In the past, I’ve tended to give a lot of high scores to games, but I feel like recently I’ve been handing out a bunch of lower ones.
Specifically, I’ve found at least 4-5 recent games that I’ve all rated pretty low, and they share a common genre. They are:
-Written from the point of view of a bad person
-The bad person expresses how evil they are
-They are not intended to be humorous
-Frequent strong profanity to show how serious the game is
-There is very little in the game besides descriptions of the evil
-The game is mostly about the villain winning
The text is usually a variant of ‘Oh yes, I am the bonecrusher, and I love crushing bones! The sound my victims make when they squeal is delightful’
and then choices are like:
-BREAK MORE BONES
-DELIGHT IN BONEBREAKING
-LICK THE MARROW
I just really don’t get this type of game and have been scoring it low.
But…
Maybe I’m just not seeing the vision.
A lot of games are written to imitate other games; someone makes something popular, and it gets a fanbase, and the fanbase copies it.
So, is there some game out there that’s like this, but really fun to play and a lot of people are into it? If I could see the ideal people are going for, or get a feel for their passion, I think I could give higher ratings and be a better reviewer.
Any suggestions? Some that I think are close are Bogeyman (but that’s written from the kid perspective and there are some lighter moments to contrast), Vespers (although there’s a ‘good’ path) and Varicella (although that is humorous).
Not plugging my own game but I do this in I Am Prey because the villain is putting on an act based on villainous stereotypes he’s researched, but he does not identify with these stereotypes because finds them excessive, distasteful, and wasteful, and so he is overcompensating as a result, and cussing to a satirical degree. I put hints to this in quite a few places, if the player finds the bonus lore, but they’re unlikely to be found if the player is new to the game, because they have bigger priorities lol.
The main character rarely uses profanity (which is supposed to highlight the villain’s habit), and I’m actually removing all of the main character’s profanity from the post-comp to try and highlight this stark difference between the characters, which hopefully will make the hint easier to notice lol.
Again, not meaning to self-advertise but this is an aspect that has come up in conversation a few times now, and the feedback has been interesting from a design perspective. That is all; I’m curious to see what the other posts recommend…!
Hmmm, this is a pretty good example, since I Am Prey is firmly in the ‘good game’ category in my mind, but it does match a lot of the things I said. I personally enjoyed the fact that you can fight back and escape, so if I were to emulate you I’d copy the escape part and the puzzles, but I could see someone playing it and liking it for a very different reason, then making a game that just has the villain part. Great example!
Realtalk, I can’t think of any good games that fit this metric because I can’t imagine any game that is good would have “very little in the game besides descriptions of the evil” or be “mostly about the villain winning” (key word being “mostly” as opposed to any greater themes or anything like that).
Here’s some games that I think are good that include some of these.
Eat Me – from the POV of a bad person in arguably two different ways (the murderous hungry child PC and the sugarplum fairy), not humorous, the villain wins. I guess if you squint the descriptions of eating delicious sentient food people are “descriptions of the evil”?
Erstwhile (yes it’s my own game again, surprise, bitch!) – from the POV of a bad person, bad person expresses how evil they are (albeit in denial about it), mild profanity, humorous (though I think most of the humor is not actually reveling in how evil you are)
Coloratura – from the POV of a “bad” “person” insomuch as You in the game can be considered bad or a person, not humorous, i don’t remember if the game involves cursing but it is a very serious horror game, You win in the best ending
Nope! Written from Prey’s POV…! (Or the Predator’s cat, if you choose that alternative)
I just jumped into a conversation with only partial relevance because there was something I wanted to talk about lol
EDIT: There are hints and details that imply that you might be a bad person because you are a clone of the Predator and have built-in instincts to eat people, but the main character can freely choose not to be a bad person, especially when there’s an ending in the game where the Predator begs you not to eat people after you leave, because you have the potential to be better than a monster designed to kill.
