So, we spent a lot of money on testers for this game, but it still might have bugs in it. If you find any continuity errors, please post them!
Also, if anyone wants to go through the code and point out tweaks for the Tempted vignette, I’m open to suggestions. I’m still not sure if all the end-games are actually accessible.
Well, I’m not sure if it is considerably relevant, but the demo version mentions that you will have access to the first three chapters, while the demo actually ends somewhere at the middle of the fourth chapter.
I noticed that in chapter 2 during the assassin attempted on the bull. It said that they where male even though I selected female in chapter 1.
I liked how they made the clockwork orange reference with the milk bar & ultraviolence
I was wondering if this was going to be released on the windows store?
Yes.
I really enjoyed this game. Even the tiniest choice seemed to have big consequences-both the skill-related ones and the past/personality related ones.
I loved how the game let me choose my character’s fears and I liked the way the variety of options for the Bull’s spouse and the way in which their romance with the MC developed had an impact on many parts of the game that followed. Definite re-play value.
That, and I’m a huuuge sucker for traumatizing my poor MCs xD . I made a character who was all badass and like, slicing off heads clean and intimidating people, but it really made him physically sick and he was prepared to die for Elle, despite the fact she may have been playing him a royal fool. 
I found an error concerning the Bull’s gender, too, but at the very end-I’ll have to do another re-play and then e-mail you the screenshot. ^^
All in all, wonderful job on this.
I liked it, especially the LotR references. One thing I think could be better, though, is that even though I chose that I was an atheist, it still said stuff like “you touch your rosery for good luck.” I believe things like that should be customized.
@rebelmaiden if you could find that bug and send it to me asap, I’d appreciate it. There’s some sort of bug with the Android advertising, so we have to submit a patch today or tomorrow anyway. Would love to get that fixed in this patch.
@samuel_h_young you’re right. Will address.
Couple of mistakes in the demo
“The Bull is about to declare war on his The Pitt, who has kidnapped Ellie and his holding her hostage.”
And
“Even though he’s you’re his man, he offers a pretty high quantity of juice, more than he has ever offered before.”
*SPOILERS*
I liked it a lot (Chinese voodoo arm FTW) right up until the end. I went through all this effort to save Luke from The Pitt and The Bull, managed to stay alive and keep from entering into any deals with the devil, ran away with Luke to Mexico where we were in love and happy and then…one of The Pitt’s former henchman just shows up in the middle of the night and kills me. End game. That’s…really off-putting. Not just because it’s a depressing ending, which I really dislike in general, but because it’s out of nowhere and completely pointless. You’ve wrapped up literally everything then, BAM, you’re dead, thanks for playing. It’s like the author just tacked on something bad because he/she didn’t want a good ending. I went through it twice with slightly different choices and got the same exact ending, so I can only assume that’s the ending you get when you choose Luke over taking over the city or running away on your own, and it’s stupid, IMO. The more I think about it, the more annoyed I get. Especially because there are a lot of really cool things in the game and I actually felt like my choices mattered, not something I always feel in a CoG game, sadly.
@captain_cy_kun looking at the code, your paranoia was too low. I think the argument was something like, you weren’t sufficiently suspicious of the healer that was counseling you, and so you weren’t prepared when the hitmen came for you.
But I’ll take a look and see if I can tweak something there.
NOLA is Burning…THE REVIEW!ONEEXCLAMATIONPOINTONE!
Hi. I’m Jack. My life is pretty crazy. My mother wanted me to be a priest. Everyone seems to hate me. There’s this girl that I’m in love with, but well…mainly cause I’m told to love her I guess. And I’m not even sure if she loves me. Oh and I love milk. I drink it when I’m at my lowest. Milk. It does the body good…
Well…until they cut off my right hand. I asked them to kindly remove my head, but well, you know how it is. Apparently killing me wasn’t good enough. Bad guys are so hard to find these days. I’m also not entirely sure what kind of crazy universe I am in. At first I think it’s pretty dark. Then I think I’m somewhere in the Austin Powers timeline. And then sometimes its like Robocop. I really suffer an identify crisis most of the time. ONWARD GUTTERPUNKS!
Does this review sound kind of all over the place? Yeah, I thought so. That’s pretty much how I felt about the game. It seems to me like it’s trying to include a little bit of everything, but not really to the best effect. Let’s examine some of the themes…
Comic Villains:
From the very cover of the game, you should probably figure that the characters in this game aren’t going to be that serious. However the game sort of describes that the game IS serious. Or at least dangerous. Throughout the game you deal with characters called “The Bull” which can be male or female. But isn’t it a little odd that a female woman would want to be called “The Bull?” I mean I get it…no one wants to be “The Heifer” but you know…maybe she could be called something a bit more androgynous? And being that “The Dragon” is assumed to be male, but is actually female…doesn’t it seem a bit redundant if everyone thinks “The Bull” is a male, but actually isn’t? Just some thoughts on that situation. I picked male because I thought it would be like contending with The Kingpin from Marvel comics.
