by Flack » Sun Oct 09, 2016 6:26 pm
I played 16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds, because it was the first game on the list. It was also written in Twine.
I find it impossible to divorce my review of the game with a discussion about Twine. I know ICJ and others have bemoaned the fact that Twine and traditional IF have been combined into a single category. I didn't fully understand their position until I played this game.
In the game, the player finds herself in a McDonald's lobby. With you inside the restaurant is one employee and one vampire. If you don't intervene in some way within the hour, the vampire will eat the employee.
If the goal is simply defeat the vampire, you can do that in less than 30 seconds worth of random clicking. When the game began, I chose one of three or four possible choices (sit in an empty booth). There I found straws, which I was prompted to fold into crosses. I did this twice and the crosses drove away the vampire. The end.
After that I was informed that I had discovered 1 of 16 possible endings. Aha. I played the game a second time and thwarted the vampire by stopping up the toilet. It's not a solution I would have come up with, but... it's Twine. All the choices are there, so there's little thinking involved. Clicking around revealed everything I needed to put the solution together.
The game's writing is sparse but witty, occasionally sharp. The snark works based on the game's setting, and I laughed a couple of times. I didn't have any problem with the game's writing. I think some of the endings are probably witty, and if they weren't presented right there in Twine in front of me, I wouldn't have come up with them.
It's a fun idea for a game and I don't want to take away from the author's writing or talent, but I probably won't play any more games in the competition that are written in Twine.
I played 16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds, because it was the first game on the list. It was also written in Twine.
I find it impossible to divorce my review of the game with a discussion about Twine. I know ICJ and others have bemoaned the fact that Twine and traditional IF have been combined into a single category. I didn't fully understand their position until I played this game.
In the game, the player finds herself in a McDonald's lobby. With you inside the restaurant is one employee and one vampire. If you don't intervene in some way within the hour, the vampire will eat the employee.
If the goal is simply defeat the vampire, you can do that in less than 30 seconds worth of random clicking. When the game began, I chose one of three or four possible choices (sit in an empty booth). There I found straws, which I was prompted to fold into crosses. I did this twice and the crosses drove away the vampire. The end.
After that I was informed that I had discovered 1 of 16 possible endings. Aha. I played the game a second time and thwarted the vampire by stopping up the toilet. It's not a solution I would have come up with, but... it's Twine. All the choices are there, so there's little thinking involved. Clicking around revealed everything I needed to put the solution together.
The game's writing is sparse but witty, occasionally sharp. The snark works based on the game's setting, and I laughed a couple of times. I didn't have any problem with the game's writing. I think some of the endings are probably witty, and if they weren't presented right there in Twine in front of me, I wouldn't have come up with them.
It's a fun idea for a game and I don't want to take away from the author's writing or talent, but I probably won't play any more games in the competition that are written in Twine.