This is the first time I’ve decided to review a choice of games, altho I am a very avid fan of interactive storytelling and I have played a lot of the games on this site. I’ll try to keep it spoiler free. So without further ado:
[details=Very Long Review]I have conflicted feelings about this game. Some people on this threat compare it to Tell Tales’ The Walking Dead, altho I can kind of see where they are coming from with some of the choices in the game I feel that the core is different. The Walking Dead was all about how precious life is, that was the core theme, the heart of the game. Doomsday on Demand doesn’t feel like a game about the value of life, sure there is dead everywhere and you get the choice to kill someone or save another someone, but that’s not really the point of the story. With the way in ends and the heavy antagonism going on with Ivan, that’s really not the main theme here.
The problem is I’m unsure what the theme is supposed to be. On the one side, it feels like it’s authority, the game kind of smashes you over the head with it over and over in a way that is, at least to me, obvious bordering on annoying. This is because I’ve of course had my fair share of having to deal with authority figures that are dislikable and I know the only options aren’t outright defiance or bluntly agreeing with the authority. There are more subtleties, you can respect them on the surface and rebel silently, but this is far too often not an option. It becomes frustrating because the game keeps on throwing more authority moments my way, over and over again.
Now, on the other hand, there is the Good and Evil meter, it feels like this is what the author really wanted the game to be about seeing as it’s the only stat besides relationships that’s shown to the player, but the moments just aren’t enough. The struggle between good and evil feels lacking to be the main theme of the game so it’s confusing. Not to mention good and evil are more nuanced, there are shades of gray and altho we see a bit of this in the game it’s not explored enough to be satisfying. My final guess is that there may have been a bit of a lack of focus?
Now to the tiny things that threw me out of the game:
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The main character either has a terrible memory or there are some inconsistencies in this game… The bad thing is that it feels like it was done on purpose sometimes, having the main character conveniently forget something important when they might be able to use that info bothers me because I remember! And I see no reason for the main character’s sudden memory loss. An example of this would be talking to Ivan after the first time you go to the mansion. My only option is to stay quiet and anger him or betray my new friend’s trust when there is a perfectly neutral thing to tell him that harms no one (hint: the mansion!) which you get the chance to tell him about later anyways… Actually it felt like every single day I had no safe options to the point that he did something horrible to the main character and it felt like the game kind of forced me into it, however after that point, I did get safe choices? Felt a bit unfair.
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Grammar… it wasn’t terrible and I’m not perfect at grammar either, but notably the way the final part was written was… weird? Every sentence used “you’ve” and it sounded weird after the first paragraph.
Now to the good stuff:
I love the characters. Seriously. Well, I hate Ivan so much I screamed and punched a pillow several times pretending it was his face. But the characters are just great! And my reaction to Ivan proves it, never have I hated a villain so much, people compare him to Handsome Jack, but I didn’t hate him like I hate Ivan. Not even close.
Lizzie and Ryan tore my heart apart, seeing all the fighting I knew I was going to have to choose eventually and all through the game I kept going back and forth trying to decide who to pick. Then there is Bradley, man I love Bradley!! I honestly just wanted the main character to be able to spend more time with his best friend. After all, I had a relationship meter with him too, but it never really seemed to go up or down after you pick who’ll be your roommate.
Some scenes were so intense I couldn’t contain my emotions and to be honest, this is the first Choice of Games to ever do that to me. My heart would pound like crazy and I would get super tense. I even cried, twice!! And had to put the game down several times because of the harsh choices that I wasn’t ready to make. The game gave me so many feelings!!
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tl;dr I have a slight problem with the theme and sometimes felt like the game was shoving some stuff on my face, but the characters and some of the scene where so emotional I can’t deny their brilliance.
So I am unsure what to say? I guess I wanted to make this in hopes that your next game will be better, you need to be a bit more subtle with the plot pushing in an interactive story. I hope you take my criticism for what it is and know that I still loved the game, I just got a bit frustrated with it sometimes.