You have Malone who is a crooked cop who seems to want to bust you, or be your friend, or whatever else they seem to want him to be. I really don’t know much about him, except if I sucker punch him he hates me forever. As an informant my character didn’t really seem to do much and considering the statistics I’m not entirely sure he did a whole lot to cover my trail.
The Dragon is a villain, I suppose…but since I’m technically a villain, well…I guess that means we’re kind of the heroes of the story. She seemed to have one of those hissy fits when her traditional parents told her what to do so she became the Dragon and acquired ridiculously crazy cybernetic technology. She also seems to like making you drink horrible, horrible things which apparently make you stronger? Or high? Or maybe she just does bad things to you while you’re suffering, I’m not entirely sure. If I told her my plans, she made a contract with me. If I told her I was sick of hurting people she tended to just tell me to get outta there. Later on she gave me a metal leg (first play through) and also a metal arm, second play through. Then I guess we ruled NOLA together with an iron first or something.
The Pitt sounded pretty interesting. In my first playthrough he was a firebug and in the second playthrough he was making fun of some voodoo lady’s crippled cousin. Apparently after stopping him from setting things on fire and making him hang out with the crippled girl…he developed a hatred for me. So he kidnapped my boss’s girlfriend and well…actually what in the world DID he honestly do to my character? I don’t really think he did anything until I started coming after him. It makes me wonder why I couldn’t just join up with him in the first place. Doesn’t exactly seem very hard to hurt him.
The guy apparently likes to wear a baby bonnet and play in a tub full of money. Uh…the narration builds him up to be this bad mother, and seriously? You introduce him like this? I mean I lost a limb…went through all this trouble…and he’s just some loser in a bathtub? Yeah you’re definitely getting fed to your nanospiders, jerkwad.
Which clearly The Dragon gave him those spiders, which if you ask me, makes her pretty freakin dangerous too. I mean if she has all this tech why can’t she just go and take The Pitt out herself? Lazy. That’s why.
Not exactly villains, but significant to mention are the Gator Girls and their Aunt. This is kind of an area of interest in the game because the voodoo thing is just such a random element (along with the technology theme). By saving the cousin from The Pitt, I was able to get a necklace of some sort which ended up merging with my cybernetic arm and suddenly became very human looking. I guess that’s the perfect way to end the game as far as my cosmetics go. I’m not entirely sure how my fleshy hand started firing blades and flames, but you know…I suppose it goes along with the realm of voodoo magic.
You spent maybe like two minutes in a conversation with them and never meet their Aunt. And then you’re off on your journey. I would have liked to spend more of the story dealing with them or maybe pursuing one or both in a romantic relationship. Huzzah! Or at least recruit them in my war. Why not have some voodoo powers going on there? Zombies! Yeaaaah buddy! But sadly no.
Then we have The Bull again. This tank of a guy and as far as I can see the only way a fight happens is with his sneaky sniper through the window. I mean really? You talk all big on this guy. You have all this fear…and you don’t even get to duke it out with him and your crazy cyborg powers?
The girlfriend…meh. She really isn’t that interesting. She saved my life at least. I guess that’s nice, but I have no feelings for her nor do I understand who she is.
Oh! And the priest guy. I forgot about him. He’s pretty interesting what with the letter and all. I think he would be a fascinating character as well, but not really a big part of the game. More or less just to continue on some possible building up of your relationship with Bull’s wife/husband or give you the opportunity to seek forgiveness more. I liked him though. More or less.
(Continued in second post since I went over the character limit)
I only played the free trial version (but I am planning on buying as soon as I get some money on my account!) and I have some thoughts. What I absolutly loved was the romance option with the boss’ partner. And the option for the said big boss to be gay! Brilliant! But on the other hand I wanted to make my character to be ruthless killer without human feelings and the fact that I didn’t really have a chance to be It- since It was already established that I am in love with someone- was a downside for me. Eh… I hope you understand… (yes I really focus on romances in games, lol)
The plot was really cool, I was so excited beecouse “traditional” gangster stories don’t take place in New Orleans. And I love gangsters and having chance to play as one in New Orleans was something really refreshing (disclaimer: maybe I am missing something and there were famous gangs there too? )… It was well written and definitly the game I will be coming back to. : )
Themes:
So the game is a noir-ish type story. Does it fit with noir? I think it wants to be a parody of Noir, or perhaps the writer just felt like players needed humor in all Choice Of…type games. I’m not entirely sure because the silliness of the characters and situations in the game seemed to kill the mood where I thought dark things were going to happen. The beginning of the game seemed to have met set on the story, but then the weird voodoo and cybernetic themes seemed to make me wonder what was going on, and then the villains themselves killed any mood where I actually felt threatened. You have a character that chops off people’s heads and isn’t afraid to kill people, but his bosses are ridiculous freaks of nature that aren’t even threatening in any way. What?
