Go to the game's main page Member ReviewsNumber of Reviews: 4 Write a review 4 of
5 people found the following review helpful:
Bleak, frustrating, and not relatable, May 22, 2013by Andromache (Hawaii) I was warned that this was the kind of game that you have to play through several times. This alone put me off. But I was slightly curious and figuring the game was tiny, I could try it out anyway. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Remove vote | Add a comment
Comments on this reviewPrevious | << 1 >> | Next Andromache, May 26, 2013 - Reply Previous | << 1 >> | NextI think you're right. "Worlds Apart" worked for me because the emotion and connections were experienced interactively. Some of the story was told in cut scenes, but they worked because I was introduced to the characters and had a good sense of who they were by the time I was hit with the big reveals. This knowledge was gained through the immersion of the game. "Grief"'s problem was that there was barely time to figure out who you are and what the game premise is before the game ends abruptly. The impact was not one of loss so much as "What just happened?" I think IF is problematic because unlike conventional fiction, which takes time to set up who everyone is and answers basic questions like setting, agenda,etc, IF tends to throw you in the middle of a scene and you have to glean this information as best you can by playing the game. Whenever I start a new game, there's an adjustment period of sorts where I attempt to establish these familiar types of guideposts before I can really settle in and process the current situation the character is in. So games that push me to act before I'm ready kind of annoy me. This is one reason "Grief" didn't achieve the intended effect, I believe. And yes, it's not good storytelling to expect readers to feel something because the author says so, which is kind of how it feels here. Like taking some random person off the street and telling me to feel bad for them. Yes, once I'm told what happened to them, I certainly feel sorry, but not to the degree that the person's grief becomes my own because I really can't muster it. |