Hunter: The Reckoning — A Time of Monsters
By Paul Wang
☆☆☆☆☆ (5/10)
Everyone and their mother knows how much I like Paul Wang’s Infinity series. Seriously, even my mom knows—I literally discussed this game and review with her. His strengths are clear: in-depth political worldbuilding, nuanced moral choices, and stat systems that are logical yet fair. I wasn’t sure how his writing would translate to a modern setting, however, and I’m super bummed to find Hunter: The Reckoning — A Time of Monsters (“AToM”) a real letdown. While the mechanics and setting are fascinating, the characters and themes are incredibly heavy handed, almost preachy, flat, and full of exposition. I don’t disagree with Wang’s viewpoints—far from it, actually—but to me, an IF game should stand on its own two feet. Interactive fiction lives or dies by player agency and subtext, and here the messaging often feels spelled out. Super spelled out. The emphasis on police brutality, privilege, and homelessness are so blatant that it turned me off, a pretty progressive person. I wouldn’t recommend this to a World of Darkness fan, as the game isn’t truly about vampires or werewolves; the game is about Society™️. Nor would I recommend this to either a conservative or progressive reader—the former will be turned off by its “talking down” to the reader, while the latter would find such ideas explored better elsewhere.
Pros:
Simplification of stat system. Stats must be in every IF, but it’s so hard to get right. Too few, and choices feel weightless; too many, and the player feels boxed in. Wang is known for his disciplined, coherent stat systems. You have plenty of time to improve your skills, but you are encouraged to keep track of all of them. Your stats always matter, whether it’s in flavor text of major decisions. However, his systems are on the tricker side; the margins of error are quite thin. In AToM there is only Health, Willpower, Desperation, Trust/Suspicion, Money, and Food. No standard personality traits. I was a bit skeptical, but the slimmed down stats makes the game more accessible. Thanks to the Storyteller system, outcomes are easier to read, failure feels more legible, and the focus shifts away from micromanagement toward survival and momentum—where it belongs! Desperation and Trust/Suspicion were the highlights. They are treated as flexible descriptors instead of locking you in to one trait. For example, I initially played as a low Desperation and low to high Trust build. To my surprise, my changes in personality were taken into account by the narrative. My low Desperation meant I couldn’t physically push myself, but I was a more focused individual with High Willpower. I did not trust any of my companions at first. However, I began spending time with them. By the end of the game, my high Trust meant I couldn’t choose cynical options, but I did have many “Friendship is magic” moments.
Interludes. In many IFs I’ve read, authors don’t allow time for the narrative to breathe. There’s no discussing past events or companion banter, like in many RPGs. It’s just go, go, go. However, Wang’s creation of Interludes solves this problem brilliantly. In each Interlude, you have about four Actions to spend. Your options are spending time with any of your four companions, working for Money, spending Money on tools, or spending Money on food. You actually feel the consequences of your choices: maybe you spent too much time scavenging and missed bonding with someone, or maybe you focused on keeping yourself fed but skipped upgrading your tools. It turns what could be a boring “downtime” into meaningful decisions. Plus, it makes the characters feel more real! You get long conversations to talk, joke, or reflect with them, which is rare.
Cons:
Flat MC. There’s always going to be pros and cons with how established a MC is. But in AToM, their growth is quite limited. Every companion has a defined identity—trans, Chinese immigrant, wealthy, etc. You, on the other hand, are nothing. I like to self-insert: as a Vietnamese woman, I was delighted when visiting the Tianshanghui, or discussing Zheng’s typical Asian parenting skills. I am also from an upper-class background, like Mandy, and I could not disagree more with her (more on that later). But in general, the MC reacts like a child just learning about intersectionality: a lot of the choices are “Can you tell me more?” or “I’m so sorry to hear that.” I see why Wang didn’t include predefined backgrounds—playing as trans or Chinese would add a lot of work—but in AToM it was too glaring to ignore.
MC background, pt. 2. You are a nobody, and you are homeless. Yikes. But you don’t learn why someone so young is homeless, or their relationship with their parents. So, my own MC felt bland. I didn’t really get to decide how I felt in most social situations. Learning a whole new supernatural world made my MC angry, I suppose. And they were scared to be hunted. But that was pretty much it. We should have an edge as a survivor, but instead we were just a blank slate.
Preachy writing. Hmm. Where to start with this bomb? Let me first start with my qualms. It seemed like a lot of characters would just literally preach to the MC about their troubles. For example, the introduction to Dead Red is literally her monologuing about the plight of sex workers. She does this again later in the narrative without any prompting from the MC. That’s all I can remember from her. Zheng also falls into this pitfall. He is quite a fan of long speeches, and his climax with his son was literally him talking for five paragraphs straight. All characters talk about how the cops always target poor people, and how poor the community is. Mandy is the worst example of this for me. Modern settings require modern phrases, so I guess I’ll say she reminds me of a “Privileged Liberal” stereotype on Twitter who thinks activism is posting cute infographics. I know people like her in real life pretty well, so her depiction rubbed me the wrong way. Please tell me if I’m missing something, but she ran away from her home and parents because . . . they were upper middle class? Her parents were snobbish and hypocritical? Hmm. Online, there’s a lot of (valid) talk about male privilege or white privilege or wealthy privilege. But Mandy took that way too heart. In every scene I had with her, she circles the same talking points—how privileged people don’t do enough, how homelessness is misunderstood, how giving food is the bare minimum—without ever evolving beyond them. Girl! It seemed so melodramatic. She just seemed to resent the good life she was born into so badly she let her guilt eat her up. I’m not sure if Wang was trying to critique this stereotype, but on a personal level, it irked me and doesn’t make for a compelling character. Quite a lot of the marginalized characters felt like the author’s mouthpieces, which—Wang has never done before! I hate to compare AToM to the Infinity series, but I felt sympathy for elves, women, men, soldiers, Royalists, Tierrans, nobles, the poor, everyone, without feeling talked down to. (And a minor nitpick: I found the vampire asking for our pronouns at the start a bit tacky. Like, murdering me is okay, but misgendering me is not?)
I think that nuance helps breathe life into any work of art. The Infinity series was the perfect example of this. On my first read, I did not care about engaging with any of the political commentary. You are, after all, a member of the hereditary nobility, and you benefit from the injustice in the world. As such, I found it quite easy to roleplay as a lord who, though progressive socially, supported the aristocracy and monarchy. I loved how the text accepted my traditionalism; I wasn’t forced to side with Wulfram or support democracy. Sure, democracy is good and all that, but this is a game, at the end of the day. You could play as a romanticized soldier covering himself in glory or as a bitter, cynical war veteran. Both paths were valid! Your choices have depth and aren’t shoehorned into one “correct” ideology. The systems accept diverse perspectives and let you roleplay authentically, even if your views don’t match Wang’s personal beliefs. But in AToM, there is no nuance. “Well,” you might say, “there’s no nuance when it comes to homelessness!” Perhaps, perhaps not. But gender and class were treated with thoughtfulness in the Infinity series. I think the modern setting removes an “objective” lens, and the commentary is too close to home for the majority of the readership to be, well, impartial.
Little consequences to low Money/food. The game emphasis getting money and food. But I had four Money at the end of the game, and I also didn’t bother with food for multiple chapters, yet nothing bad happened. I wouldn’t have liked an instant Game Over scene, but maybe you lose Health or Willpower if you hit zero?