The American Dream

This short game has an okay premise, with an okay set of concepts it wants to get across. The prose is okay, the options are okay. But the choices you make seem to have absolutely nothing to do with the ending you get - (Spoiler - click to show)I sat on the curb so I'm a 'zombie' now? Really?. That ending was just so out of left field that I sort of blacked it out of my memory, since nothing else in the rest of the game was even similar. That alone could have brought it down a star, but it wasn't big enough for that. Still, that example gives you a good idea of how the game felt - my choices meant nothing to the storyline, and that was almost frustrating.

If it were handled cleverly, I think that it could be an excellent game in the vein of Rameses, where you feel trapped by the overhyped American dream. But it wasn't handled cleverly - it didn't bash you over the head with the message, but instead flew quickly in the opposite direction and had absolutely no import. It was almost frustrating, but it actually failed to evoke any response in me at all. It wasn't quite good enough to be called 'stark' or 'gritty' either, but since I could see that the author was definitely trying something a little new I think this game deserves better than one star. It's just not very good, and only memorable because it could have been so much better.