did find some choice which I thought was a skill check and returned to check the stat screen, I found all my skills at minimum levels, basically meaning my character was now useless.

There is a character whom I romanced in the game. She was fairly interesting, and I had a mixed relationship with her. That said, I got her (Spoiler - click to show)killed at the end due to a miscalculation, and wasn’t quite in the mood to replay the game again to see if things could have turned out differently.

I don't think this game is bad, just that it probably wasn’t the one for me. That said, I think the pacing and plot points could have been more forgiving.