Wolfbiter reviews IFComp 2024 - latest: Eikas; wrap-up

today’s theme, courtesy of the rng-gods: two games by authors with a first name starting with “An”

Redjackets by Anna C. Webster
Playtime: 31 minutes

The one where: vampires and humans work together to commit crimes

I definitely came in primed to like this one. Vampires! Shadowy secret organizations! Although it delivered on both of those points, my overall experience was colored with frustration, as I’ll get to below. But first, things that were working and some other thoughts.

The three-playable PCs was an interesting concept, although I only played through once as Lynette. I also enjoyed the character portraits.

Lynette . . . came across as a touch younger and more naive than I expected from the initial description (“The hollow one. Seasoned. Haunted. Stubborn.” I was imagining someone harder boiled, like a Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 [or hey, Sarah Connor in Terminator: Dark Fate, shout-out to the other 2 people who saw this movie] or Zoe in Firefly). This dissonance was heightened by the character portrait, which also struck me as young-looking. But once I got to know her she was fun to spend time with. (I especially enjoyed her in camp counselor mode with the young vampire.)

I also enjoyed the confession of feelings, which was played in a pleasantly grounded, unconventional way. (and very sweet:

)

The plot is a perfectly fine escalation beginning with bringing in a new baby-vampire, and then the development of an op that also explains how the organization functions.

Now that I’ve sufficiently buried the lede, the two things frustrated me:

  • (whisper:) I think we’re the bad guys

I need you to know I tried so hard not to reach this conclusion. From the very beginning—nay, from the blurb–I knew the game wanted me to buy into killing Rosco, and I tried valiantly to do so. But there was just So! Little! Given! to explain why it would be justified to go all extrajudicial killing on this guy.

I’m not sure if there’s more on the routes for the other PCs, but here’s the grand sum of reasons I recall seeing for why Rosco should die:

  • in the blurb he is described as “the head of a massive organized crime ring (and a vampire at that).” I take it we’re not meant to hold vampiric-ness against him. I don’t recall ever learning anything else about this crime ring or what that entails?

  • he refused to make a deal with our shadowy, extrajudicial organization

  • he apparently runs some kind of business re-selling art for a lot of money. Honestly this might be totally above board, but at absolute worst it seems like maybe the art is forged? (who’s next against the wall, Neal Caffrey from White Collar?)

  • he offers Fiia an exploitative financial deal to become a vampire and his employee—while I’m against offering unfair employment contracts to grad students, I don’t think that’s a capital crime

  • Fiia says vaguely that she knows he has done bad things and that he will kill her if she turns on him. (Although she does, in fact, turn on him, which he finds out about without killing her, so the accuracy of this statement seems questionable.)

And in fact in terms of what we see him do onscreen, he turns Fiia and tries to protect Fiia and Vincent while fighting for his life. The second one in particular—I love the concept of giving the big bad some kind of unexpected character beat there, but when I was already like “maybe we should . . . NOT kill this guy” it was a bit counterproductive!

So, it left me with the inescapable impression that the PC’s group is just unethical vigilantes who murder people? (and kidnap vulnerable people and extort them to join?) I could tell this was in tension with the view the game wanted me to take (e.g., we’re told the group normally does “restorative justice,” which I take it is meant to signal ethical status).

I think this could be addressed easily, just throw in some standard “he killed my favorite NASCAR driver” / “he’s letting vampires murder humans” / “he’s cutting drugs with fentanyl” or what-have-you. But it has to actually be there!

  • lack of interactivity

So, my previous gripe separated this game from being a successful novella. I think to be a successful IF game, it would also need to add a LOT of interactivity. (The only choice I recall that felt like it affected anything was deciding who to assign to which job.) There is very little for the player to do, yet I’m crying out to do something! We have a “gearing up for battle” scene—let me choose my gear! We have a battle scene, let me contribute something! Perhaps even let me . . . decide if we should kill Rosco!

I had the definite sense that the game just wasn’t trusting me to contribute, which was a shame.

Front matter
Could better set the table for the game Successfully sets the table for the game Successfully sets the table for the game PLUS

Plus point because the front matter did a great job making me want to play the game, minus point because it’s describing a bit of a different game that what I got (I question the: “But the rest? That’s up to you.”)

Overall, an interesting, if flawed, story to read

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