I recall a recent ParserComp game (?) where you were “forced” to perform some pretty atrocious deeds. I lost interest pretty quickly.
A number of Jim Thompson books fit this bill, in particular The Killer Inside Me. Notably, it’s a revenge story, which helps solve the knotty problem of (a) it’s about a bad person doing bad things but (b) a well-told, interesting, and worthwhile read.
(I’m three-quarters of the way through a blog post where I explain why I think Thompson was kinda-sorta modelling Killer Inside Me after Hamlet. One day I’ll get that posted.)
Two exceptions to your list though: Thompson never went in for serious profanity, and while his books are not comedic, they are laced through with dark humor.
Anyway, my guess is that if you found an IF that fit the bill of “good game about evil character doing evil stuff,” I wouldn’t be surprised if it involved revenge in some capacity.
The game leans heavily on the uncomfortable feeling of complicity the player has with the (dreaming? brainstorming? ) protagonist. Uncomfortable turns into outright repulsive at some point. I still found it interesting, but too blunt.
I’m kind of intrigued to know which games you’re referring to. You play a lot more IF than I do and I haven’t run into this trope. But you’re obviously too polite to list them here!
This is pretty much every Marquis de Sade story, right? Has anyone ever made a de Sade game?
Except that they are sometimes written from the point of view of a victim, and never include any profanity. In fact, the main enjoyment of reading these (what does that say about me?) tend to be decoding all the different round-about ways sex acts are described, which makes it a kind of puzzle.
As someone who sometimes suffers with anxiety and depression, I do find a certain sub-genre of choice games are filled with angst, sadness, anger, depression, and a lot of other emotional unpleasantries that I tend to skip over and avoid.
I tend to focus on games that are lighter and full of humor, adventure, and puzzle-solving.
Maybe it is good therapy for the writer/author to dive deep into one’s soul and lay all the thoughts and emotions they are dealing with, but for me, I apologize in advance and try to focus on pieces that affect me in a more positive way.
How do you know they aren’t trying to be humorous? A lot of horror-ish stories seem to come from a somewhat colorful, satirical point of view.
It’s a good question whether or when horror should be entertaining. Should we be enjoying (relishing?) terrible events and people? This seems touch on many things - the news, AAA game ratings (which seem to equate juvenile sex and violence with maturity), standard television villains/anti heroes who never actually do anything bad (Quark?). Would it actually be more acceptable if bad things were presented humorously? Should all stories actually have deeper meanings and lessons instead of filling our finite lives and minds with meaningless drivel?
Yeah, I didn’t know that going in! And that ended up being what disturbed me the most. I don’t know if every edition includes the drafts of what was left, but you go from reading the full prose, which is ‘the middle’, to the end being a now disembodied checklist of proposed scenes striving to escalate what was already maximally ridiculous. I felt a kind of empty horror.
… a joke that also works for The Canterbury Tales, The Mysteries of Edwin Drood, Byron’s Don Juan, and Being and Time, with appropriate changes to author name.
No profanity and round-about descriptions? Maybe you’re talking about the original French, or maybe I just read unfaithful translations. I’ve read 120 Days of Sodom and Philosophy in the Bedroom and a spattering of short stories, and I can’t say I had to decode very much! I always think of Looney Tunes when I think of de Sade. Falling anvils seem on roughly the same wavelength.
To be honest, if there was a whole game written like this, I’d probably be into it. But the way it’s presented here is funny! So it doesn’t fit the “non-humorous” part.
Darkiss is the first thing that jumps to mind for me. But I don’t remember any monologues. And even though it takes itself seriously, it’s also satirical.
No, you are right. I misremembered. Not surprising, I read them almost thirty years ago. There is plenty of profanity and explicit stuff in there. Almost makes me wonder if I read some of it in a censored version.
It is probably only Justine that fits my description, and that is written from the point of view of a virtuous and innocent person, so it makes sense that she goes to some lengths to avoid being vulgar.