And that really makes me think about that because the true villain if you ask me is The Dragon who seems to have the power to create some very interesting problems in the game. If you ask me…by giving The Pitt the ability to rival The Bull…it would cause a war which would ultimately give power to The Dragon. She would then have the ability to take down both of them and so it’s very strange how happy she is to side in with my character and not double cross me. Maybe she doesn’t realize just how easy it is. I don’t know.
The game looks at voodoo and technology as kind of advanced abilities. Voodoo really doesn’t seem to do much other than to merge with your cybernetic abilities and the cybernetic parts in the game don’t really last more than like two scenes where you deal with the love interest caught in the webs and also the assault scene at The Pitt’s lair.
I would have been particularly interested in some of these abilities played out a bit more. With a gimmick like having a cybernetic implant…it would sort of seem to be something better given to the MC at the beginning of the game. I could see a sort of Shadowrun type situation which would still play quite well in the setting of the game. The player can use his abilities for good or evil in much the same way he or she could be looking to repent from their previously evil ways.
As is…the implant does seem like a huge gimmick and doesn’t really seem like fun either. It also made me quick things such as the voodoo aspect of my necklace weaving about my cybernetic arm and suddenly looking like a fleshy arm. That’s pretty awesome. On the other hand…how am I now shooting blades and using the flamethrower from my quite normal looking hand? Ouch.
I think this goes along with the fact that the game includes elements that get your interest piqued, but then just move on to the next thing. For instance…what if they do cut off my head or my character bleeds to death after getting an arm or leg hacked off. It would be fascinating to see the Gator Girl’s Aunt suddenly bring me back either as a voodoo zombie (I know that -technically- voodoo zombies aren’t dead, but this is a world where necromancy probably could exist?) or a spirit that wants revenge. Imagine the tragic reunion between the MC and lover at the end of the story when the MC must pass on to the next realm. Or…for a slight twist…possess The Bull’s body and live happily ever after, hah.
Fun Factor:
Did I enjoy the game? It’s really hard to decide. If I was to try to compare the style of the game to anything that Choice Of…already has…I’d probably say Heroes Rise due to the fact that it gets pretty silly and pretty dark back and forth. However Heroes Rise is a lot more personable. You have a lot more choices about your character, and the characters are very fleshed out. You tend to have a reason to feel something for the characters or your character when something tragic happens. In this game…I really couldn’t feel much for any of the characters because the game didn’t take a lot of time to explain them. It felt more like I was going from point A to B to C to D and well I had a few choices here and there along the way.
Does that make the game necessarily bad? No. I think it can be done pretty good like that, but what I do think is that the game’s crime is to get me interested in things and then throw them out the window. Cybernetic weapon? Heck yes! Voodoo magic stuff? Heck yes! Weird evil villains? HECK YES! Weird evil villains that turn out to be kinda wimpy? HECK NO! Love interests? HECK YES! Love interests that you spend no time with and are told that you love them for the sake of the narrative? HECK NO!
It pretty much goes on and on.
The Wrap Up:
I’d give the game a 7 out of 10. It wasn’t unpleasant. I didn’t encounter any weird bugs. The spelling seemed pretty good. The writing was good. It had a kind of “strange and unusual” factor that caught my interest.
However it built up the premise that I was in a world where there was plenty of double crossing, unable to trust anyone, and would need to be slick, methodical, and sneaky in order to somehow pull a Red Harvest out of this situation.
The premise is a lie as far as I’m concerned. The game is pretty linear and not as deep as it seems to suggest in the beginning. The characters are colorful, but not developed. I would go so far as to say there are a lot of gimmicky elements and lots of plots that could have been fleshed out further.
That’s my opinion though. If you read all this…you probably deserve some cake.
I just couldn’t continue the beta due the offensive game was. Against women and catholic religion and Catholic countries like mine i see it terribly racist qnd over place against hispanic. But here i see no comments about it so i ask if that has been fixed to buy games.
Woman pc has to be a alcoholic and a slut with name As lolita or lady Godiva?
Catholic countries and culture is being ridiculous and considere us sadics and pedophile?
Patch 1.0.1 has been uploaded!
Finally managed to find it.