Neighbourhood Necromancer: a Review [Minor Spoilers]

I enjoyed this game.

It was well-written, and had an interesting balance between horror and dark humour. It fits very nicely into a milieu of British working-class drama, alongside the works of authors such as Terry Pratchett and Sue Townsend. You’ll probably enjoy this game if that genre appeals to you.

Failure is entirely possible if you make bad decisions: I died on two of my four playthroughs so far. I found this a refreshing change from other games, where success can almost be a foregone conclusion.

The main character is a perennial loser, cut from similar cloth to Adrian Mole. No one in his life treats him with any respect. Younger children beat him up and steal his lunches. His best (and only) friend likes to play tedious board games and cheats in order to win - but expects the MC to put up with it as the price of his friendship.

The concept of the story (which must be a cornerstone of many adolescent fantasies) is that this character is given earthshaking power, which in this case derives from control over a horde of ravening undead.

The player’s given a choice between grinding out these petty resentments by brutally murdering everyone who had ever mistreated him, or of pulling together with his community against an external threat in a “spirit of the blitz” sort of way.

It had a decent cast of supporting characters. Sam(antha), Max(ine) and the police officer were all interesting characters. I felt very guilty about killing these people on my evil playthrough. However, I felt that more could have been done with the banshee and vampire.

Requiring the player to solve a series of riddles before you’ll tell them what their stats do is also a bit much - most writers give out that information up front. This isn’t a major problem, as I’d already worked out what the stats did by that point in the game and suspect that most other players will do the same.

The split between zombies and skeletons as two resources under the Main Character’s control also wasn’t particularly meaningful, as I never ran out of either.

Some of the endings were also a bit sparse, and left a lot of issues unresolved. What happens next? Is the MC capable of reintegrating into society after everything he’s done? Does he get together with Maxine or Samantha?

Overall rating: 6.5/10

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There is already a thread about spoilers/reviews/thoughts about NN: http://www.choiceofgames.com/forum/discussion/3365/neighbourhood-necromancer-spoilers/p1

We’ve got two threads: one which Airtamis started for general discussion, and this one with a detailed review of the game.

I doubt that this will be a problem, as plenty of other games have multiple threads. However, if the moderators feel differently then they’re free to merge the two.

I don’t mind. The mods probably don’t mind either. I just figured you didn’t know there is a NN thread already since this sounds like it could fit that thread.

For the record I think 6.5 is way to low.
The game is really hilarious and well put together. I have not had as much fun with a choice game in a while actually. I also did detect a few differences between zombies and skeletons.
It is also really well written and very funny.

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@DSeg No worries.

@gkex What are the differences between zombies and skeletons? I’ve never run out of either type.

The specific instance I was thinking if was the choice to send one or the other I to the fish and chips shop. If you send in a skeleton he goes in easily. If you send in a zombie he scrapes parts of him off but there is a hilarious option to corrupt the fryer by scraping flesh off the zombie into the grease
Idk if they actually affect success or failure but I thought some of the differences were funny.

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Who is Max(ine)? xD

Yeah, I actually never met Max(ine) …

Sam encourages you to be good. Max encourages you to be evil. You guys are clearly too nice. :slight_smile: Go to school and cause trouble with the undead – she’ll find you.

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@Rebel Maiden and @Samuel_H_Young Max(ine) is another potential love interest for the main character.

Ad @Havenstone has said, you’ll meet him/her if you use your undead to attack the school. He/she then has another couple of appearances later in the story.

@Havenstone and @Protagonist
Oh, okay :slight_smile: I think I’ll stick to being a goody goody ^^

And I shall spawn a foul necromancer to sweep this Max off his/her feet! Mwahahah. :wink: